04/09/2025
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Herding behaviours, or the way our dogs move through the world, are widely misunderstood.
It’s common for people to see their herder barking, circling, or nipping at a delivery person or visitor and say, “He wasn’t being aggressive, he was trying to herd.” But that confuses how the dog is moving with the context of the situation. Just because the behaviour looks herdy doesn’t mean it’s not also driven by fear or aggression.
So, what is herding behaviour?
We’ve taken predator behaviour and altered it to suit a purpose. In herding breeds, we’ve kept some parts of the predatory sequence and removed others. The full predatory sequence is:
Orient → Eye → Stalk → Chase → Grab → Kill → Dissect → Consume
In herders, we’ve enhanced the early parts like eye, stalk, and chase, and bred out the parts we don’t want, like the grab bite and kill. What’s left is a kind of exaggerated predator behaviour that looks intense but doesn’t end in a bite, at least ideally (or unless it's warranted).
Sheep are prey animals, so even a sheep who has never met a dog before still knows to move away from one acting in a predatory way. Creeping, staring, and stalking are all clear signals. Sheep don’t need past experience to read that body language. It’s built into them to recognize predators, just like the behaviour to move like one is built into your dog.
Border collies and other herding breeds do this automatically. It requires no learning. Their brains are wired to move that way. It’s not something they think through, and it’s not a trick. It’s just how their body responds to certain triggers.
All breed behaviours have what are called “releasers.” These are triggers in the environment that flip a switch in the dog’s brain. That switch turns on what’s called a modal action pattern (also known as a fixed action pattern). These are hardwired behaviour sequences that tend to run their course once they’ve started. They don’t need to be taught. The dog doesn’t plan it or think it through. It just happens.
Modal action patterns aren't just a dog thing. A spider doesn’t learn how to spin a web. Once the right conditions are there, they just do it. And, what's really cool, is they build the web appropriate to their species. Birds are the same. A robin isn't taught how to build a robin's nest, and a cowbird isn't taught to lay her eggs in someone else's nest. A sea turtle hatches and crawls toward the brightest horizon, usually the moonlight over the ocean. It doesn’t think about it. It just goes. A hen will sit on and rotate anything egg-shaped, even if it’s a golf ball. The shape is the releaser, and the sitting behaviour follows.
Even p*eing can be part of a modal action pattern. A male dog sees a vertical object with scent on it, and boom, leg lift, even if he barely has any p*e left. And no, this doesn’t mean your dog is trying to take over the world. It’s not a dominance thing. It’s just how they p*e.
Think of a border collie seeing something move across a field. Without any training, they drop their body low, stare, stalk, and creep forward. The movement of the object was the releaser. The sequence that follows is the modal action pattern. It’s like pressing play on a pre-loaded track in the brain. The dog isn’t choosing it. It’s instinct, shaped by generations of selective breeding.
So now imagine herding behaviour as being neutral. It doesn’t carry any emotion on its own. It’s just movement. Just like the way I run is simply how I run. But emotion can happen at the same time.
I can run and be scared. I can run and be playing. Just like a border collie can be herdy and happy, or herdy and scared.
Herding behaviour doesn’t tell you what your dog feels. It only tells you how they’re moving.
To understand what’s really going on, you have to look at the full picture: body language, context, and emotion. Herding dogs often default to these behaviours when arousal is high. That might be during play, when anticipating something, or when feeling anxious or overwhelmed. So when your dog runs out to circle and nip the delivery person, don’t brush it off as “just herding.” Step back and look at the whole picture to see what you're dog is saying!
You can learn more about herding breed behaviour and how to support these dogs in Urban Sheepdog: https://amzn.to/4g0o6VT
