People who doubt the historical appropriateness of competitive herding with Corgis maintain that Corgis traditionally worked only as the most rudimentary drovers. I think that this is a misinterpretation of what Corgis actually did. There would be no reason to create a specialized breed to "follow a cow up the lane". Cattle are creatures of habit and will come to the barn for feeding or milking just fine on their own. It is when cows are being asked to do something outside of their normal routine, or something that they don't want to do, that a dog is needed, and then the dog needs real herding skills!

Of course droving, or moving stock to market, is actually fairly complicated -- cattle must be gathered and made to leave their familiar farm, herds fan out in all directions at a crossroad or want to linger by a stream, strange dogs rush out of farm entrances and scatter the cattle, another herd is encountered going in the opposite direction in a narrow lane. A drover's ability to handle these situations competently would come out of daily herding and working experience around the farm.

We have a small farm, probably similar to the sort of smallholdings Corgis came from in Wales-- fencing somewhere between bad and non-existent, hodgepodge of pens around the barns that grew up without a lot of planning over past years, steep rocky pasture, and animals of the "a few of these and a few of those" variety -- ducks, geese, chickens, sheep, and ponies. No cattle yet. Rats in the barn, foxes on the prowl. Oh, and neighbors whose livestock -- cattle, pig, ducks -- wander over frequently.

Daily usefulness around a small farm requires versatility. Having a dog with only driving skills would be like having a car with only forward gears! In daily life on a farm, you often find yourself on one side of the flock and the dog on the other, with the dog bringing the animals along between you, which is called a "wear". Or you may be needing to send the dog around to the far side of the stock and have him bring animals toward you, which is called a "gather". The day's work may call for bringing animals between two gates along a line parallel to you, which is called a "cross-drive", putting animals through a gate or into a barn, which is called a "pen", or separating out the animals you want to keep in the barn from the ones who are going out in the field, which is called a "shed". And right there are most of the skills in an advanced herding course.

Picture yourself trying to get reluctant sheep out of the field and into the paddock for the night. Since it is silly for both you and the dog to climb that hill, you tell your dog to go get the sheep. If you're lucky, he will run wide around the edge of the field so he can come in at the sheep from behind (the "outrun"), get them moving without alarming or scattering them (the "lift") and bring them down the hill to you (the "fetch"). You are standing there holding the gate, ready to slam it shut and tie it as soon as the flock is in. So the dog works the back side of the sheep, covering them so they can't turn and run, and putting on the pressure so that the sheep decide that going through the gate is better than dealing with the dog. On the farm, you can tie the gate and go in the house for dinner! At a herding trial, you just got your "pen"!

On my little farm, the hay man will be here in a few minutes with a new round-bale for my sheep. A Corgi will go through the gate ahead of me, drive the sheep into a corner and hold them while Jimmy and I roll the heavy bale into the center of the paddock.

This afternoon my son and his Corgi will be sent to put the sheep out into the pasture for a few hours. She will have to get the sheep away from that new bale of hay, bunch them up and put them through the gate, and then chase them up the hill into the field.

This evening I'll send my Border Collie to the top of the field to bring the sheep down, because of the long outrun, but a Corgi will step in to help put them back through our too-narrow gate into the paddock. Tomorrow, my Corgis may let me know that the neighbor's pig or steer is in the yard again, and I will turn a couple of them out to drive the wayward animal home.

In a month we'll be doing shots and shearing, and a Corgi will bring the flock into the paddock and then help us corner and catch each new sheep to work on, and put each finished one back out the gate.

And in the meantime, there are rats in the barn to be chased, cats and children to be kept in line, foxes and night intruders to be warned, and visitors to be greeted ....all jobs that our versatile little Corgis excel at!

How do I know that these are natural jobs for Corgis? Because genes don't lie! When you start using your Corgis on stock around a farm and watch how simply and naturally they figure out these tasks on their own, you know their ancestors are whispering in their ears!

My Corgis aren't highly trained obedience dogs -- they started out as conformation dogs and knew how to come when called, stand on a table, and put their ears up for cookies. Watching a four year old show bitch on her first exposure to stock move around the imaginary clock face and balance exactly opposite her handler, or a five month old puppy size up the situation at a gate and move to the back of the stock to put them through is a revelation!

Sue Mesa, a Cardi breeder who was my first herding trainer, said that she had never seen a Corgi which did not naturally gather (bring the stock toward the handler), often in preference to driving (moving the stock away from the handler). These genes would not be here in this advanced form unless they had been selected for and used over past centuries!

I will readily concede that cattle are more natural to Corgis than sheep, and my Corgis show a marked preference for bigger stock. I wish that there were more cattle trials available for Corgis. But whether a farm has a few sheep or a few cattle, many of the daily realities are the same. Animals go out to pasture and come back to the barn. They need to be kept from crowding or escaping during feeding. They get docked or castrated or need their feet trimmed. They get sick and need medication. These are universal daily happenings on any small farm, and a useful dog can save a thousand steps and hours of frustration.

So let's not sell our Corgis short! They are truly versatile little farm dogs with very useful herding skills a range of inborn natural talents.

Corgis are not Border Collies. They bark more, and tend to nip at heels. They prefer to work in close and excel at paddock jobs. They aren't as fast or as wide on long outruns, and they aren't built for hours of long sweeping flanks and gathers, so I tend to send my BC out for this type of work.

But my Corgis are better than the BC at driving my neighbor's animals home, whereas the BC wants to gather them up and bring them to me. And the BC doesn't even DO pigs, who smell funny and are totally unimpressed by "eye", whereas the Corgis rely on mouth and momentum to send that porker bolting for his own yard.

All in all, the modifications needed to work sheep instead of cattle are more in style and details than in the overall picture. Sheep require a little more delicate handling, a bit more finesse. This is where some of us feel that we have to stretch our Corgi's natural abilities beyond what they were bred for in order to trial. But as far as proving a Corgi's ability to manage stock in a useful way, I see no real discrepancy between the sport of herding and the inborn herding and stock-management abilities my Corgis show me naturally every day around the farm.

-- This article was originally posted on ShowPem-L and Corgi-L and various versions have since been used with permission in several Corgi newsletters in the US, Canada, and Australia. Excerpts appeared in the PWCCA Newsletter. Copyright 2001 Elizabeth Trail. 

(c) 2007 Elizabeth Amend Trail  and Coltsfoot Pembroke Welsh Corgis
Quality breeder of Pembroke Welsh Corgis for pet, show, and performance
West Glover, Vermont