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Herding Dogs
When you think of herding dogs, you most likely think of something that you have seen on TV. You think of a dog that keeps a flock of sheep together and so forth. That is because, in the United States, there is not a big need for herding dogs. However, just because there is not a big need does not mean that there is not a need at all. Although herding dogs are used more in other parts of the world, you can still see a lot of herding dogs being used today. These kinds of dogs, however, have grown to be able to herd more than just sheep. A lot of these dogs can herd things like cows, chickens, and even horses! I know that it is amazing to think of a small animal herding something that is almost ten times its size, but it can be done. However, that is only if the training that the herding dog went through was good enough.
Herding sheep is what a lot of people think of after they hear herding dogs, but this is not always the case. A lot of these dogs can herd other things as well. However, how do you train a herding dog? This is something that is not as easy as you would think. Just like training a dog to do anything, it is going to take time to teach them how to herd anything. Of cruse, the training is not as intense as what a seeing eye dog would go through, but it still calls for a lot of work. The reason why other types of dogs go through more training is because they have peoples' lives in their hands, or should we say paws. A herding dog is trained to help farmers and other ranch hands keep their animals together. It makes it easier to herd the animals into small spaces. However, a seeing eye dog or a hearing dog is trained to protect peoples' lives. So as you can clearly see, they would have to go through a lot more training.
It's amazing that even in today's time, with all the new stuff that we have, we still rely on dogs more often than not. That is because unlike machines and things like that, a dog can feel emotion and pain. A dog is a living breathing thing and it can make choices just like we can. A lot of times a dog can make a choice that a machine could not, which could actually be better for the person that is walking the dog. Although the herding dogs and training herding dogs is different from the training of other dogs, it still plays an important role in our lives. There are always going to be some things that machines just can not take over. That old saying that you can not teach an old dog new tricks is just a saying. Dogs are here to make our lives easy, and we might as well use them. After all, they want to help us! No other animal in the world is quite like a dog.
Brandy Girl 
