REGALWISE WHITE GERMAN SHEPHERDS
The story of Romy, a working herding dog.
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It started with Romeo's unscheduled sightseeing for several days in the Netherlands countryside. The townspeople of Exloo were extremely helpful with their reports of sighting him and going out of their way to look for him. I wanted to thank them somehow. About that same time, the shepherd Tinus Kaspers, who kept the flock of sheep for the town, was interested in training a white German Shepherd to herd the sheep instead of his border collies. It was Rob Swart's (president of the White Shepherd Club of Holland) idea to donate a puppy to the town to be used for this purpose. As it happened, Romeo's first litter had just been born and it seemed appropriate that one of them should be the "thank you" gift puppy to go back to Holland to live permanently. They named her Tumbledown's Romy of Exloo. Romy rhymes with 'foamy'. She is 2 years old now and has taken to the herding like a natural, being very easy to train. Romy normally works a flock of several hundred on a daily basis. They take the sheep out daily to graze the boulevards and other grassy areas around the town rather than mowing them. She put on a herding demonstration at the international white shepherd show in Exloo on Oct. 3, 1998. Tinus and Romy walked the sheep several miles from their home to the show site on the day of the demonstration. There were approximately 150 sheep in the flock that they brought. They brought the sheep up to the huge horse arena where the show was held. The sheep were allowed to graze on the grass surrounding the building for an hour or two while we visited with Tinus. Romy kept them together and prevented them from wandering too far away. She was very energetic and enthusiastic about her job, having to be called off for a while to let the sheep relax enough to eat.
Here are some pictures taken by Alexandra Van Breugel (thank you very much!) of Romy working the sheep.
And what does a bored sheepdog do for fun?
