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by ibgames

EARTHDATE: August 31, 2014

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REAL LIFE NEWS: HOW A SHEEPDOG HERDS THE FLOCK

by Hazed

If you have ever watched a single farmer, armed only with a dog, control a large flock of sheep, you might wonder just how he does it. Now scientists have studied the way the sheepdog interacts with the sheep and have found out it’s based on just two simple rules.

The first rule of sheepdog club is: you do not talk about sheepdog club. No, actually, it’s that the sheepdog learns to make the sheep move closer together.

The second rule is that when the sheep are in a tight formation, the dog pushes them forwards.

That’s all there is to it.

The research was carried out using special backpacks fitted to a dog and to all the sheep in its flock. The packs contained highly accurate GPS technology, so the scientists were able to plot the movement of the animals precisely.

Dr Andrew King from Swansea University explained that the sheep move closer together when they see a threat. “One of the things that sheep are really good at is responding to a threat by working with their neighbours. It’s the selfish herd theory: put something between the threat and you. Individuals try to minimise the chance of anything happening to them, so they move towards the centre of a group.” That is what the sheepdogs exploit.

However, some farmers are not impressed by this finding because it doesn’t tell them anything new.

“It confirms something that shepherds know from many years of watching and working with border collies,” said Jane Drinkwater, a shepherd in South Wales.
“Their instinct is to get around the prey, and to draw the prey together as one bunch. The only thing I would say is that they won’t always pull the prey towards the handler – they may by instinct head in the opposite direction.”

Still, sometimes it’s good to have science confirm something that “everybody knows”.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-28936251

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