One of my biggest takeaways from my llama workshop this past weekend is the notion of the escape route. When we want to do something to an animal or we want an animal to do something our first instinct generally is to corner it and take away its options for movement. That is all fine and good if your intent is to kill it. But if you want to the animal to do something with its cooperation it needs to feel like it is not in immediate danger of death.

If an animal has an escape route it is going to feel calmer about its situation. So, when capturing the llama in a catch pen you provide it an escape route while making it clear that you control the escape route. This was my single biggest mistake in working with haltering my llama. Instead of blocking his every move when I was impatient, I needed to offer him a way out, that still maintained my control over him. Letting go to gain control.

As I thought about his concept, I realized that this was a useful way of thinking about much of sheep herding.

At a sheep dog trial you will hear people say “that dog has nice control of his sheep”. The same dog is often called “nice to his sheep”. What you see is a group of sheep moving along in a straightline at a trot with the dog moving behind them – often a bit to one side or the other. Looks more like a jog in the park than a mad dash. A naive glance at the drive makes you think the dog is pushing the sheep by walking up behind them – but in fact the dog is artfully controlling the sheep’s escape route. Essentially the dog (in partnership with the handler presumably) is using pressure and release of pressure to define a line where it is acceptable for the sheep to move – their escape route. If the dog were just pushing from behind you would see sheep zigzaging around the field as the escape route would be anywhere about 180 degrees in front of them.  Under the direction of the handler, the dog can move to one side when the sheep start to go off course which turns them back. If done correctly, it is the tiniest bit of pressure applied, barely noticeable to an uninformed viewer. Or the dog may slow down, taking pressure off and let the sheep drift back into the straight line. If the dog applies too much pressure or move too far the sheep turn away from the preferred escape route and start zigzagging down the field.

Like providing a defined and controlled escape route for my llama in order to engage his cooperation in haltering, a good dog driving sheep is doing much the same thing. He has provided a clear avenue to what the sheep want the most -escape from his pressure. And in doing so he has engaged their cooperation in doing what he wants them to do. A dog can’t pick up an unwilling sheep. He can threaten with teeth but he gains the best movement by giving them an escape – it just happens to be the direction that he and his handler want. A dog who always heads off his sheep, tries to corner them, chases them or otherwise forces his paw, has not quite learned that he can get their cooperation by providing the escape. It is a really hard concept for both human and dog to get.

Here is a clip of our second ever pro-novice drive. It is far from perfect and there are much better videos out there of the concept. But you can see that it looks like Jura is taking them on a stroll in the park. We get a little off course (my bad) but the sheep are happy to work for him because he has defined for them where to go and is keeping the pressure on where they shouldn’t.

For the uninitiated notice that he moves from side to side a bit – he isn’t just walking behind. If the sheep try to go one way he moves over and says “nope, not there” and then “nope not there”. These are tiny corrections that say “the only way out is forward at the pace that I choose”.
And so too at the pen. As a novice handler, I want to close the gate as fast as I possibly can. But that inevitably means that I pressure the sheep and they pop out the side. At a trial recently, the sheep kept sticking at the opening of the pen. Dog behind, handler too close. Folks would time out. And almost the instant they did, the sheep would pop into the pen. The handler let go of the pressure. And the sheep thought “finally I can go through that gate safely”.  The trick at the pen then is to make the pen the obvious “escape route” from dog and handler pressure – the avenue where the sheep feel the least pressure. If the handler steps away and the dog is in the right place, the route is clear. If the handler or dog squeeze in and push, the sheep feel trapped and there is no obvious way for them to move away from the pressure. They are in a scissor hold, tightly held perhaps but unwilling to cooperate because the way is blocked, whether to us it looks like it or not.

It is always easier to work with an animal whose cooperation you have. That seems an obvious statement. We can gain the semblance of cooperation with entrapment and coercion. But the dogs and humans who do it best, know how to lighten the pressure enough for the animal to see its way clear.