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Watch the “Sheepdog Whistle” tutorials to get your dog moving
There are some common misconceptions about whistles and sheepdogs. The first, and very common, is that you must have a shepherd’s whistle to train and work a sheepdog – you don’t. If you have only a few sheep, and a relatively small area in which to keep and work them, you might never need to use a whistle at all.
Dogs’ hearing is far better than ours, and although your dog might appear not to hear you on occasions (mentioning no names – KAY) unless you’re working over 150 metres away, or shouting into a strong wind, the chances are that your dog’s perfectly aware of your commands.
An important part of basic training is to use a soft voice to tell the dog you’re pleased when it’s working well, and a sharper voice to let the dog know you’re not pleased when it’s working badly. It’s extremely difficult to express how you feel, by blowing a whistle!
Secondly, less common but still surprisingly frequent, is the belief that, in some spooky way, a collie is “wired” to understand and obey a whistle without any training. I can only imagine that this was born out of watching “One Man and His Dog” on TV. Of course the huge majority of sheepdog triallers, even at Nursery level, use a whistle, but the whistle commands have to be taught just as do any other commands in any other discipline.
Thirdly, that it’s a challenge to blow a sheepdog whistle, but it’s not challenging, exactly, any more than playing the trumpet is challenging. Blowing a sheepdog whistle simply involves learning a technique and then practising – far away from your dogs and your loved ones.
The final, fourth, misconception is that teaching whistle commands to your dog is difficult, but there’s no reason why teaching whistle commands should be any more difficult than teaching voice commands.
For anyone who’s contemplating using a sheepdog whistle, and doesn’t know where to start, or who’s hoping to train whistle commands to their dog, we have two tutorials in the Online Training Tutorials library that will be a huge help. In “The Sheepdog Whistle” Andy demonstrates a tried and tested technique to get you blowing your whistle in minutes.
Once you can make a sound, any sound, you’ll find you quickly improve and can begin to invent your own whistle commands (or copy someone else’s, of course). This tutorial’s had lots of positive feedback from people who’ve finally discovered the key to their whistle – sometimes after years of trying and failing.
“Teach Your Dog Whistle Commands” shows you that it’ll be harder to learn to blow your whistle than to teach the commands to your dog. Andy explains two methods of teaching the commands so you can pick whichever seems more natural to you. “Teach Your Dog Whistle Commands” has been greatly revised since it first appeared in the online tutorials library. It now includes a training session where Andy teaches Bronwen to work on whistle commands.
Online Sheep and Cattle Dog Training Tutorials
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