牧羊犬和狼.docVIP

Shepherd nature - Wolf 牧羊犬天性------狼 导语： 专业从事放牧工作的犬，我们称之为“放牧”。“牧羊犬”是人们赋予专职放牧类犬的一个总称，不是一个单独品种，“家族庞大，犬丁兴旺”，其中包括“苏格兰牧羊犬”、“喜乐蒂牧羊犬”、“边境牧羊犬”等。在过去千百年间，牧羊犬是负责牧羊、畜牧的犬种。大部分牧羊犬的牧羊行为不是训练出来的，而是出于一种放牧狼的本能。作用就是在农场负责警卫，避免牛、羊、马等逃走或遗失，也保护家畜免于熊或狼的侵袭，同时也大幅度的杜绝了偷盗行为。 插图： 原文： If you ever see a sheepdog at work, you might be amazed at how well suited its actions are to the very human concern of keeping a flock of sheep together. Whats more amazing, much of a sheepdogs behavior doesnt have to be trained, but is already present as a complex set of sheep herding instincts. A scientist who studies ethnology, or animal behavior, might ask how prehistoric shepherds first coaxed such useful behavior from their domesticated wolves, the ancestors of todays sheepdogs. As a matter of fact, a sheepdogs herding instinct isnt so different from the natural hunting instincts that all wolves share. For example, when a pack of wolves hunts a herd of caribou, they begin by circling their prey, crouching low if the caribou become too alarmed. Occasionally, if a caribou bolts, a wolf will jump up and nip at its neck, steering it back toward the herd. These hunting instincts help gather the prey together, making it easier to bring them down when the pack leader jumps in for the kill. Early shepherds took advantage of these wolf instincts when training their domesticated dogs. The dogs viewed the shepherd as their pack leader, and they controlled the flock of sheep the same way their wolf cousins would control a herd of caribou in the wild always steering the flock toward the shepherd. Indeed, its difficult to persuade modern sheepdogs to steer their flock in any other direction. The wild instinct of directing prey toward the pack leader is still too strong. Centuries of selective breeding have refined these instincts to a considerable degree, but the foundation of a sheepdogs behavior comes from the wild. 注释： behavior n. 行为 instinct n. 本能 ethnology n. 动物行动学 domesticated v. 驯化 caribou n. 驯鹿 shepherd n. 牧羊人 pe