Hi all,
Has anyone got experience of introducing their hound to sheep without causing mayhem?
At the back of our fields there is about 300 acrres of mixed woodland that houses a rogue population of sheep, numbers vary but can be from 3-15 or so. As the grazing in our fields is better than the woods they have started to turn up for a feed.
unfortunately we are not fenced well enough to keep them out.

Skippy is now 5 1/2 months and although he is very cautious about them he has been caught stalking them through the grass. Skip is usually outside semi supervised for part of the day and you know how hard it is to keep an eye on them....

If hes seen near them he is called back and will generally come, but if the sheep bolt them its quite hard to call hm off.
Should I try him on a lead near these or other sheep using the command 'No sheep' and making him sit?
Our last lurcher was butted by a goat at about this age and never went near wooly things again.

Any thoughts or experiences welcome!

Dave & Skippy

Hi Dave,

putting them with a ram is usually one sure fire way of deterring them, but it can also result in hound injuries or death , so it's really not worth the risk.

Try a long lead / horse lunge line , give him plenty of freedom to roam about with you in the field with the sheep, as soon as he makes a move for the sheep, you need to chastise him, in anyway you see fit. Depending on your dogs sensibilities, it may only take a firm NO! , or you might have to jump on him and pin him to the ground and then give him a stiff growl. The lead/line is only there to prevent him coming in contact with the sheep and getting beyond your control. After doing this a few times he should get the message and you should be able to walk off lead through a pack of them without showing interest. It won't happen overnight though , so give it time and plenty of practice. Just don't put him into a position where you don't have physical control of him until you know you can trust him. Good luck !

Many thanks,
I,ll try a long lead and some training next time they show up.
I wasnt sure whether to try and avoid them altogether or take him to them
and train him 'No'. Maybe the collie ancestry is making show an interest.
When he was caught stalking them he was in full on sneak mode but was stopped before he took off!

Dave & Skippy

I am sure Skippy was just going to round them up....he's been watching 'One man and his dog'

biggles wrote:


I love the thought of Skippy being in 'full on sneak mode' He sounds such a character

biggles wrote:


Well you could try to avoid them, but that won't help when your field is full of sheep and you want to go out with the dog. Best to get in the field with them , with the dog on loose lead and give him the chance to make a mistake so you can correct him.

If you practice this on the lead and graduate to a lunge line so the distance between you and the dog is greater until you think you can trust them off lead.

Same method as teaching the recall really only your not encouraging them to come back your just discouraging them to run off. It can be safer sometimes to just recall them to heel everytime you see something with the potential to go bad, but that doesn't teach them to leave sheep alone when they are on their own, out of sight in a sheep field.

When I go lamping with Mac, we quite often hunt in fields full of sheep. On a run after a rabbit, he will chase until it has been caught or has gone to ground. He could quite easily end up out of sight, so I have to trust him to come straight back and not take any notice of the sheep.

I don't think it's got anything to do with sheepdog blood. It's a hunting instinct as apposed to a herding instinct.

The herding instinct is just a modified hunting instinct, as working collies, which I have shared my life with, can be very clever killers. We just modify this behaviour to suit our purposes. DH's are a different matter and despite having a couple of thousand sheep and several DH's, at the moment,(its past my bedtime),I don't have any sensible suggestions.

I found 5 sheep in the fields this morning, so wasted now time in getting the dog up & out. I used a short lead and slowly walked behind them, they bunched up and I coaxed them up to the nearest gate. If they started to trot the dog showed more interest, I used No Sheep command and made him sit every time they picked up the pace. Eventually we got them back in the woods without incident, he was very keen to sit and watch them go and as he'd been a good boy had chicken for breakfast.

So far So good

Well done Skippy

very good boy Skippy

hi, where i live you are surrounded by sheep! In the feilds up the hill every where sheep. So as others have said on the forum go with a long lead and say no when he appears interested.
Also do you know the shepherd at all, as if you do and hes obliging, maybe he would let you have the dog on the lead but be about, when he is moving the sheep about or working with them so the dog see that at know time he chases them. Thats what I did with my Deerhound maggie and Henry the lurcher and they are very good and I trust them as much as you possibly can trust a dog, However Ghillie my male deerhound i still have work to do with him.

I should think Alan and Sally should help you out here.

The description of using a long lead has been used to teach lurchers, hounds and stags. It is not 100% affective however it works. The other thing is that you do not have to use a ram you can also use an old range ewe or dam. If she is big enough she will try to head but the dog however eventually the dog learns to jump out of the way. Sometimes you can even tie them together with a 10 to 15 foot lead in a small pin while you are there watching. Eventually they both lay down. I have never done this with DH however I have done it with greyhound crosses, mastiffs, Sheppard, and Great Danes. I am still on the learning side of Deerhounds and find these questions fascinating. When my wife and I had the mastiff rescue in CA we had to work on several dogs that were placed because of this issue, dogs that are predominantly sight oriented were never 100% cured. As soon as an animal ran the chase was on. This even happens to smaller dogs like border collies if not properly socialized.

On the positive side, they make great catch dogs if not cured.

Oohhh...your dog does not look to happy about being in with the sheep, what a sad face, bless his heart

Never 100% is right but there are various techniques to minimise the risk, and I would like to come back to this topic later.

Where I come from in the central valley of California thousands of sheep are raised, a small flock is counted in the thousands. We found it not uncommon to get dogs in to our rescue from all walks of life that had developed a taste for sheep or goats.

Most dogs enjoy the chase and that is exactly what sheep do, they run. Not very well I might add. Sheep become easy victims and dog’s instinctual behavior overtakes even the best of dogs. Unless a dog is imprinted at puppyhood and raised around sheep, their perception of sheep remains as prey. The only reason why mature dogs do not attack is because they respect the sheep as their masters prey and will not attack unless their “leader” HUMAN gives the go ahead. If you watch a good border collie working in the field he is doing exactly that. You can ask many a handler what happens if a dog is left unattended with young sheep or gets too excited when corralling them up. They will take a wolf bite! Young dogs that have not been socialized with livestock need a firm hand, “not abusive,” to control their prey drive and taught to submit at their master’s request. Dogs must understand that they do not engage on prey unless it is their master’s direction. Unfortunately as humans we give mixed signals, one by mouth and the other by energy/emotions. If we see our dog in the field romping around obviously curious and wanting to chase we go in to fear emotion, “IN OUR MIDS WE FEAR…WILL SHEP ATTACK?!!!” We yell/scream no/stop/dam!@#$@#dog and call out to them with excitement, this is all a dog/wolf needs to get the OK sign to engage and fulfill their instinctual drive. It all comes down to communication, body posture and energy. Most of these, we as humans struggle at, I know I do. The best we can do with mature dogs is teaching an off command; in extreme cases an electric shock collar can be employed. Keep in mind all a lunge line or rope, verbal command and/or shock collars does is confirm your authority away from hand to paw contact with your faithful friend. In their world you are God, you are the pack leader.

Those of you that love and work with horses use the same communication that we hold back from dogs. If you talk to a trainer, or a person that practices dressage they can help clue you in on the unspoken language of position, presence, energy/mental communication.

Our last dogs we worked with was a sleek Great Dane named Lilly, and a Anatolian Sheppard named Shep. The Anatolian Sheppard was found eating a hindquarter of a ewe that he was intended to protect. Unfortunately the rescue that placed him did not understand that a dog not socialized as a puppy even if it is a livestock protector will turn and attack. What makes them good protectors is the wolf in them.

This is a picture of Lilly, she resembles her greyhound ancestry. She was ten months old and had a litter of ten puppies that we helped her raise. The man was a dentist that had her; he had locked her in a van where she had her puppies. It was an awefull mess. She was not a very good mother being so young so we had to lie down next to her whelping box so she would lie down and feed her puppies. Nine out the ten puppies’ miraculously survived. Both Lilly and Shep now have forever homes. Neither has repeated their offence. Lilly took 4 months to correct her behavior “partly because of nursing puppies” and Shep took a month and a half to correct his.

It is not easy but it can be done.

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Lovely Alex to hear a good result. Lots of hard work I am sure.

Rescue is worth it. A picture of one of the pups says it all.