Category: Sheepdog training tips and advice
Teach your dog to herd stock with help from our sheepdog training tips and advice category
Read our collection of entertaining and useful blog posts. They will give you a better insight into herding and cattle dog training. For example, if you’re wondering whether to work on flanks, stopping your dog, or the dog’s working distance from sheep or cattle, we think an exercise we call “Backwards is the Way Forwards” will be a great help! It teaches them all at once! To do it properly though, you must have basic control of the dog around stock.
Our sheepdog training tips and advice blogs will inspire the creative sheepdog trainer that’s within you. Teach your dog to herd stock!
What shall I do next? Our sheepdog training programme
Watch our tutorial for a recommended sheep dog training programme. There’s so much for a young sheepdog to learn, but does the order matter? Is there a correct sheepdog training program or training itinerary that will suit all dogs? Every sheepdog, like every handler, is an individual so there are few hard and fast rules in sheepdog training. However, this tutorial shows you the basic… Read more.
Close work with your dog
A useful sheepdog needs to be confident when it’s working sheep in yards and buildings. A huge outrun might be a sheepdog’s most impressive skill, but any working dog is likely to spend more time on yard work – penning, pushing, holding and loading sheep – than it is gathering them. The outrun will save the shepherd’s legs, but a dog who’ll move sheep in… Read more.
Portia’s training upgrade at Dean Farm
Training a sheepdog for working a larger number of sheep Note: In terms of training, the actual number of sheep discussed in this article, is not as important as the step-up in flock size compared to the dog’s previous experience. Increase flock and field sizes slowly. A welcome invitation! Busy schedules have reduced opportunities for our dogs to gather sheep away from home recently. As… Read more.
Looking at the Point of Balance
Is the point of balance always in the same place? You’ll often hear that the dog MUST stop at 12 o’clock, on the “point of balance”. The theory is that if you imagine the handler is standing at 6 o’clock on a clock face, the dog should be directly opposite the handler – at 12 o’clock. In early training, when you’re both working close to… Read more.
Improve a bad outrun, by going back to basics (FAQ)
QUESTION: What is the best way of improving a bad outrun? ANSWER: The most common reason for your dog doing a bad outrun is: you sent it too far, too soon. Read on for more details. Ways of improving a bad outrun There are many opportunities for things to go wrong when you send your dog to gather sheep, so let’s look at ways of… Read more.
The training programme that we recommend
Training tutorials that guide you through a recommended programme of sheepdog training – what to do, and when to do it. The early stages of sheepdog training, especially for a beginner, can seem daunting. There’s so much for the dog to learn, and it can be hard to decide on what to teach first – is good flanking more important than stopping on command? What… Read more.
Working off balance – Sending the dog the ‘wrong way’
Our “Sending the dog the wrong way” tutorial introduces a great exercise for widening the dog’s flanks and outrun. Just as when we teach shedding we ask the dog to ignore a basic lesson (NOT to run through the sheep) this time we want the dog to work off balance. We’re asking the dog to forget the rule of stopping at the back of the… Read more.
Featured tutorial – Why Your Dog Should Flank Both Ways
It’s important that your dog will flank both ways around the stock For day-to-day farming tasks you might be able to work around your dog’s shortcomings, but when the unexpected happens (as it surely will) you, your dog, or more likely your sheep, will run into trouble if the dog is reluctant to flank freely in both directions. Why Your Dog Should Flank Both Ways… Read more.
Use a Reward to Get Training on Board
Dogs benefit from a reward for their efforts, and sheepdogs are no exception. Luckily for us herding dogs have a huge capacity for learning, but in order to teach our dogs the things that we want them to do, there must be some kind of reward for them. When we train our dog to work cattle, sheep, or other livestock, the dog’s reward is the… Read more.