Cattle dog
A dog bred to herd and drive cattle, often by nipping at their heels.
Also: heeler, herding dog, drover's dog
Cattle dogs move cattle by barking, circling and nipping, often at the heels, ducking low to avoid kicks. Many breeds come from this work. The Australian Cattle Dog, or blue heeler, was bred in nineteenth-century New South Wales for driving cattle over long distances. The Welsh Corgi was a heeler on Welsh farms, and the Rottweiler takes its name from the German market town of Rottweil, where it worked with butchers and drovers. The Swiss mountain dogs, among them the Bernese and the Entlebucher, drove cattle and pulled milk carts. A good cattle dog is still valued on farms and stations where cattle are worked on foot or horseback.