I don't think Orlanthi would ever stoop to using dogs, but that's just my own opinion. I also don't believe that alynxes can be used for herding. Cats are hunters. Killers rather than protectors. Solitary rather than pack animals. But that's my own RW bias coming in.
The question I have to ask is WHY do the Orlanthi need animal helpers to herd?
For TENS of THOUSANDS of years, human beings in the real world herded sheep, goats and cattle by themselves. The advent of trained dogs to herd sheep in europe is a very recent development. Only a few hundreds of years old. Even today the rest of the world (except maybe ex-commonwealth countries where the technique was shipped out with colonists) don't use animals to help them herd.
A human is more than capable of herding animals. All it takes is for the herder to _remain_ with their flock. The animals treat the herder as a parent/protector and don't tend to wander. The reason Orlanthi would regard herding as a low status profession is that not only is it hard work supervising the animals all the time, but you end up sleeping on hillsides for nights on end, snuggled with your flock for warmth and finally smelling of the beasts. Its a lonely and often dangerous job, especially if there are broo on the rampage.
Historically in the real world dogs were used for three things. Firstly if you were rich it was a status symbol to have hunting dogs. You had to be rich to be able to support them (not easy during lean times in the dark ages or earlier). Secondly they are good at guarding. But again they were probably only used as such once human standards of living and food production produced enough surplus to support such luxuries. Thus this starts to happen during the middle ages. Thirdly they are a source of food. There are vast amounts of cooked/scored dog bones excavated in London refuse pits from the iron, through roman and into dark ages.
Dogs are great scavengers, following and inhabiting human settlements to eat scraps. Fifteen hundred years ago a european farmer would tend to regard them as a Pavisite would regard a rubble runner. I.e. a good source of protein.
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