Last week, we discussed the type of “eye” the dog uses and I mentioned that in the Border Collie, a dog can be considered “strong, medium, or loose” eyed. The “eye” is one of the methods that a Border Collie uses to move the stock. A second strategy is the movement of the dog’s body, the action of wearing (weaving) in a back and forth motion OR the action of walking directly into the stock.

On a small group of sheep, wearing is not needed. If the flock is quite large, wearing may be preferable as this will result in more sheep moving. The dog can tuck in the sides of the flock resulting in movement. If the dog walks directly in, it will only affect the sheep in the vicinity and the sheep farther away might not feel the dog’s impact to the flight zone.

This is really all about the flight zone.

In last week’s blog, we helped teach Jesse to walk straighter to the sheep by changing the type of sheep we were working. LINK to last week’s blog.

In this week’s blog, I demonstrate how to help my dog, Sam, be more direct using a second strategy and that is the stop command - which creates more distance from the flight zone, thus allowing a more direct line to the stock.

Here is the training video!

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