Talk:Herding dog

Group collie breeds?

Noticed that in the breed list, breeds with "collie" in the name are listed together, but other breeds of collie type lacking the collie title are listed separately -- for example, Kelpie, Coolie/German Koolie, McNab, English Shepherds, Shetland Sheepdog and perhaps others. Should they be listed as now, or together under "collie" -- or perhaps both? Any thoughts? Richard New Forest 11:45, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

This list isn't nearly as long as List of dog breeds, so it doesn't seem necessary (to me) to list them twice. Originally put them all under "collie" because so many people say just "collie" when they mean something else, and--since it is a short list--if they're looking specifically for, say, "Border Collie", they'll still find it pretty quickly anyway. That doesn't seem to be the case with other breeds for the most part; e.g., people don't usually say "sheepdog" to mean a specific breed, so those with "sheepdog" in their names aren't grouped. Anyway, that was my original thinking. What do you think? Elf | Talk 02:14, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Two ways I can think of doing it... One would be to list collie-type breeds twice (as in fact already done for Welsh Sheepdog and Koolie) – is there any reason not to do that? The other would be to put a note after those breeds: "German Coolie (Collie type)". I think this list is not on the whole for people looking for a particular breed (they'd do a search for that), but for people wanting to know the range of breeds in the category. Is there perhaps a need for other subcategorisation?

Finally, there is a "Herding dogs" category. Is it possible to make the list on this page update automatically from that? Or perhaps it would be better after all to miss out the list here altogether, and just provide a link to that page?--Richard New Forest 13:05, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

The list is too short for listing breeds twice, IMHO; would give an inflated idea of how many breeds there are, especially if they're simply wanting to know the range of breeds in the category. OK, I'm going to split them out and come up with a different way of handling "collie", which I know from experience will just appear here on its own if it's not addressed, even though it's not a breed name by itself.

There's no way to include the list from the category here, and the disadvantage to category lists in any event is that they can't include topics that don't exist. This list allows us to provide links to breed articles that haven't been written yet, so the list is more inclusive.

As for more subcategorization... argh. This is a tough one. It's already hard to separate herding breeds from flock guardian breeds and from breeds that are multipurpose and might include, I dunno, hunting as well as herding. This has been an ongoing challenge. It would be hard to do any more subcategorization, and if so, it probably shd just be done on this page. For example, we could turn the list into a table with columns for different categories... flock guardian/herder? heeler/strong eye? in AKC/FCI/whatever Herding Group? Whatever. But I don't have enough info on most breeds to do that sort of work. Most of the books I have talk only for a page or so about any given breed and less about its working style. Elf | Talk 18:15, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Tatra Sheepdog

The Breed list section lists Tatra Sheepdog and Polish Tatra Sheepdog. Is it OK, are those two separate breeds? --CiaPan (talk) 06:55, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Whistle commands?

Surprisingly, I found not a word in this article about just how the whistle is blown for each of the herding commands, and just how these sounds are modified when more than one dog is used. Specialized information, for sure, and just the sort of detail that belongs in WP. Here is one source. David Spector (talk) 01:27, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Shepherd's whistle ee 88.111.90.165 (talk) 03:12, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Merge from Herding Group

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was to merge. Cavalryman V31 (talk) 00:29, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

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Redundant WP:CONTENTFORK, maybe even a WP:POVFORK. We already merged a bunch of these pointless overlapping articles over the last two years; not sure why this one was left out. See also: Talk:Toy dog#Merge from Toy Group; Talk:Terrier#Merge from Terrier Group; Talk:List of dog breeds recognized by the American Kennel Club#Merge redundant articles; Talk:Fédération Cynologique Internationale#Merge from "FCI [Whatever] Group" pages.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:37, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

• Fully support, including on WP:COMMONAME grounds. William Harris • (talk) • 08:05, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

• Support, provided it does not become an article about show groups and dog club classifications. Cavalryman V31 (talk) 06:33, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

• Don't merge, One article is about the set of Dog breeds / landrace (AKA 'pastoral' dogs), the other is about dogs working with farmers etc, eg. sheep dogs.
  

> Under the herding dogs page the stuff about breeds should be taken out. It should be about the role, uses, training etc of the dogs.
> The herding group page should be about breeds, many of which are pets (or strays or show dogs or whatever), not actual working dogs.
Really all these pages should be rationalised & cross reference each other coherently with a couple obvious deletions:

1. Livestock guardian dog
2. Pastoral group
3. Pastoral dog
4. Sheep dog (which includes box leading to the alternative ' Pastoral dog ' page), & ... Sheepdog trial
5. Herding group ?merge v
6. Herding dog ?merge ^ - I say no

I don't see why sheep dog would be a page but not herding dog (and I don't see why there would also be Sheepdog trial & Shepherd's whistle without sheep dog)
Part of the confusion is because there is not global agreement in the categories - particularly US K.Club, UK K.Club., FCI Also Maybe historically or regionally the allocation of certain breeds to certain roles and exclusion of all others was/is more fixed in stone but not now in my country. Also remember that people all round the world herding & working with dogs are not so often at desks and less often wikipedia writers, so I think such information is valuable. Probably more of the wikipedia people are pet owners & dog show people or breeders.
I sense a trend that dog breeding / fancying people have a tendency to put lists of dog breeds in articles. EE 88.111.90.165 (talk) 03:08, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Nine-week old Border Collie?

The Border Collie shown herding ducks does not look nine weeks old, and in fact looks quite a bit older. I clicked on the Wikimedia commons link and found out that that said that it was nine weeks old; however, the dog looks like an adult dog and can’t be any younger than six months. Velociraptor888 19:20, 25 July 2022 (UTC)