Sunday, December 5, 2010

Equipment Manners

Now what does this have to do with herding you say. Wellllll we train our dogs so they can help us with our chores. Much of what we do is with machinery. So if your dog is not familiar with the equipment then they will have no idea how to behave around it. They have no rules or boundaries. Sound familiar?

When traveling to the work place on a tractor, ATV, or even in a truck, the proper place for your dog should be behind you. If the dog is running around beside you or in front or playing with another dog running beside or in front of the tractor, his life is in extreme danger. So how do you train a dog to be and stay in the proper place?

In your basic training you like to teach sit, stay, down, and heal, obedience commands. The one command that we seem to miss is the “behind” command. This is a very easy command to teach your work partner. Try this: from the heal position while moving forward, using a training aid such as a sorting stick, give the “behind” command forcing the dog back with your stick. Of course it goes with out saying that repetition is what makes this command work as in all commands.


When working with equipment your concentration should be on the task at hand. You should not have to be worried where your dog is. PROTECT YOUR DOG teach the behind command.


Until next time