The Bloodhound and the Beardie Natural World

Holly is a bloodhound and a failure as a pet.

She's so destructive, she's had six homes in ten months.

Nobody can cope with her.

Now she's in a rescue centre but even here, her hyperactive nature is causing grief.

She's chewed up the seat of our recliner, Holly had pushed

a bone underneath the chair and then proceeded to dig though the top of the chair to the bone, and then she

didn't have anything better to do, so she casually leaned over and started biting at the back of the chair.

With such antisocial behaviour, Holly has little chance of finding a new home.

Two-and-a-half-year-old Herbie is a bearded collie and, like Holly, has been dumped at a rescue centre.

His previous owners kept him on a chain, for one reason...

Herbie loves sheep.

As a serial sheep-chaser, he's been lucky to escape a farmer's bullet.

Each year, 100,000 dogs in the UK and 6 million in the US end up in rescue centres.

But, for Holly and Herbie, there is a glimmer of hope.

With Larry Allen and Barbara Sykes, both expert dog trainers.

They're convinced the reason most dogs get out of hand is because we humans don't try to understand them.

And the trainers are putting their reputations on the line to prove it.

In just 12 weeks they will try to turn a potential sheep killer into a working sheep dog...

and a serious home wrecker into a valuable police bloodhound.

Bloodhounds have been used for centuries to track down criminals and find missing people.

Their sense of smell is up to 10,000 times greater than our own,

earning them the nickname of the 'nose with a dog attached'.

But their working role is now limited to a handful of police forces, mainly in the USA.

For 300 years the Bearded Collie was the sheep dog of the Scottish Highlands.

It was a droving dog, used to drive animals down the mountains.

But it became replaced by the more versatile Border Collie

with a stronger instinct for rounding up the sheep.

60 years ago, the Bearded Collie almost became extinct.

Both Holly and Herbie should have the potential to still do the jobs their ancestors once did.

But Barbara and Larry don't yet know what they are taking on with these unruly dogs.

As Herbie arrives at Barbara's working farm on the Yorkshire Moors,

and Holly at Larry's home in West Virginia,

both dogs face the most crucial 12 weeks of their lives.

This could be their final chance to find a permanent home.

THUNDER

Good girl. Easy, baby.

The weather is giving a cruel welcome to Holly,

but it provides Larry with a valuable nugget of information.

Holly's terrified of loud noise

and that's giving Larry some serious doubts.

THUNDER ROLLS

This dog has some noise issues. That first major strike, I was a little concerned that

this was not a good idea but...

That's a good girl, Holly.

At Barbara's farm in Yorkshire, she's keeping Herbie well away

from her other dogs so that he'll bond with her.

Hi, baby. Herbie. Hello, darling.

In Herbie's short life, he's been sold on a piece of string at a market

and kept tied up in a yard for three months to stop him attacking sheep.

It's no surprise he's insecure.

He's cowering behind me because he's really nervous.

He's seeking refuge behind my legs, which tells me I'm the only thing around here

he sees as stable, which, in such a short time, is quite nice.

His coat is in a mess, we don't know if there's something creeping about in there...

It's GOT to feel uncomfortable for him.

But he will have to go to a grooming parlour for the simple reason that he's already under stress.

If I start grooming him, if he's going to be upset, he's

going to blame it on me, which is the last thing I want him to do... .

Months of neglect have taken their toll...

This is probably the first time Herbie has ever been to the crimpers

and he's not too sure about it.

Come on, Herbie, come on.

Herbie's coat has been in a mess for some time.

It's absolutely filthy. In fact, it's a health hazard.

He is in quite a bit of a mess

and when they get to this stage the only thing you can do is chop them away.

He'll probably look strange, actually,

because they're supposed to have long coats anyway.

A beardie's coat takes time to look after...

but a Scottish shepherd would never have let his dog get into such a state.

Matted hair pulls the dog's skin and cracks it.

This is a magnet for flies to lay their eggs, and for maggots.

It should be a huge relief for Herbie not to have sore skin and knotted hair

but will this help him focus on his training programme and turn his life around?

We'll just tidy his head up so it keeps his character.

I think that's all we'll do with his face.

Look a smart boy, don't you?

Handsome lad.

In West Virginia, the next test for noise-shy Holly is to see how she gets on with other dogs.

Somebody else been out here?

Yeah.

Larry has five dogs

and Holly has to fit in.

-If Holly's aggressive it could set her training back.

-What is that?

That's another flop-eared dog, isn't it?

It's OK, Zig. Oh, Holly wants to play.

What I'm looking for right now,

I see no teeth, no growling, no aggression on either of the dogs' part, which is really what we want.

But we have happy tails, little boy, both of them wagging tails, both of them are ready to play.

No vicious dog there. And Ziggy...

Is that what you really think of her?

The bloodhound training begins by teaching Holly to track a human being by sight,

in this case, Larry's training partner, Sharon.

But before they start, Holly has to put on her work gear

and she's not playing ball.

The harness is... that we're having a little wrestling match with right now for some reason...

is her..

Come here, girl, easy.

Easy.

Where did that behaviour come from, Miss Holly?

The harness is her work clothes,

if she's not in harness she's allowed to be a dog, just to be a puppy.

It's just like a fireman putting on his fire gear or a policeman putting on his belt.

It's the same thing.

Miss Holly is going to do just a straight line chase of her subject.

Everything will be visual, the person's going to be running away.

She'll watch them.

And we're going to just see how she does.

Track.

Bloodhounds were once used to hunt down runaway slaves.

Now they're used to track missing persons and criminals.

Where'd she go? Where'd she go?

In the States, the identification of the accused by a bloodhound will be accepted as evidence by the judge.

Since I'm training this dog to go to a law enforcement environment

I want a physical contact identification

to where there is no doubt in the officer's mind,

the court's mind, and anybody's mind who the person is. It sounds kind of corny,

but I simply ask the dog.

I like a 100% positive physical contact where

there is absolutely no doubt that this is THE person I'm looking for.

Before she can start training Herbie, Barbara needs to see exactly how bad his behaviour is.

And he has to understand his place in the pecking order.

Herbie likes to think that he should do things first.

He wants to come out first.

I can't have him seeing the door as a release.

He has to see me as the person that releases him.

So I go into the pen with him. Come on, darling.

Now you see that he's actually wanting to come out first, and I can't allow him to do that.

And I don't like to use the lead as a total restrainer, it has to be me that stops him.

Hey, hey. Manners, manners, no, no...

just wait a minute. You can't be doing that. Come on, back here.

Just wait.

Herbie is horrendous on a lead.

He is pulling,

he's dictating to me what he wants to do. He wants to sniff, he sniffs.

He'll pull me here, he'll pull me there.

When he gets into the sheep, he's going to pull to go to the sheep.

I can't let him dictate, but he's a dog,

he wants to sniff, but I must tell him when he can sniff.

Now then, sit.

You were told to do something you're getting yourself high. Just wait there now, good lad.

We'll go in my time.

You can't be pulling. No.

Herbie, no!

No. Just wait. Everything has to start here.

It's no good trying to teach a dog a recall when he's running away at 30mph.

If you can't call a dog off sheep, you are stuck.

And Herbie's got a bit of a defiant lie down, out here. What he'll have in the sheep field, I don't know.

He's got a strong will, he's got stubbornness, but inside him, I think he's quite a nice guy, actually.

I sort of see him as a rebel wearing baggy trousers, and a baseball cap back to front.

Thinking he's real hard, and he's not, not really, he likes having a mummy, don't you, love?

Herbie's next test will be telling.

Right, OK. Herbie's telling me he wants this more than anything.

You see? That's what he's wanting.

That's not good.

That tells me straight away how naughty he could be with sheep.

Oh.. shake, shake, shake, that's the one thing we don't want.

Look at what he's telling us.

Hey!...Oi!

-Leave it.

-If Herbie's like this with a ball,

what will he do with sheep?

What he's telling us is, anything that moves, I want to get hold of it and I want to kill it. No.

So I've got to use this now to try and make Herbie listen to me and not his inner dark thoughts. Come here.

Wait... Don't you dare!

Sit!

Now wait.

Wait!

Wait.

Go on, no... no...

Go on... No.

Leave it... no!

Now you see it's when I try to call him off...

Herbie. Good boy!

No, no... don't jump up. Sit.

I still think he's a bit of a Jekyll and a Hyde, but he's extremely responsive, it doesn't take him long

to pick things up but, unfortunately, that means that he's an intelligent dog

and intelligent dogs pick up bad habits as quickly as what they pick up good habits.

This boy's got baggage, but I'm hoping that in the next

seven or eight weeks, I can get this dog so that he will work competently

around a flock of sheep and do it my way, not his way, and keep his mouth shut while he's doing it.

Wherever Holly goes, she's picking up hundreds of individual smells.

A trained bloodhound can detect the scent of a person who walked here three weeks earlier.

For we humans, understanding scent can be difficult.

The wind, humidity, temperature and surface composition

all affect the way scent drifts, as Larry explains.

As this particular smoke bomb starts to heat, notice how it begins to dissipate.

It's shifting off to the left.

A lot of it is being captured right along the base of the taller vegetation.

If I were walking down through here right now

based on the way the wind is blowing, as with the smoke, most of my scent is going to be going this way.

So even though the person walked down the centre of this roadway, that's not where the heaviest

concentration is, based on the wind, the temperature, the humidity and everything else. It's over here.

Not all bloodhounds can connect their brain to their nose,

so Larry is helping Holly to focus on one individual scent.

There's a tasty hotdog at the bottom of the bag which Holly's determined to get to.

Once she gets used to diving in the bag, the treat will be replaced with

something smelling of the person she's about to track.

In this case it's a gauze impregnated with Sharon's scent.

Sealing the scent inside the bag stops other odours from contaminating it.

Gotta get dressed.

That's my girl.

So this is the introduction of Holly, turn on your nose.

This is the first time Holly has been asked to link the scent inside the bag

to a person at the end of the scent trail.

Track.

Good girl, Holly! Good girl.

Little cry, or whimper that you may have heard as I was starting Holly.

The drills that I've done with plastic bags with her, had treats in.

When she stuck her nose in the bag, it was one of those cries of

'Dad there's no treats in here, I don't know what this gauze thing is, but where's my hotdog?'

So far, so good

but there are more scent tests to come.

Herbie's intensive training is beginning in earnest.

Barbara normally works with border collies.

She's never tackled a beardie before.

So she's getting some help from her top dog, Sky.

Notice, Sky, there's no way she's going to walk behind me

Sky's used to young upstarts like Herbie, and won't stand for any bad behaviour, which is just as well,

because Herbie's about to come face to face with his woolly friends.

The ladies know Bertie when they see him.

Wait.

I'm going to take Herbie into the ring and put him round the sheep and see what happens.

Don't know, not a clue, we'll find out when we get in there.

Wait... Wait...

Lie down.

Stay.

Dogs don't see as well as us in terms of colour and detail.

But they see movement much better.

So when the sheep begin to move,

Herbie reacts.

Sky keeps a watchful eye on him.

The aim is for Herbie to stay opposite Barbara and hold the sheep between them.

No, don't you DARE!

Keep that tail down. He really would have liked to have eaten that nose then. Steady.

See the tail starting to lift, because he's starting to get angry.

Don't, no, leave it, hold it.

We've got very mixed emotions at the moment, because he really wants to have a pop at these,

and he knows he shouldn't do, and what I don't want is for him to think that he can't stand up to sheep.

But neither can he go flying in with his teeth. Leave it.

No.

Good boy.

They don't work on their own, dogs.

They derive from the wolf not the fox, and they do need to

hunt in packs or pairs, which is exactly what he's doing now.

He's recognising that he needs some help to keep these where he

wants them, and he's more than happy to use me as a partner.

He's working purely and simply off my body language, the movement of my body, which is really, really nice.

I don't have to say anything to give him direction.

I like the way he'll go between the sheep and the fence.

We're holding them in a little packet between us and he's flowing so nicely.

He's just feeling his feet and he's working with me.

When I turn this way, he's going back the other way to hold them to me.

When I turn that way, he's going round that way.

There she is... she's trying to sort him out, and he's not...

Oh, look how close he's going to them without eating them.

Let me see if I can call him off these...

Wait... Wait.

Herbie, Herbie. That'll do.

Good boy. Wait...

Good lad. Excellent. Good lad.

Leave it. Wait.

No, I am impressed, because I haven't once had to pull it,

and the dog was stood there and he's been itching to go and he hasn't done, so that's a definite Yessss!

And Herbie can have a hey up, Matie...

You are such a good man. You're a good boy.

I want him to be able to wind up and wind down

because he should be able to have some fun. Herbie... Good lad.

But at the same time I want a very quick... Herbie!

That's it.

Stay there.

And we're getting there. Bit by bit, we're getting there.

He's a good boy.

Herbs, sit.

Good dog. Stay there.

In West Virginia, Holly's training to use her nose continues.

In the warm weather, it's vital she doesn't dehydrate.

With a nose that size when it gets dry and hot,

it really affects their scenting ability.

So keeping those mucous membranes moist is really important.

The way a bloodhound's nose works has to do partly with

the large, wet, sloppy jowls,

and the very large ears.

Because you can see that when Holly, if Holly will co-operate,

when Holly dips her head down, all of the skin rolls forward.

As she's holding her head down on the ground, basically those ears and skin folds, create,

if you can imagine a cone turned upside down,

that allows the scent to basically be trapped underneath their nose.

So in hot, dry weather like this, we really got to keep her hydrated.

Keep them big old lips wet, yeah keep them big old lips wet.

Yeah, how about that?

Them big old lips. That big old nose,

and that ear, yes.

You're a good girl.

Some police bloodhounds become cadaver dogs,

tracking down dead bodies.

Holly has to be familiar with the smells involved.

Any trailing dog, but particularly a dog in law enforcement at some time

in their career will encounter a body or other parts of bodies.

We don't expect the dogs to love it, we don't ask them to love it,

but it's another part of their journey on the road to wearing the badge.

Larry's soaked a gauze with human blood, and left it two days to start to decay.

The smell is pretty bad.

What that tells me is Holly has a very sensitive nose.

As to why she finds it repulsive,

I don't have a clue, but it's something in her make-up that she just does not like it.

Along with her dislike of noise, Holly's sensitivity to cadaver work may go against her.

But it's still early days.

Larry has no idea what Holly has experienced in her short life,

so he has to keep testing her with new scenarios.

Check... check...

Leave the goats. Yeah, they're funny looking dogs. Let's go.

-Even a metal dump becomes

-a very useful training ground.

Dumps and derelict buildings are popular hide-outs for criminals on the run.

If Holly's not familiar with the terrain, it could spook her and throw her off the trail.

But it's her aversion to loud noise that's still causing Larry the most concern.

If she's to become a law-enforcement dog, she's going to have to get used to hearing guns.

The dogs that we're working with have to be capable of dealing whether it's their human partner

having to fire his weapon, their backup firing their weapon, any type of noise.

Larry starts training with a tiny cap gun,

but even at 50 paces, it's still enough to frighten Holly.

Easy, easy, easy, easy.

If somebody fires a weapon and Holly decides to turn around and run the other way,

somebody's going to get hurt.

The last thing you want is a dog jumping up, because that puts her directly in your line of fire.

So desensitising her, or evaluating whether she can do it, is critical.

Wipe your slobbers on Mom, that's what Mom's shirts are for.

Larry and Holly have to overcome the noise issue or it could ruin Holly's chances as a working dog.

In Yorkshire, Barbara's putting Herbie's training up a gear.

The last time he was in a field of sheep, he got a little too attached to them.

Good boy.

Ah-ah-ah! Hey!

Good dog.

These sheep are going to run one way or the other and we're going to see what Herbie's going to do.

Good boy, Herbie.

Ah-ah! Herbie, no! No!

With only ten weeks' training ahead, Barbara has her work cut out.

YOU DARE!

Out. Lie down.

You will do it without a lead.

Lie down.

Now stay there... HERBIE!

You dare! Herbie!

Lie down!

Herbie! Herbie, don't you dare!

Herbie!

Sit. You sit.

Herbie!

I'll bloody well outrun you every time!

Go on, where do you want to go?

You won't beat me, sunshine.

Lie down.

Lie down.

Stay.

Come to me here now. Herbie, sit.

That'll do.

Now lie down and stay there.

Stay.

I am the boss, I am the boss!

I WAS the boss!

Get back up there, go on. Back.

Good boy.

Beautiful.

You are so good.

Dogs will often go and jump into water to cool down, and he discovered the trough one day

and I if don't get to him first, he gets straight in there.

I don't call him out, I think he'd sleep in there.

You can see him trying to get right down,

you can practically hear the water go sssssss as the hot body gets in it.

He's just not making any attempt to get out. He'll just sit there.

I have to say come on, you've been in there long enough, come on, get out.

Larry has approached law enforcement agencies across the country

telling them about Holly, and four have asked to know more about her.

Now, with five weeks of training left, Larry must start increasing

the difficulty of Holly's challenges, and he's travelling to a baseball stadium to do it.

While Holly and Larry are on the road, the game is getting underway.

Of the 2,000 people in the crowd, one will be Holly's target.

This time not even Larry knows where they have chosen to sit, or who the person is.

Thank you... Enjoy the game.

We all shed about 40,000 skin cells every minute,

creating pools of our scent wherever we go.

The longer we stay in one place, the more our scent builds up.

It will be Holly's job to separate these individual odours and then,

when the stadium is empty, track the exact seat where her target sat.

Overnight, the odours of the crowd have already begun to dissipate.

Pinpointing one seat among thousands seems a Herculean task.

The track is about 13 hours old, we had some real heavy thunderstorms

last night and wind, so the scent could be blowing all over the thing.

From what I know, the trail starts at the entrance, I have no clue where it goes in the ball stadium.

I don't know whether I'm going to the food stand, the beer stand, the

home-run seats, where I'm going, so it's a test for me too.

Holly's target probably did walk about,

but he'll have left the greatest concentration of scent around his seat.

Holly heads straight for the central section.

Come on, get to work.

Open-air seating makes this an enormous challenge.

But although much scent will already have dissipated, some should still remain.

Let's go.

Easy.

Here. Holly, find the man.

Check.

What?

What?

She says this area.

Jackpot!

With a bit more commitment on our part, we could unlock the skills of many so-called 'problem' dogs

no matter what their breed.

The real problem is that all too often we try to make them fit into our lifestyle.

But, of course, every dog does need rules.

There's four basic commands for a dog.

You stop, you stay, you come back and you walk behind when told to do so.

Somebody walks over the moor, there isn't a sheep in sight.

Suddenly a hare is put up, the dog chases the hare, it sees sheep over the hill and it's ongoing.

Just sometimes I get those people who say to me 'I had a dog but it

'got run over because I didn't have a recall on it.' They're heartbroken.

But it has to be a happy recall.

You don't need to flap your arms about and shout your dog.

All you need to do is say 'baby, that will do', and it should have its ears up, its tongue lolling and come

flying up to you and send you to the middle of nowhere as it runs up to you, it is that glad to be with you.

It shouldn't want to be away from you,

it should be practically wanting to get inside your pocket because it loves you that much.

You're lovely, aren't you?

Herbie never relaxes.

He's always 'got-to-be-doing, got-to-be-doing',

but we know that Herbie was ball crazy when he came,

so it was fetch a ball, get a ball, chew a ball, kill a ball.

He wants to chill.

In the pack they have two things, chill or kill.

They are either out killing because they're hunting or chilling in the pack area.

So if we don't teach dogs to chill they're going to be always on the go.

That's when you get the aggression problem.

Holly's become a much-loved member of Larry's family.

But her time here may be coming to an end.

Miss Holly is doing quite well.

As far as checking the blocks to get you guys started, I think she's there.

Feel free if you see something I've missed to beat me up over it.

"I don't think that's going to happen, Larry."

"We're all waiting to take a look at Holly, run her through her paces

-"and I'm sure she's going to do just fine."

-OK, thanks again, Bruce.

The Massachusetts State Police want to try Holly out.

That was your new daddy, Holly.

It's been an intense three months for Larry and Holly.

They've formed a deep bond.

It won't be easy to let her go.

There you go, kid.

Turn.

Thank you. OK, girl.

On the road again.

Did you get much sleep last night?

Much sleep last night?

Yeah, exhaustion helps.

Trying not to think about it too much.

She's just going on to complete her life's mission,

and I'm just a...

training stop in the road of life for Holly so...

The final week

and Herbie and Barbara are starting to look like a real working team.

Herbie seems to have left his bad traits behind.

But these sheep now know Herbie and he needs to face a test away from home.

Hey wait... Herbie!!

Barbara's managed to get him a small role in a forthcoming sheep dog trial.

He'll have to work with sheep he doesn't know under the critical public eye.

Lie down.

Lie down.

He's learnt what left is, what right is, what lie down is, what stand is,

what drive on is, what walk on is, what that'll do is.

He's taken an awful lot in and a lot of young dogs would have exploded at that,

wouldn't have taken it on or would have regressed,

which tells me he's got a heck of a brain capacity for learning.

Herbie, leave that.

Herbie.

Leave it. That'll do.

I can trust Herbie now.

I'm very much on tenterhooks that I don't want him to be a complete fool.

I want other people to see Herbie is not the little rogue he was when he first came here,

I want them to see that he's really a nice boy, and that he can do a sensible job of work.

The day of the Broughton Sheep Dog Trials has arrived.

This annual event attracts 15,000 people,

including many expert eyes ready to pick fault.

In a world where nearly all sheep dogs are border collies, not beardies,

it's up to inexperienced Herbie to be a good ambassador for his breed.

It's unlikely any of these sheep have seen a dog that looks like Herbie

and they're likely to find that unnerving,

so he's at a disadvantage from the start.

Sit. No! Sit and wait.

The trial involves a sheep dog driving a trio of sheep along a set course and into a pen.

That's well beyond Herbie's experience.

But once they've finished, his job is to move the sheep from here

to a holding pen in the corner of the field.

It's his biggest test so far.

The course is a nice course.

The distance that I have to go to get them from there to there is terrifying.

I have run in nine national trials and one international trial,

none as terrifying as this.

Especially given that the dog has been flying round the back of the car, screaming

when he saw those sheep pass the car.

So he's fired up already before he starts.

It's a long way for Herbie to go.

In fact he won't go that distance, I shall walk out to meet the sheep.

It's his initial contact with the sheep and, given the fact that there's people down here...

he's on a fresh field with fresh sheep, he'll like as not see those three sheep and say "Yeah!"

"Game on!" and fly them all over the field.

In which case, I'm going to quietly lay down on the floor and die.

How am I feeling?

You don't want to know. I have visited that little cubicle there more times

in the past hour than I would probably visit in a full week.

Holly's also facing make-or-break time.

she's about to face the high standards of the Massachusetts State Police.

And that old noise problem may be a sticking point.

When someone first goes missing, every moment counts,

and if a tracker dog can travel to the scene by helicopter,

it will save valuable time.

She's off to a bad start...

But Holly's not yet out of the game.

Easy!

The critical tracking test is still to come.

Track.

One of the big things we want to look at is a negative in a dog.

We'll see how quickly Holly can pick up the trail, follow it,

and if she does lose it,

how quickly and determined she is to locate it again.

Let's see if she goes in there.

Work it!

Work it! Let's go.

-Come on.

-In the tall grass, Holly's lost the trail.

They're not gonna help.

Let's go! Come on.

She needs to work fast to re-find it if she's going to make the grade.

Dog knows better.

Always trust the dog. Well, there you go.

Good girl. You did it.

Nice job, Larry. Nice strong job.

She got drifted off the trail.

Head came up and she realised she had missed the trail

and worked hard to get right back to the trail, and she chose the right direction.

She didn't backtrack whatsoever. Nice Job.

WHISTLE

The sheep dog trials are under way, and Herbie's chance to shine is almost here.

Once Farmer Jim's border collie drives these sheep into the pen, Herbie's job will begin.

Hey...

get back here now!

But Herbie's been watching the trials for nearly an hour,

and the tension is telling.

Get behind me.

Lie down.

Lie down. Lie down!

Hey! Stay there. Stay there.

Stay there.

The sheep catch sight of Herbie... and they're off.

Lie down...

lie down! Stay there...

Can you get them up for me, Jim? Stay there.

Lie down... Lie down!

As Herbie struggles to round up his charges,

the sheep panic, and one has broken ranks.

Can you help me out, Jim?

It's all beginning to go very wrong.

Herbie doesn't know which way to run.

His young mind's gone blank

and Barbara's powerless to intervene.

All her teaching's thrown to the wind.

With the sheep now amongst the cars Herbie's unceremoniously taken off the job,

and Jim's experienced collie restores calm.

It's what I would have expected. I would have preferred better.

-How old is he?

-About two-and-a-half.

He's not ready for fast sheep yet, and he was a rogue to start with.

Oh, well, plenty of time yet.

It's the first time he's had a go at a sheep and even then, he didn't do what he could have done...

I've never tried one of these beardies much...

It's just too much too soon, it's a lot of pressure for him, in't it?

And playing with three sheep that are splitting.

Well, yes, you're better off with a small flock.

Anyway, you did try.

-Yeah, Jim, cheers.

-Thanks.

You're not going to ask me to do this again today, are you?

Because he will have them down.

OK. Tell me how that was.

Holly's moment of truth is here.

Well, after looking at Holly today, careful consideration, running some of the evaluations.

Looking at the training you've done, which is extensive...

I'm very, very impressed with the amount of work that you've put into Holly,

the Massachusetts State Police would be honoured

if you would allow us to take her and see if we can put her to work.

Wake up, sleeping beauty.

Come on, kid.

Let's go. Come on.

Ohhh, big stretch!

'It's like the star pupil graduating and going on and doing good in the world

'or your number one daughter getting married'

and you want to make sure she has the right husband.

And you know, I'll tell you the same thing I told my other son-in-law... you mess her up and I'll kill you.

But the only thing that I would ask is that when you get that golden moment

of getting your first find with her, shoot me the e-mail,

send me the article and make me a happy daddy.

Welcome aboard!

There you go,

it's a whole new world.

Come on, let's go.

Give me a kiss, you big ugly redhead...

Good girl...

There you go.

She's got an experienced handler,

she's got two great trainers to work with him,

fantastic programme, it's a perfect fit.

It's beautiful.

Are you gonna miss her?

I'm going to miss her terribly,

but I've got two more sitting waiting to start next week.

So...

..can't be replaced, won't be forgotten,

but she'll do me proud.

It's the day after the trials, and Barbara's getting Herbie straight back to work...

he's already restoring Barbara's trust.

Well done!

He's using so much brain now.

He's keeping these sheep out of the way of anybody that's around him.

He's weaving and dodging around legs.

He's being so sensible, he just needs work.

He's lost all the bad habits that he had.

Trying to eat sheep and trying to be bolshy. His tail is down.

He's ready now to be given work.

Come back to me in 12 months, and I will have one hell of a dog there.

He's well mannered, he's reasonably obedient when I ask...

Lie down, now stay there.

Just gonna put this on, stay there.

Herbie will stay here till death us do part.

He will do jobs for me.

He will be working the flock, he will be a very, very strong and useful work dog.

You love any dog when you first get it,

but you build a bond up between you, so that by the time you get to having a dog that is Sky's age,

you are in each other's heads.

Herbie and I, I'm positive will develop that relationship.

We quite love each other, don't we, darling? Sit!

Now...we could fall out.

Herbie. Hey! Thank you.

He's my boy.

The team to receive Nespac Bloodhound Man Trailing Certification

is Sgt Bruce Hirons and canine Holly.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd