WONDERFUL DOGS

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 91, 14 October 1922, Page 12

WONDERFUL DOGS

BLACK SHEPHERDS OF THE

MOUNTAINS,

Wonderful exhibitions of dog sagacity were seen in the sheep dog trials at Tring Agricultural Show last month, says the ".Dailj Mail." .. Every year the dogs and their masters come specially from the Welsh mountains to compete with one another in. an exhibition of animal intelligence that must be seen to be believed. These sheep dogs are not the grey, shaggy-haired variety to which we are accustomed in Bnglant, but small, oleek, black, little animals with pointed ears and qiuck,alerfc faces. Three cheep are slipped from ? t-art about a quarter of a mile away. At a word from, ite master, the dog dashes off and collects them) driving them ia ths direction of a gap between two hurdles.

mhe dog is too far from his master to hear shouted direction^ so he makes all his movements in response to his master's whistle or a Wave of his stick. A short, shrill whistle and ha halts, his eyes fixed on the man directing him Then a soft, -crooning kind of a whistle, and he creeps slowly, step by step, towards the sheep, and after they have tried every direction but the right one, he shepherds them gently through the narrow gap. T\vo more such gaps follow, just wide enough for the sheep to pass through. Having got them go far, the dog's master 'gives a, sharp whistle, and waves his stick to the left. The dog at once forces the sheep to execute a left wheel round a small obstacle. The dog never touches them. He works quietly and surely, and with infinite patience until his master's will Is accomplished. Now comes the most difficult part of tlie test. The last obstacle is a Maltese Cross formed of hurdles,"with each am just wide enough to take a sheep. The three sheep have t.o be driven fir-t through one way, then through the cthe". The dog's master is now allowed to help.. When the Maltese Cross ie negotiated, it only remain's for master and dog to fqiclthe sheep into a pen at the end of the course. The length of the course is half a milp, and the time allowed for the trial ir, 11 minutes.

One of these Welsh sheep dogs can be trained in six months, and many of tne dbgs nt the trials were only &. year 'o">6. But it is an instinct that is bred in them, and the first time they see a sheep thsy instinctively circle out arid starf. to d''"'e it in to their master.

The most noticeable thing about the rings is the iter.sip eagernecs of their €Sprjssin:l. When s trial on every dn£ who was not competing was'match-

i~-p- cad* turn s:rid movement ii> .the cftiv.e q;:ivev:n'r with excitement. If was easy to see that tliev were all convinced they could do the job much better themselves than the one actually performing.