Now that Ruby has company in the form of two steers, we have a 'cow herd' again, and Ruby is a lot happier for the company of her own kind. For Decibel the newcomers were at first something to carefully investigate, which means you sneak up on them, bark and head for the hills, circle around and repeat.
But steers are not as skittish as sheep and thus the performance only works to startle them at first, then they turn to investigate and even chase the unruly canid, so soon enough a new strategy is advised. And it can't be said that Decibel is slow in any sense of the word, and so she soon figured this one out.
The first glimpse of her good sense came when Skeeter - the possum dog - thought he had to bark at the steers. They are not afraid of something barely cat-sized, so they were giving spirited chase. Decibel had been walking with me, took off and charged into the pasture, physically shouldered Skeeter out of the way of a head-butt attempting steer, shoved him out of the pasture onto the driveway, and when I am just about to burst with pride, she raced back and yapped at the steers herself, making them run and scamper, for she is decidedly larger than a cat, but when they raced into the barnyard, Decibel veered off, her chore completed and rejoined us, all puffed up with pride and other stuff.
Soon these forays became more organized, and now I can make use of all that energy, and have Decibel drive the steers back to the barn. Ruby is really no problem, the cow knows where she gets milked and fed, but the steers are boys and thus not quite as clever. They usually follow the cow, but they do it at their own speed, which means they often miss a turn or a gate and then all they can do is race along a fence bawling, hopelessly 'trapped', since backtracking to a gate is not in their vocabulary.
This is where Decibel shines!
She will circle the dummies, turn them and drive them with enthusiasm through the gate and to the barn. The only time we get into chaos is when Ralphy decides to 'help'. His approach is less organized and louder, and so the steers then run in separate ways, which makes the whole herding thing fall apart for a bit. Still, Decibel is not discouraged, although one time she actually gave Ralph a talking to, in form of a big bark right in his ear, which couldn't have said "quit it you dummy" more clearly. Then she shoved the old boy out of the way, and went back to gathering up the steers, and working them. That's my girl!
Now, she is not the bravest of souls, so when one of the bovines charges, she dances out of the way, but she is so quick at coming back around, that it hardly matters. Not that I mind her 'cowardice', it is only good sense and hopefully will keep her from getting kicked or butted. Now the steers are getting used to her, and are far less likely to actually kick, but at first I was worried.
Also, since cattle move slower, more deliberately, and are quite willing to slow down, this makes the whole herding exercise far more orderly than with sheep. Sheep scatter and keep running, and since Decibel can easily catch them, she will easily catch them, and uses her teeth to stop them, which is why we put the sheep to rest in the freezer and have the steers. It is not Decibel by herself that is the problem, she actually listens quite well to me, but wildly running sheep chased by four dogs (just having fun) tends to get too chaotic. Yet with the steers Decibel actually works, (neither Skeeter nor Maggie are all that interested in the steers) and when they are going in the right direction, or have reached the barnyard, Decibel runs back to her people without a second thought.
Now of course when it comes to Decibel, I tend to have rose colored glasses on, so I kept my opinion of her excellence to myself, but Harold said, "Look, she is actually working, not just chasing", when Decibel did one of her patented herding moves. So it is not just my imagination!
She will listen and slow down, and one time when she tried to 'herd' the cattle the wrong way (I was done with them, and didn't want them to go back to the barn), I told her "Decibel, that will do" and she stopped with the steers and raced back to me, and I swear we never worked on the 'That'll do', she just knows.
Now we just got a summer visit from 19 Jersey heifers, and it will be fun to see what Decibel does with a real herd. The first morning she saw them, I was busy with the other critters, and before I could worry, she simply circled them in an easy trot, decided they were in a close bunch (they were lying down chewing their cud) and after a few checks over her shoulder Decibel decided she didn't have to work them, and came to 'help' me. Again, that doesn't sound like much, but less sensible dogs might have just barked and scattered the little heifers, and since the heifers were in a new place, that might have gone wrong.
You might fear for the chicken, but Decibel is interested in the kitchen scraps, not the hen.
She's so much more than just a pretty face
Now Decibel is not the only dog with cow sense, but Maggie, the other one that has 'brains', does not herd. She likes the critters, and often plays with them and for some reason they like playing with her, and are not scared, nor too rough. Maggie used to play 'headbutting' games with one of the steers, even when he was close to butcher weight, and she never got hurt, because they both knew that it was a game. But Maggie does not herd them. Her agreement with me is limited to not hurting them, and she can go into the chicken coop to kill rodents, without even giving the cackling hens another look. This is the same dog that knows that pheasants are fair game, because they are NOT Mom's.
