Most people don’t think of sheep as the most intelligent animals out there. But contrary to popular belief, sheep can be quite smart. Flause, a one-year-old Dutch Spotted Sheep from Yew Tree Farm School, is a great example.
Thanks to the guidance of farm employee and trainer Millie Clark, Flause is capable of doing all sorts of tricks that you wouldn’t expect from sheep. Yew Tree Farm School recently shared a video on its social media that shows Flause listening to Clark’s commands, jumping through hoops, and much more. The video quickly spread through the internet and made the clever sheep an internet star.
Clark says that she used clicker training with Flause and was shocked at how well the sheep responded to it. Clicker training is usually used to train dogs and involves telling the animal that it did what you asked with a clicker and then rewarding it for the action.
According to Clark, she worked with other animals from Yew Tree Farm School, including pigs, horses, and dogs. However, no animal responded to the training so well as Flause did.
Studies have shown that sheep are intelligent animals that are capable of solving various tasks quickly. In most cases, they only need several tries to learn simpler actions. Sheep are believed to have similar IQs to cattle and pigs.
