[DartmoorLiz]

Just as the title asks really. 

I'm in a family situation which means a family member exercises her sheepdog on the flock.  I only ask the question because I see how relaxed the sheep are before and how anxious they are after.  There's no solid evidence of stress induced poor health but today the dog disturbed a ewe who was just about to give birth

[SallyintNorth]

Q:  When does exercising your sheepdog become sheep worrying?
A:  When the sheep are worried.

The word 'worrying' does mean the same in this context as it would in any other context.  A worried sheep can give rise to all sorts of medical complications, not just when she's pregnant, either. 

A farmer has to train his/her sheepdog, so using his/her own sheep for this purpose is of course necessary.  And the farmer will choose sheep which are not at the time vulnerable, for instance fit young hoggs.

Here's something I wrote on Ravelry recently:

I’m sure a lot of it is education - before I farmed, although I leashed the dogs near lambs and had them close to heel and/or leashed near any sheep, I simply wasn’t aware of the effects of stress on sheep, nor that it wasn’t only lambing time that was a problem.
•I didn’t know that a lambing ewe might run off and abandon a lamb if she saw a dog nearby
•I didn’t know that a sheep still wearing her fleece in summer could collapse if physiologically stressed (which is why we walk ours very steadily, at 2 miles an hour, along the road when we have to move them before they are clipped - much to the very evident annoyance of any traffic we are holding up)
•I didn’t know that an in-lamb ewe could abort or reabsorb if physiologically or psychologically stressed
•nor did I know that an in-lamb ewe could be on a knife-edge physiologically, simply with the burden of winter and growing her lambs, so that only a very small upset could tip her over the edge into physiological collapse - and that if the farmer didn’t spot her within an hour or two, she would probably die

Hope that helps, shout if you want more.  I have loads more

[Fleecewife]

Just as the title asks really. 

I'm in a family situation which means a family member exercises her sheepdog on the flock.  I only ask the question because I see how relaxed the sheep are before and how anxious they are after.  There's no solid evidence of stress induced poor health but today the dog disturbed a ewe who was just about to give birth

What more precisely do you mean when you say your family member 'exercises' her sheepdog on the flock?  Is she training the dog as a sheepdog, or just letting it charge about and chase them willy-nilly?

I would have thought that in both cases it's unacceptable or at the very least thoughtless for you and the sheep not to consider just which animals are practised on.  Presumably these are her sheep too, in which case she should know better.

I am absolutely with Sally when she says: Q:  When does exercising your sheepdog become sheep worrying?
A:  When the sheep are worried.

[Me]

Clearly you feel it is sheep worrying or you wouldn't have posted, and being as you were there and we were not then it probably is!

I would put a stop to it going anywhere near in lamb ewes, lambs etc. If you feel it is being trained well then pick out a few suitable ewes (I have five culls who are seeing an extra summer to train a young dog on) and put them in a smallish paddock way away from other sheep and distractions and let her use them. If it is not being trained well (handler is there to protect the sheep and train the dog) then stop it entirely, suggest going on a course!

A sheepdog does not need sheep just for exercise. Take it for a run, go to the beach, I used to pop the old lurcher onto a treadmill and she would do a few miles while I checked my emails and had a cup of tea in the morning; she didn't have to be out chasing things to keep fit and really enjoyed it. 

[DartmoorLiz]

Thank you all for your replies.  As ever the story is more complex.  But at least the lambing ewe had a cracking ram lam safely and both are doing fine. 

Succession is difficult, what is acceptable changes, old habits die hard and two people who live on top of each other never having seen eye to eye have to chose their battles carefully. 

The dog can be a brilliant sheepdog but she's a bit strong willed.  The handler used to be better with the dog but the years are taking their toll (time is not on her side) and she is getting muddled while the dog gets mixed messages and has started to do her own thing ... sometimes.

I'm therefore stuck with the dog, the sheep and the handler. I have to balance the human needs with those of the sheep and she needs to have meaning in her life which means checking the sheep and exercising the dog. While doing this she walks around for about half an hour a day, minimising all those things which happen to older sedentary people.

I like the idea of using less vulnerable sheep for "training" purposes and at the moment the ram and his mates are not up to much so that's not too difficult to achieve - as with much interactions, redirecting is easier than stopping all together. 

Thank you so much for your input - long term plan is to try to shepherd without a dog but short term plan is to manage as best we can with what we've got. 

[Me]

Oh.

[Rosemary]

Sounds like a challenging situation - best of luck with the management thereof