#Pair of pugs becomes unlikely cattle herding pros

Pet pugs Paisley and Tuff have lassoed the hearts of social media after footage of their impressive cattle and goat herding technique went viral earlier this month, wrangling over 1 million views on social media.

Despite their 15-pound frames, about 60 to 80-times smaller than the average heifer, these pugs can command a crowd of cows as well as any of the herding breeds, such as German shepherds or sheepdogs

In fact, Paisley, 3, and Tuff, 1, were trained by rancher Sara Jean Wedel, 26, and her other herding dogs, all border collies, at the Silvies Valley Ranch resort, in Seneca, Oregon, where they live and work.

“It started when I felt bad for leaving Paisley inside all day while we were out working, so I started taking her along on short days and discovered she was mimicking the border collies,” Wedel told Caters News.

“I started teaching her basic commands for cow dogs and she picked up on it and loved it,” said Wedel, who said “it was the same scenario” when Tuff joined the family.

Now, the pug pals will become “depressed” if they’re not invited on the chore.

While there’s no substitute for all-natural cuteness, a robotic dog in New Zealand recently proved to be a suitable stand-in for a herding dog, during a test run of the autonomous, four-legged machine called “Spot” by tech company Rocos.

Their CEO David Inggs assured that his canine bot was still no match for the real thing.

“Real dogs have generations of instinct that would be very hard to replicate in an AI system,” he said.