People say that Heelers have a latent herding instinct, and that with no livestock to push around, they'll often try to herd their humans, other dogs in the family, or even the cat. I've even heard of this breed nipping at their humans' heels to get them moving in the right direction.
Pepper has never done any of that. His greatest interest in life has always been little kids - and lately, old people. He just loves to snuggle.
He's seen a lot of cows - but from a distance. Since our neighbors turn their cows out in the pasture next to our property, he sees them all summer.
But a couple of nights ago we went for a walk and the cows were right up by the gate.
Pepper stopped and stared at them, and then walked under the gate to get closer. His whole body seemed to snap to attention while he stood absolutely still and just stared.
I felt like I could hear him thinking "There's something I know about these creatures. I know I'm supposed to do something about them, but I don't know what. What am I supposed to do here??"
The other dogs and I stood and waited for a while, watching to see what Pepper would do, but he stood there like a statue until I called him to come along.
Anyone else had a similar experience?
4 comments:
Since we live in the city, my aussie has seen very few cows. The few times he has seen them up close, he hasn't been able to get through the fence, but he does bark obsessively at them and tries to get over there. It's a similar phenomenon I think - he knows there is something he's supposed to do, but if he were faced with those cows, he wouldn't quite know what it was!
Hi Lauren, and thanks for stopping by!
It must be puzzling for our critters to see something like that and have a feeling that there's something they should know, but don't.
If those had been my cows instead of my neighbor's I'd have been tempted to tell him to take them to the barn or something, just to see what he'd do.
He learned early on that horses were not something he should fool with... Don't know if he was trying to herd them, but he did go in the horse pasture once and get a swift kick for getting too close to a horse who didn't like dogs.
Thank God he just got bruised and not broken!
I was very surprised to see my Glen of Imaal Terrier herding my neighbours chickens yesterday... we were just standing in his yard and he started rounding them up and moving them back to where I was standing... would NEVER have thought a Glen would be inclined to do that!
That's funny - too bad you didn't have a camera in your hand at the time.
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