Training Q & A – Teaching the stop & driving

Trainer q&A

JAKE NOWLAN

Jake Nowlan is a young stockman based in New South Wales who works predominantly Kelpies and Huntaways. He has had a successful work and trial career including winning the Ultimate Stock Dog trial in 2015 and the All-Round Stock Dog title at the Stock Dog Spectacular in 2018. Jake has spent a lot of time working with and learning from top stockmen, including a recent stint in New Zealand for two years where he learnt a lot of different training techniques. Jake regularly travels to teach dog training schools all around the country.

How do you teach a dog to stop?

I have two stops. The first is a check whistle that stops the dog but enables it to keep working. It is handy for a lot of situations including trialling or if you are working in steeper country, and you need to take the weight off and just be a bit more cautious. The second is a hard stop that means the dog will not move until commanded to do so. The dog must remain on its feet with both these commands. I start imprinting these commands as soon as I get a young pup. When I teach him to come to me, I have the pup standing at my leg. I wait until it is in the right frame of mind – cool, calm and collected, showing no signs of anxiety in the forms of tail wagging, licking, jumping on me, sitting down etc. Once it is correct, I will rest my fingers on his back in between the hips and the last rib and give a little tickle and give a short, sharp but soft stop whistle. From then on, every time I feed my pup, I will call him to my leg. I make sure he is carrying himself correctly, and once he is, I give the tickle and the stop whistle and then he gets his food. You have to feed your dog every day, so why not use it to your advantage! By practising this, I can get a stop, come and the beginning of sides all at the age of about ten weeks, using very minimal pressure. Once you go to stock, most of your training techniques to get sides, stop and a call off have already been imprinted. The other big thing is that you are opening clear lines of communication with your dog from an early age.

Getting the stop on stock.

I will go into the yard, and I will call the pup and make it stay at my leg until I release it. So, walk in, call the pup to your leg and once it is in the right frame of mind, I will give it the stop whistle and the light pat/tickle between the hip and back rib. They already associate this contact with a calm mind because you have imprinted it with food from when they were a little pup. The next step is to get the sheep in a corner and create a stop with your body pressure. You want to use the smallest amount of your pressure that you can, so make sure you are not facing your dog when you stop it. If you are, I believe you are desensitizing your dog to your pressure. So, move it around and get into a position of control which is in between the dog and sheep, ideally in a corner. Use your positioning to create a space where the dog can go where it will feel comfortable to stop itself and not feel too much pressure once it has stopped. Once it gets used to stopping off the minimum amount of your pressure, just add the command.

The hard stop.

Once you have the check stop, it is easy to teach the hard stop. You just put a little extension on your stop whistle that sounds a touch harsher, and do not let the dog move at all until you ask it too.

How do you teach a dog to drive stock?

I start breaking down the dogs’ instincts to get to the head early in their education. After an initial assessment you can assess a dogs’ heading ability or lack of it pretty early, and I believe it is something they will never lose. With that said, 99% of my stockwork is driving, so I start it early. All my sides are put on with the dog between me and the sheep and I get them driving with a simple walk command. I will position myself three to ten metres beside the pup in a big area, and just ask it to walk into the sheep, and I will walk along with him. A good stop at this point helps, and if he goes to flank, I will just give a soft growl, a stop, then a calm walk command. They soon take it pretty well. The hardest dogs to teach driving too are pups that are really fixated on the head. They will struggle to just walk toward the sheep – they will want to keep shifting side to side and can get rather anxious about letting the sheep walk away. If one is struggling, you can get a cord about five metres long and just calmly walk with the dog. You can put a bit of weight on the cord to bring it forwards and if it flanks you have the cord to stop it.

Once the dog is confidently walking into the sheep, I gradually fade my position back and away from the dog until they can comfortably drive sheep away from directly in front of me or from a distance.

One of the main things you need to be careful of, is to make sure you get your dog walking well into the sheep and with a good understanding of taking sheep away before you ask for side commands. If you start asking for them too soon it can take away their force on the drive.

MICK HUDSON

Hypro Premium ambassador Mick Hudson has been around livestock and working sheep dogs all his life. He is a thirdgeneration stockman and dog trainer and has had generations worth of knowledge passed down to him. He musters cattle, sheep and wild goats with his MGH working dogs and also competes with these same dogs in 3 sheep trials, where he has had huge success including multiple Dog of the Year and Handler of the Year awards. Mick is a big believer in educating dogs to work stock correctly, with minimal command, and offers clinics and lessons at his property at Eumungerie.

How do you teach a dog to stop?

I do very little dry training (training away from stock) so nearly everything aside from a dog's name and a recall is done

on livestock. I use quiet, well broken young sheep and initially I teach the young dog to block off my body and training aid. Once a young dog knows what to do when it is being blocked, I block both sides with even amounts of pressure and raise my training aids, one in each hand. The dog should stop without command. After a few lessons when I raise my training aids the dog will stop automatically. It is being educated to stop while working livestock without command. It is quite easy from there to introduce a whistle or voice command at the same time as you raise your training aids. The most important thing handlers should keep in mind is that once the dog understands the command, it must stop on only one command. I often see handlers repeatedly asking a dog to stop, with little result. This is creating ignorance in their dogs.

How do you teach a dog to drive stock?

This is the last thing I teach a dog to do, as I educate the dog to drive using voice commands. Before I teach a dog to drive, it is well educated to work livestock correctly. The dog will have several voice commands already learnt and reliable. These commands will be stop, walk straight, steady, and clockwise and anticlockwise directional commands. I always make sure to use quiet suitable livestock. I position myself to the side of the dog initially, at the tail of the livestock, and ask the dog to walk forward behind the sheep. Reward is a particularly important part of any training, so as the dog obeys the command, I reward with my voice. If the dog gets out of position, I stop the dog and use my directional command to put it back in the correct position and ask it to walk forward again. Repetition is a major part of any training and with time, repetition, and reward you can achieve major goals with your dog. After a handful of lessons, the dog will start to understand what you are trying to teach and should catch onto driving quickly. The more experience the dog has at driving, the better they become. There is no substitute for experience in any training.