The Farmer’s Dog Philosophy

I finally got ahold of a copy of The Farmer’s Dog by John Holmes. Kathy told me to get it, along with a big list of other ones. I read the whole thing over the weekend and it was kinda neat to see what this guy had to see. Written in the 1960s, it’s a little “old school” but that’s how we kick it around here.

He spends most of the book trying to teach you about the instinct and choosing the right dog. He says in his second part:

“I cannot emphasize too strongly that dogs are not machines, but the reason I have written so much in Part I is to help you to prevent things from going wrong. To be able to do this, the first essential is to acquire some ‘dog sense.’ This is the ability to understand the canine mind and to be able to see things from the dog’s point of view. Without some dog sense the advice I have still to give you will be of little value.”

He says about instinct:

“It is of the upmost importance to remember that, when a young dog starts to run, he does so instinctively. When they see an untrained young dog ‘wearing’ a bunch of sheep many people say ‘It’s amazing how intelligent he is.’ Intelligence has nothing to do with it. The young dog which suddenly decides to run can be compared to the young man who suddenly decides that a certain young lady is the most attractive he has ever seen! one does not have to be clever to do that sort of thing, and there are many who looking back who wonder how they could  have been so stupid! The young dog herds, not so much because he wants to herd, as because he cannot help  it any more than, when he was born, he could not help squirming around until he found where the milk came from. “

“Run” = “herd.” But I like the term run because dogs start “running” far earlier than they truly “herd.”

He talks about the reserve that you see in stockdogs that gives people used to “city dogs” and the affect it has on his breeding:

”Temperament in the working dog is much more important than is generally realized. To the hill shepherd it does not matter so much as he is usually on his own. So long as the dog does not bolt at the sight of a stranger, it may be a first-class worker. Many good hill dogs are, in fact, shy partly because of temperament and partly because they never see strangers. On the general farm, conditions are very different. As the peace and quiet of the countryside become smore and more a thing of the past so does it become more and more important to get a dog with a good temperament . . . to keep up a team of demonstration dogs required constant replacements. Of the puppies which we selected at eight weeks as suitable, I doubt if 50 percent ever appeared in public. By the time they were six months to a year, we had to reluctantly decide to discard the other 50 percent . . . in most cases it was due to their not having to put up with people, the noise and the hustle bustle . . .”

He digs at people who breed for trials:

“Although trial dogs have done so much to raise the general standard of working dogs they have undoubtedly resulted in the production of a great many dogs that have no practical use to anyone. Many classically bred dogs have quite an abnormal instinct to work. The skilled trainer can use this keenness as a foundation for training the dog to the very highest degree. It will respond like a flash to each and every whispered command like the high-powered, well-tuned car responds to the slightest touch of the accelerator. But a high-powered car with a bad driver is far more dangerous than a low-powered!”

I laughed – I use this analogy ALL THE TIME.

He has a couple points that inform his training:

1. Dogs usually do not reason, so do not assume they will in training. (Actually, he says they cannot – and I disagree.)

2. No dog understands every word spoken to him.

What does this mean? That your dog is learning by association of ideas. So, when Kathy says “take the dog’s sheep away” after being bad – that behavior = no sheep.

Of correction:

“In the training of sheepdogs I rely almost entirely on two forms of correction.” Form 1 – grab dog, lift by scruff and shake. Form 2 – toss a hosepipe at it.

This is pretty consistent with training at Kathy’s. Ain’t no clicker that’s stronger than a dog’s instinct to run.

“If there is a secret to training I believe it arises from the ability to apply the type of correction and reward suitable to the particular dog, to strike a balance between the two and, most important of all, to apply them at the right time. The majority of failures in training are due to a – too much emphasis being put on how to correct or reward a dog, and too little on when to do so, and b – trying to work on the dog’s body rather than on his mind. The minds of some dogs can only be got at by making disobedience a painful occupation.”

And another gem:

“The first essential in training is will-power combined with the an active mind. This enables one to concentrate, to anticipate what the dog I going to do and, therefore, to correct and reward him as he does it. “