You have me there - my experiance is limited to sheep herding and the dogs I know of always work with a human.
When the BIL is in town, they put a ‘temp’ out in the field - in this case, the dogs keep on eye on the temp as well. I had thought of going over during the deer season so he could have an extened time off & I could could get a shot at -
a big deer
some DX
Yeah, herding dogs are completely different since the herding instinct is actually a modified attack and must be under human control. These dogs are usually high-energy friendly types that incidentally do their job by scaring the bejessus out of the sheep! Livestock guardians are the complete opposite. They want to protect the sheep because they think they ARE sheep too, and the sheep agree. They are large intimidating dogs, but very low key and quiet unless danger threatens.