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Solution to 'sheepdog mystery' found in the use of two basic rules

New study reveals how canny canines manage to keep herds on the straight and narrow

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A single sheepdog can herd flocks of 80 or more sheep in its everyday work and in competitive herding trials.

The 'sheepdog mystery' that has niggled mathematical minds for years has been solved.

The puzzle is how a single dog manages to get so many selfish sheep to move so efficiently in the same direction.

The answer, revealed in a journal published by Britain's Royal Society, is that sheepdogs cleverly follow a simple rule book.

Researchers fitted highly accurate GPS tracking devices into backpacks that were then placed on a trained Australian Kelpie sheepdog and on a flock of 46 female merino sheep in a five-hectare field.

They then used the GPS data to build a computer model of what prompted the dog to move, and how it responded.

Sheep cohesiveness is the big clue.

The dog's first rule is to bind the sheep together by weaving around side-to-side at their backs, and once this has been achieved, it drives the group forward.

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