Sheepdog Training FAQ

FAQ – Links to our Frequently Asked Questions and Answers 101 about sheepdog training, dog obedience, and farm animals.

TRAINING OR WORK PROBLEMS (Also see General Questions below).

1. Attacking cattle – find out how to control your dog when it’s working.
2. Biting sheep’s faces – a fairly easily-fixed confidence problem.
3. Calling away from stock – get your dog to come away from sheep or cattle.
4. Commands for sheepdog training – teach your dog to work with traditional commands.
5. Darting at sheep if they move – the dog’s “getting the idea”, but needs guidance!
6. Dog won’t go round the sheep – get your dog to go round sheep and bring them to you.
7. Flank around stock both ways – it’s important to get the dog working in both directions.
8. Flanking too wide around stock – find out how to get your dog to work closer to the stock.
9. Get sheep away from fences – move the sheep to where the dog can go around them.
10. Outrun – What is the best way of improving a bad outrun?
11. Send the dog from your side – setting the dog up for an outrun.
12. Slow the dog down – learn to work the dog quietly, and keep it calm.
13. Stopping sheep going into pen – why the dog does this, and how to stop it.
14. Stop shouting at the dog – learn to work the dog quietly, and keep it calm.
15. Speed the dog up – if the dog works too slowly, here’s how to speed it up! 
16. Splitting sheep – how to encourage the dog to keep the sheep together.
17. Tail position – how the dog carries its tail as it works, tells us a lot.
18. Working without commands – such as at the top of the outrun.
19. Work a flock of sheep – moving on to work big bunches of sheep.

GENERAL QUESTIONS

1. Age to start training a sheepdog – What is the right age to train a working farm dog?
2. Barking – find out why the dog barks, and how to stop it.
3. Beginner with a trained dog – working with a dog who knows more than you!
4. Buy more than one puppy – Is it OK, or is there a reason not to?
5. Blue Heeler dogs – you probably know more about them than we do!
6. Chasing cars – and anything else that moves.
7. Different reactions of sheep near dogs – why sheep respond differently to some dogs.
8. Familiarising dogs with sheep – it’s great to get the dog used to sheep, find out how.
9. Fear of sheep or cattle – what to do if your cattle dog’s afraid of livestock.
10. Good recall – train your dog to come back when you call.
11. Huntaway dogs – you probably know more about them than we do!
12. Killing sheep – what to do with a dog which has killed sheep.
13. Living in the house – will it ‘spoil’ the dog’s farm work?
14. Older dogs – can you teach an old dog new tricks?
15. Retirement age for the dog – at what age should we retire our dogs?
16. Will the dog work sheep? – signs to look for, and how to encourage the dog.

If you can’t find the answer you are looking for, among the frequently asked questions and answers above, use the form below to ask a question yourself. Your email address will not be shared or displayed. (We try to answer questions within a day or so).

You can also ask questions privately via our Contact page but we prefer questions to be left on the website where others can benefit from our sheepdog training replies.

We recommend you watch our online Sheepdog Training Videos.

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