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Urban Remote Herding Array

playtoys for the city sheepdog
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A friend of mine has a new dog with extreme herding tendencies. She's ok as long as the party is on, but whenever someone attempts to leave, she does everything she can to block them, and return them to the herd.

She herds cars......fortunately my friend lives on an isolated road. The dog clearly needs somebody to play with - ideally a half-dozen sheep or so.

Enter the Urban Remote Herding Array. Your urban herder wears a collar with short-range send/receive capability, positional location technology, and a reasonable amount of processing capability.

Each of the Remote Control Sheep [RCS] have similar technologies as required. An RCS is essentially a remote-controlled car with a stuffed animal resembling a small sheep on top.

The RCS receive the signal from the dog's collar, and take evasive action within their programming limitations. If they get too far from the collar transmitter, they cease movement and wait for instruction.

The basic programming is to evade when able, but if cornered or sufficiently harassed to go in the direction they are herded in. Parameters allow for both group movement and individual movement based on the degree of difficulty of the program the dog's owner loads.

The base station unit can be set to run a program automatically, and bring everybody home at dinnertime. Or you can give it to the kids to play with, and tell everybody to stay out of the street.

The high-end model incorporates pulse and respiration sensors in the dog collar, and reins in the game when things get too heated.

Me, I'll stick with cats and horses.

normzone, Mar 31 2005

Pavlovian Whistle Cell Phones Pavlovian_20Whistle_20Cellphones
[theircompetitor, Mar 31 2005]

Flocking Road Cones Flocking_20Road_20Cones
Is this the problem that Flocking Road Cones is the solution to? [hippo, Apr 01 2005]

Potential technology http://peterthink.b...ext_step_for_r.html
[normzone, Sep 17 2007]

Here's an idea that drew me back to this one - The owner of the above referenced dog started out with cocker spaniels. Meat-flavoured_20bubbles
[normzone, Sep 18 2009]

bumper car swarm bots http://www.botmag.c...rticles/vex_2.shtml
technology that could be adapted to this purpose [Sparkyplugclean, Sep 18 2009]

[link]






       [UB] Well, duh. Some of them have got one blue and one brown eye. Well cute.   

       What's that you say? They are highly intelligent and active, need constant stimulation and an huge amount of exercise and may go completely bonkers and start ripping neighbourhood cats apart and biting bicycles if deprived of these, eh?! ...
...
And you wouldn't recommend them to urban dwellers?
  

       Yeah, but they're soooo cute.
squeak, Mar 31 2005
  

       We had a mad Kelpie that used to eat rabbit bait and then herd gravel trucks. It eventually succumbed to diff-rash.
goldilox, Mar 31 2005
  

       //succumbed to diff-rash// Hah! My keyboard is covered in exhaled coffee!
AbsintheWithoutLeave, Mar 31 2005
  

       Well, I just like this idea and I think the dog would too.+
zeno, Mar 31 2005
  

       Did anyone *say* they didn't like it. No. We just said it was stoopid to keep a collie in the city.
squeak, Mar 31 2005
  

       UB - do you think it's possible that your experiences have less to do with the fact that the dog was a collie, and more to do with the fact that it was completely fucking insane?
salachair, Mar 31 2005
  

       Fortunately my friend actually does live out in the country - on a hillside above Cuyamaca Lake, for those of you who have a passing familiarity with the scant areas we have designated wilderness of sorts in Southern California.   

       And he has never been the sort of dog owner to choose as I would. This dog follows a couple of cocker spaniels, a breed of which the less said, the better.   

       Funny, I expected the Bluetooth / RFID / GPS crowd to eat me alive on this one, but instead we're having a meeting of the " I've known one of those " society. Great stories, [Unabubba], and I've known similar dogs.   

       Dog owners are usually one of two groups. Responsible and disciplined to a fault, or the "But he's so cute" crowd. I've little patience for them myself, unless their owners have them under control, and then it's all negotiable.   

       Ok, I give up. What's [diff-rash] ? Is that related to high-speed hot lead injections ?   

       If this became common, frequency assignments might be a good idea.
normzone, Mar 31 2005
  

       [normzone], the diff[erential] is part of a vehicle's drive train. It is normally located underneath the vehicle, a gravel truck in this case.
goldilox, Apr 01 2005
  

       Love the idea. My brother's got some kind of shepherd dog (it's a mutt), but she's friendly. Break out the laser pen and she'll herd it till she passes out. I'm sure she'd love these sheep, as I've seen her herd his other dog (golden retriever) by nipping at his heels.
AfroAssault, Apr 01 2005
  

       We live in the burbs and our family has a Border collie gold lab cross. Phenomenally patient, gentle and smart dog but lives for the tennis ball. Such an incredible mutt that I feel this irresistible urge to brag and I... what was the idea again?   

       Damn. I have difficulty appreciating many dogs, but the cross you describe sounds appropriate....bark.
normzone, Apr 01 2005
  

       Normz, this is the funniest thread I've read in a while. I've been considering getting a corgi,altho my spouse would prefer an Austrailian sheep dog. I can see this would be a bad choice in our suburban setting. We have 2 old fat, spoiled cats. Any recommendations from anyone on corgis?
dentworth, Apr 01 2005
  

       I can't believe no one's linked Flocking Road Cones (see link) to this idea yet. This could be the problem that FRC has been waiting almost 4 years to be the solution to.
hippo, Apr 01 2005
  

       Un-flocking road cones?
phoenix, Sep 18 2009
  

       Technology exists (see link)
Sparkyplugclean, Sep 18 2009
  

       So now that drones are doing this sort of thing and nobody thinks anything of it (okay, maybe your grandparents are taken aback), I thought this up all on my own back in '05.   

       I cannot have been the first - I wonder what prior art existed even then ?
normzone, Jan 28 2020
  
      
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