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The Shepherd's DogArt In MotionBy Hugh Jones |
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When Bob Hooker was a college student in Texas, he saw something that astonished him. He was keeping horses at the home of a man who raised and trained border collies. "The first day I went out there, I noticed he had a bunch of puppies in a pen," says Hooker, pushing a straw cowboy hat off his forehead and digging into his memories. "Puppies that weren't even weaned yet. One wiggled through a hole in the fence into an area with chickens. He went around them, gathering them up in the center, then laid down and watched them. When they started to stray, he gathered them again. He did that over and over, and I was just amazed." This fed a fascination that began at age 14 when he saw a renowned trainer's herding demonstration with a dog that made movement an art form. "I thought, wow, I'd love to have one. I'd never seen them before, but you couldn't find any back then." Years later, as an adult, Hooker found the trainer in Indiana, befriended him, acquired dogs from him and learned. That experience inspired Hooker to go to the source–England and Scotland, the original home of the border collie. There, he found world-class trainers, befriended them, acquired dogs from them and learned. Now, at 56, he's doing the teaching, and he's the only one in the U.S. doing it in a college course for which students get credit. A man of many talents, he's director of the equine program at Redlands Community College in El Reno, Oklahoma. And there's very little he doesn't know about horses, but that's another story. In the spring, he teaches a livestock dog-training class. "If you're in agriculture, as my students are, every animal you own should be able to make money for you," he says. "So, certainly, you can have a dog as a pet, but all the better if it can herd livestock. But you must have one suited to the purpose, and there's none better than the border collie." Indeed, the dog lives for this purpose–the ultimate sheepherder, used with cattle too, moving them not by force but by the power of its presence and an intense gaze focused on the stock–the only breed with this "eye" characteristic. Occasionally a stubborn cow does have to be shown who's boss, but the dog works in a silent ballet, able to reason out different situations. It's intelligent, quick, agile, highly trainable and hard working. In fact, it's unhappy without work, which means a good partner for those with livestock, but a not so good pet for the back yard, unless one is prepared to keep it occupied.
"There wouldn't be any livestock business in that region without the border collie," says Hooker. "It's so rough, 20 people couldn't get the job done, but one dog can." El Reno bears no resemblance to the border country. And Hooker, in boots and jeans, doesn't fit the typical image of a shepherd as he walks to a row of pens behind the college's stables. It doesn't matter to the occupants who greet him with wagging tails. He releases Lass, a black and white ball of energy, into a fenced area where she eagerly eyes the next gate. In the distance, on the other side of the fence, a group of sheep casually grazes. When he opens the gate, her training becomes evident, as she runs through and immediately lies down. Lass doesn't move until he speaks. Then she's willing to come over and cuddle with a stranger. She's a sweetheart, and for such an athletic dog, surprisingly soft to the touch, her long hair as smooth as fur. Unlike her home and master, Lass looks like the typical border collie, but Hooker says there is no typical. "Most dogs have fixed characteristics. I mean a dalmatian is a dalmatian, but border collies can look like lots of things. Some are short-haired, some long. They can be small, medium or large and different colors. The ears can be straight, lopped or cocked. There's never been a time when we tried to fix hair coat, color, size or ear set. They've been bred simply to be smart and work livestock." Hooker is a mild-mannered man, and he calls to her in that way–a barely audible, "Lass, come up." She does and sits. "Suited to the purpose," he repeats. "For instance, if I'm going quail hunting, I want a bird dog. The greatest trainer can't make a dog point quail if it doesn't have the genetic background. Same with a livestock dog, the inborn instinct. It has to want to do it and be willing to learn." Watching these dogs work is a thing of beauty, and it was on grand display in October 2000 at Fort Reno. Hooker and the city teamed up to bring the National Sheepdog Finals to El Reno. This is the largest and most prestigious sheepdog trial in North America and lures the best handlers and dogs from the U.S. and Canada. Designed to test the dogs' ability to manage sheep under the differing circumstances that may be encountered in everyday work, the trial course includes gathering, driving, shedding, singling and penning. The dogs navigate through a number of intricate maneuvers: gathering a group of sheep from hundreds of yards away and moving them to the handler, then away again, passing through gates on either side of the course, back to the handler and into a ring, then a pen. Next, the dog must cut one sheep away from the rest, and it all has to be done in a certain amount of time. The handler is giving commands, but it's up to the dog to maintain control. Even more impressive, these aren't verbal commands, but whistles. "Most handlers use a shepherd's whistle," Hooker explains. "There's a whistle for his name and each thing we want the dog to do–to come, go left or right, stop, lie down. It can be heard over a longer distance; you don't want to holler if he's hundreds of yards away. And the whistle doesn't show emotion, no anger or fear. So what we've done is teach him the English language. If he's well trained, no matter how far away he is, you give the command and he'll obey." Hooker says it's a matter of balance–the dog knowing where he needs to be in relation to the sheep. "There's no other dog with that kind of balance. Even if you send a border collie out of sight to gather livestock, he has enough balance to bring them to the handler." Knowing the dog is operating on instinct helps in understanding his ability. But teaching the spoken word as a whistle seems daunting, more so than it is, according to Hooker. He says the switch takes only about three days. Training begins early but easy. "It starts by just exposing a puppy to livestock," he says. "You don't want to do hard training until the dog is old enough to outrun the stock at six months to a year. We let him tell us when he's ready." Then come the English lessons, taught by repetition through a system of punishment and reward. "That isn't physical punishment, but simply applying pressure," he says. "And reward is relieving the pressure. Your voice can be a punishment or reward. First, I'll teach the dog his name. Let's say it's Bill. Everyday when I bring his food, I'll say Bill, here. He gets to eat, and I'll pet him; that's a big reward. So I want him to know, whatever he's doing, when I say Bill, I'm going to ask him to do something. "As he gets older, I teach him to lie down. That's what I want him to do when he stops. The lower to the ground he gets, the less intimidating he is to the sheep. I push him down and say lie down. When he does, I praise him. Later, I use the whistle with the verbal command, and pretty soon he anticipates the verbal with the whistle. When I get him in a pen with livestock, I want to get the sheep between us, because I want him to bring them to me. What I'm doing is fitting commands into something he normally does anyway." He gives Lass a pat on the head, and they head back to the pen. On the way, he throws in an afterthought. "You can teach a dog to do so many things, it's amazing." Hooker started his border collie journey by being amazed. He still is. Back to Archives |
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