Training People

[AdmiralGonsiorowski]

My father-in-law has mentioned since he heard about Ski that he could use a border collie around his farm. He has a herd of cattle that he works alone, now that his kids have moved out, and he often needs help seperating out young cows, moving them around, and loading them up into the trailer. And while I do think he could use the help of a good dog, I know him. He wouldn't be able to train a dog, and he would never accept positive training methods or the kind of relationship where you keep a dog in the house. He has had working dogs before, but none that he trained, and none for serious work. Just pointers and retreivers that he made use of for the occasional quail hunt.

 

So I'm wondering, is there a way to train someone to use dogs? If he had a trained working border collie (or australian cattle dog, or blue heeler for that matter) would he be able to make use of it? Or do you have to know how to train them to know how to work them?

 

While we're at it, does anyone know of some good websites about working cattle with dogs?

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

Cowdog Forum

You have to sign up but there's a ton of information there for someone looking into using dogs to work cattle - lurking for a while would give your FIL a really good idea of what it takes to use a dog properly.

 

If he doesn't want to train, he could probably find a dog via that forum, that would do basic chores and get him started, for not much money.

[AdmiralGonsiorowski]

Thank you, Rebecca. I'll give that forum a look as soon as they authorize my account.

[hsnrs]

It is mainly a cowdog forum but we do ask about sheep and goats from time to time (also ducks). Really helpful people there. Any others you would recommend? N