Kip the Sheepdog

01/06/2024

Kip turned 2 years old on Thursday! I’ve been looking back through older posts, pictures and videos and he’s grown and learned so much! Kip has been a joy to train, he’s so responsive and is truly becoming a help to us. Grateful to have had these last two years with my chore buddy 🤎 and excited to see what he learns this year as he continues to mature.

12/28/2023

12/26/2023

10/17/2023

The weather is feeling decidedly autumn 🍂😄
And for Kip that means…
more energy 🌪
more exercise 🥏
and more training! 🐑🐓

Tried to get his picture this morning and he could hardly sit still or stop making funny excited faces 😂 We’ll be focusing on off-leash obedience, brushing up on herding cues around the sheep on a long line, and getting started in a pen with a few sheep to give him more opportunity to learn to control their movements and use his instincts.

09/28/2023

Hanging out in the barn after making sure our “scaredy cat” ewe got moved with the rest of the flock for some care and sorting. These sheep are keeping us busy! And Kip is always excited to help.

09/24/2023

It was time for a new harness for Kip. And I think we’re both happy with it! Kip generally doesn’t like the harness going on over his head but he stuck his head right in tonight 😄 Getting ready for fall weather and more training with the sheep! 🍁🐑🐕

09/02/2023

It was a beautiful night to be outside! 🌤

Kip helped sort some more sheep tonight into different pastures, some for lambing, some for breeding, and some lambs that are just growing up still.

We found some areas where he struggled to obey, and he would get caught up in the excitement. But that’s okay because now we know what to work on and improve in our training.

08/31/2023

Getting to watch while we give the sheep some care before fall lambing! He wants to be pet non-stop whenever we stand still 😆❤️ Can’t wait for cooler weather so we can do more training. It’s been too hot to be safe for anyone (dogs, sheep or people) to do more than the necessities. But Kip is still maturing and can now do all the chicken chores off leash so he’s earning more freedom and gaining more experience.

08/08/2023

Kip did an excellent job tonight, first helping me with some sheep and then working with one of the kiddos to herd the chickens 😄 This summer heat makes it hard to be active but we’re getting things done!

07/22/2023

Kip loves chicken chores 😃 Here he is waiting outside the chick pen while I do some stuff inside. He has a routine and sticks with it. The layer flock gets put up first. Then the bantams, and then he checks the chick pens. And if the ducks are being naughty he goes with whoever is caring for the ducks that night and puts them up too.

He can sort out which chickens go where, leave the guineas alone, and is starting to work off leash sometimes!

We are working to improve his off leash obedience, teach him how to slow down to get all the chickens rounded up at once, and how to stop and wait for the back of the flock to catch up so they don’t get left behind. Some days we get an opportunity to practice these things with the sheep and I hope to have some videos of that soon 😃

07/03/2023

Been a while since I posted an update on Kip. The weather has been just crazy hot and we’re just trying to get through each day’s chores as efficiently as possible.

Kip is now working on a 30 foot long line, an upgrade from a 15’ line. Which means he has more freedom to move and make choices out in the pasture. The goal is off leash work in the fall.

The little flock behind Kip in the pictures are a funny bunch and Kip has shown himself to be a versatile farm dog with them. The two pretty brown ones seem more comfortable with us when Kip is around while the white ones are quite skittish around him. A few times he has actually had to lead the brown ewes into a new pasture rather than herd them from behind!

06/06/2023

Kip is very obedient, but he also looks for the “why” in what we do. Once he gets the idea, he starts to work more independently.

While moving some sheep tonight I asked him several times to flank to the left (there was a fence on their right). He soon realized this kept them together, and kept them on the fence and close to their shepherd. And he started to get it on his own a little.

The instincts and intelligence God has given these dogs is awesome!

Picture: Kip looking all clean after a bath. Of course, it rained the next two days in a row so he was promptly dirty again 😅

06/02/2023

I love seeing Kip learn new things and enjoy his job on the farm.

Recently he has bravely helped move one of our big rams, tonight he helped move a flock to another pasture, and over the last few nights he has taught the new young hens and roosters to be herded into the coop quietly 👏 And all he wants in return is a hug.

Kip doesn’t do the job halfway either. If we put one flock of chickens away he heads straight for the next coop, even if he’s hot and tired and hungry. He knows the routine and wants to go through the whole way.

05/27/2023

Kip’s hanging out at the Farmer’s Market with us today!

05/25/2023

Trying out a cooling coat while Kip gets some exercise today 😃💦 I soak it before putting it on him and the evaporation keeps him cooler.

05/20/2023

Another busy morning for Kip. He tagged along and helped out where he could as we moved two flocks to new pasture. I am particularly pleased with his attention to a lamb that was getting left behind, trying to make sure she was coming along too!

05/16/2023

Picture #1: Naughty sheep going the wrong way and refusing to go into the new pasture.
Picture #2: Kip surveying the field full of naughty sheep to be rounded up.
Picture #3: Kip has successfully conquered the challenge! All the sheep are back where they belong 🥳

05/03/2023

Success with flock #3! Kip and I had to help the sheep make up their mind to go in the new pasture at the right spot, but we did it. Now all the sheep have clean pasture for another few days and Kip has gained more experience (and earned lots of petting, just ask him).

05/03/2023

Flock number two moved! Kip helped hold a temporary gap in the fence and didn’t run away when the big ram tried to come out jumping and stomping ⭐️ And moved our three newest (and least dog friendly) ewes into the new pasture when they didn’t understand how to get there 😄 Lots of learning today and Kip is enjoying it!

05/03/2023

Flock one of three moved to fresh pasture for the day! Kip is learning about watching the back of the flock to keep them together and get them all through the gates.

04/30/2023

The pastures have been full of this beautiful clover! ☘️ We stopped on a walk one day to get some pictures.

04/04/2023

You would never know by this picture that Kip had just spent the last several minutes catching some runaway sheep!

This was his first time truly helping us move the sheep to a fresh pasture and several unexpected things happened.

1. The sheep had to cross one field and enter another through a tunnel of gates and people trying to fill the gaps. First, the silly sheep went down the wrong fence line, not headed toward the gate. So Kip and I headed down the fence at the sheep to get them off it and headed to the gate.

2. Then two of the sheep slipped through a gap and escaped to freedom! Kip needed to stop running now and stand still to block a gap. And that’s exactly what he did!

3. I showed Kip the two missing sheep and encouraged him to flank them and bring them back. He needed to go wide enough around to not push them further away from us, and then keep them on the fence so they couldn’t run past us. He turned them back into the path between the pastures and they followed the flock on the other side of the fence. That put them out in the open again and not anywhere close to the gate that would let them in the pasture.

4. Kip and I repeated the flanking process. Kip seemed to have the idea this time. The whole flock turned back the other way and we had the sheep headed towards the gate again.

By now Kip had figured out that he could make these sheep move when he wanted to!💡His only mistake was rushing ahead one time which turned them back, but with a little help he did another nice flank and slowed down.

6. The only thing left was to keep the sheep moving straight ahead down the path where they would run into the open gate. This went smoothly and after the gate closed securely with all the sheep in the pasture, Kip quite enjoyed running up to everyone to be pet for a job well done. 😄

This was a big step forward for Kip! He followed his away, come by, easy, stop and wait commands. He switched between high energy movement and still moments quickly so we didn’t push the sheep too far or scatter them.

What I had planned on being a simple matter of walking behind the sheep became a multitude of lessons. And getting those sheep all turned around and in the gate without losing them in the open field was much easier with a dog (ask my family how we know).

04/03/2023

Kip got to help us welcome some new sheep on Humble Shack Farm this weekend 🙂

03/10/2023

Kip looks so grown up now. He is starting to take his job of putting the chickens in the coop seriously. He heads right to the coop door to be let in, knows which chickens go where, and lays down once he has them all inside 😊
This has been a good stepping stone for him and he has learned to have a lot of self control and how to follow several commands without looking at me. Soon he will be able to handle the bigger animals… sheep!

03/01/2023

What’s Kip’s favorite animal on the farm? The baby goats! Definitely the baby goats. Fun, noisy, jumping, skipping, wobbly baby goats. And there are three of them now!

Today we watched these twin kids being born. This was a new experience for Kip. His favorite part was when the kids got to their feet for the first time to try walking.

02/23/2023

So much progress since the last video of Kip practicing the "come by" and "away" flanks! The cone circle is larger, I have stepped out of the circle so I'm further away, there is a target with treats in the middle (replacing the livestock at this point), we've moved next to the sheep pasture, and Kip is no longer staring at me the entire time :D He's headed towards doing this independently.

02/23/2023

This one's kind of noisy because the goat was acting silly. Previously he's become super excited by the baby goat and tried to chase or bark at it. I moved his dog bed closer to the goats three times and every time he got right on and stayed there without getting excited. Progress!

02/23/2023

Pictures first :) Some of today's training.

#1&2: Waiting on his bed while I set up for a herding lesson.

#3&4: Getting to see some sheep :D

#5: Being calm while watching the baby goat (the most exciting animal on the farm if you ask Kip!).

02/16/2023

Learning to be calm even when there are fun baby lambs in the flock :)