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Example:

The sheep were being chased by a pack of hounds. Finally, both [...] reached a cliff and the sheep, seeing there was no escape, jumped from it.

I checked on Google's dictionary and I think parties only applies to humans:

party
a group of people taking part in a particular activity or trip.

Is there an animal equivalent? Or something close to it?

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    In "pack of wolves" and "herd of sheep", the words pack and herd are called "terms of venery". Since venery is concerned with giving names to collections of animals, we might have investigate how that term itself is defined, to see how it labels these collections in the abstract, and if it uses any special terminology for the abstract collection. Short answer is that "term of venery" is almost always defined as the practice of labeling "groups of animals". So your best bet is group. Another option is to use the alternative name "nouns of assembly" and call them assemblies.
    – Dan Bron
    Commented Sep 20, 2015 at 12:07
  • But you can see neither group nor assembly is specific to animals, and since, then, he latter word Han claim no advantage over the former, it's probably a better idea to go with the more common and more easily-understood group.
    – Dan Bron
    Commented Sep 20, 2015 at 12:08
  • Why did you discard group? It's there in the question title.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Sep 20, 2015 at 13:01
  • @Mari-LouA Sometimes there's a more specific and apt word. For example, when humans go out adventuring in groups, they're known as parties (and if you only used "adventuring group", you'd miss out on that word). Now, I don't think there is a better or more specific word in this case, but never hurts to ask.
    – Dan Bron
    Commented Sep 20, 2015 at 13:21
  • 2
    I suppose you could call them a "party" if they're "party animals".
    – Hot Licks
    Commented Sep 20, 2015 at 13:52

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If you mean both the pack of hounds and the herd of sheep, you could simply use groups. Finally, both groups(/of animals) reached a cliff and .... I think this is perfectly fine.

If your looking other words to describe a particular group of animals then you could check this wikipedia link out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_terms_of_venery,_by_animal

But, if you really mean to describe two separate group of different animals by a single word, then I think group is fine.

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I think that the only generic expression that may fit all kinds of animals is animal group:

  • a group of animals

Ngram: animal groups

  • both animal groups reached a cliff and ...
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