Hey Dog Lovers,
As a personal dog owner of a Herding dog (Australian Cattle Dog) I know the struggles of training through the herding behaviors. One of the first things they start to do is become “fixed” on something and trying to teach them to not enjoy staring at things. This does not happen in all cases with herding dogs but it has happened to a few.
Instead of letting your puppy first see and get herdy with a moving car, motorbikes, a bird, a cat, wildlife, a shadow, planes, running kid and your own dogs moving around, create some highly reinforcing experiences with playing with and herding things you have 100% control over like dog toys. Once playing and herding the toys is established, you can then have your puppy look at the things you don’t want him to herd and mark and feed treats after 1 second of looking without thinking of moving toward the thing. Then you can mark and feed for ignoring the distraction.
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