Despite having little training our Kelpie, Molly, reaches basic Sheepdog Status!
Training a Kelpie still feels experimental for us, but we’re learning together – and enjoying it.
Sheepdog training sessions have been few and far between here recently. This is because we’ve been busy updating the sheepdog training tutorials as well as working on the website. But after a really good session with Scylla today, I thought it was high time Molly had a session.
We were seriously impressed with Molly early in July. But in her next lesson, she seemed to have lost interest a little. So we gave her another break from training.
Back from a break
When I brought her out into the field today, the sheep were a good eighty metres away. I didn’t want to put any pressure on her at all. Rather than walk down the field to get closer to give Molly a better chance of success (as I normally would), I decided to simply send her off. I wanted to see what happened.
At first Molly seemed a little confused. It was as though she wasn’t sure whether I wanted her to approach the sheep, or whether we were going to do something else. My making a “shushing” sound soon showed her what I wanted. Molly went off towards the sheep on a lovely outrun, and widened out as she approached them. She gathered the sheep together beautifully, and brought them to me at a steady pace. Wonderful!
I gave Molly a good session of flanking both ways, doing short outruns and bringing the sheep up behind me. I can honestly say that if our sheep escaped into a neighbour’s field and Molly was our only dog, I wouldn’t hesitate to take her. Molly would help get the sheep back. This is my benchmark for a sheepdog. So, as far as we’re concerned, Molly qualifies as a basic sheepdog.
Clearly she needs more training. But when a dog is as easy to train as Molly, training’s a real pleasure. Of course I’m still concerned about her lack of interest in the previous session. However, if she enjoyed today’s session as much as I did, she’ll be fully focussed next time.
If you’re thinking of training a Kelpie or Border collie to work sheep, take a look at our online tutorials at the Working Sheepdog Website.
SHEEPDOG TRAINING VIDEOS ON DVD
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