Two of my sons showed lambs in junior high and high school, so we ran lambs for 12 years. I’ve been training border collies for over 20 years, and in partnership I keep 50 to 250 nannies year-round, managed with dogs. Here is what I think you should know or consider to be successful with your running program.
Why the animal runs
An animal runs because it is afraid and it thinks it’s getting away. If the dog gets too close, most sheep or goats will turn and fight — just like we would. (If anyone will keep running, it’ll be the sheep, not the goat.) So your overall goal is to make them afraid and let them get away. Some folks think the dog needs to be up close pounding the animal all the way around the track. You end up with a chewed-up animal that eventually says “that’s enough — I don’t care anymore, just kill me.” What do you do then?
You may think that if you keep the dog far back, the animal will stop because it can’t see the dog. Put a bell on the dog’s collar. The animal associates the sound of the bell with the fear of the dog, and as long as it can hear the bell it will try to get away by running. It’s like footsteps in the dark.
What you need
To run lambs or goats as effortlessly as possible, you need two things:
- A dog that will chase the animal but is controllable enough that you can stop it, call it off, slow it down, or encourage it to be aggressive if needed.
- A track that allows continuous running without the animals breaking stride more than absolutely necessary.
Let’s cover each one, and then the problems that can occur — what caused them and how to fix them.
The track
Most people want long straightaways so the animals can stretch out. That’s good — but the longer the straightaway, the more time the dog has to catch the animal so it can pass it or bite it, and neither of those is needed if the animal is already running. We also tend to make the turns too narrow and too shallow, which makes the animals break stride — and gives the dog another chance to do his thing.
The more round a track is, the less the animal has to break stride. Yes, it cuts down on the straightaways, but it also reduces the chances of the dog and the lamb or goat getting too close together. When they get too close, you cross the fight-or-flight zone — and they generally stop, turn and fight. That’s a problem a change in track design could have avoided. You can still have straightaways, but you’ll have to do a better job handling the dog — maybe make the turns longer and bank them so the animal can run right through.
The dog
Most dogs don’t understand the concept. All they know is that they get to chase. Some actually want to catch the animal and put a mouth on it; some don’t want to catch them at all.
- If the weaker dog gets too close and the animal stops to turn and fight, the dog doesn’t want to fight. The animal figures this out, the running is over — and now you probably have the lambs chasing the dog. Goats will just stand there.
- Most young dogs, when first challenged, run backwards or away from the lamb because there’s nowhere else to go. That sends the wrong message too. With time and maturity they find out the animal really can’t hurt them and stand their ground — but do your groundwork so this doesn’t happen. It hurts the dog’s confidence, and what the animal thinks of the dog ends up the exact opposite of what you need.
- The stronger dog that wants to catch the animal will really chew it up when a fight starts — because the track allowed the dog to catch it, or the dog wasn’t controlled or handled well enough.
A weak dog is less likely to cause a fight — and less likely to chew up your animals — if you help train the animals to be afraid of it. Do it right and they never discover its weakness.
Training the animals to be afraid
Lambs and kids don’t forget the things they fear. If you teach an animal to fear a dog because pain is associated with it, and a sound is associated with that pain and fear, you could run your animals with a Chihuahua — all it has to do is carry the sound. The pain can be the bite of a hotshot or the actual bite of a dog. So why don’t people use a Chihuahua? Because you need a breed with a desire to work stock; other breeds quit after a few laps or a few days.
Do this when the lambs or kids are young and impressionable — not when they’re much bigger than the dog, full of high-energy feed, overweight, and not inclined to exercise. Train them to be afraid when they’re young and small, and they’ll never forget it.
There are two ways to build the association:
- The halter method. Put the animal on a halter and the dog on a lead. Hold the animal’s head up (when a lamb or kid fights, it puts its head down — this way it’s defenseless) and encourage the dog to be aggressive. As the dog makes a move, ring the bell and hit the animal with a hotshot, or let the dog take a nip. Immediately pull the dog back and stop the bell. Wait 20 or 30 seconds and do it again. The animal should be bug-eyed. If so, put it up and repeat tomorrow. About two days is enough.
- The small-pen method. Put the animals in a small area — a double horse stall or a 20×30 pen. Put the bell on the dog’s collar and turn him loose. He’ll run through, grab, and scare them. Let the dog drag a cord so that if things get out of hand you can step on the cord and catch him — that keeps the dog able to maneuver in a fight instead of running away. A dog that isn’t very strong is more likely to be aggressive in a larger area than in a 4-foot track, and if he can convince the animals to be afraid of him there, he won’t have to do it on the track.
Either way, next put the animals on the track and get on the inside with the dog on a lead beside you and a hotshot in your hand. Approach the tail of the animals; if they don’t take off, hit them with the hotshot — make sure the bell rings when it happens. Follow them around until they run continuously. Remember: you’re on the inside of the track, not in it — that way you have complete control of the dog. What the animal learns: when I hear the bell, I get bit or stung — so I run to get away.
Day 3: take them to the track and put the dog in with them. You should be in the center of the track working the dog — a livestock paddle is very handy for this. If the dog gets too close to the stock, step in front of him and hold the paddle over the track where he can see it. As he slows down, give him a command like “Easy” or “Slow.” As you see him slow, pull the paddle back and step back, releasing him to run again. You’re just trying to make him break stride so the animals can open the gap by a step or two — coming out of the turns is a good place to do it. If you want the dog to keep running, stay behind him; as he goes from side to side, you go side to side on a smaller circle in the center.
Not sure you can keep the dog far enough back? Put one of his front feet in his collar — make him three-legged. It slows him down enough for you to get a feel for where the dog needs to be to keep them running. Run two laps, take them off — they think they got away. Don’t leave the bell on the dog’s collar or hanging in the barn where the wind can make it ring; if the animals hear it a lot, it won’t have the effect it needs to have. The next day you run, quit after three laps, and so on until you’ve worked up to your goal.
The first days with a new dog
When you buy a dog and take it home, don’t try to run it the first day. Make friends with the dog. Let it start to feel comfortable in the new surroundings. A dog is not a tool like a hammer — you can’t start using it right away and lay it down when you’re through. A dog is like a new employee or a new member of the family: give it a chance to get in a groove before you put it to work.
Put the dog on a lead and take it for short walks. Ask it to “Lie Down” and step on the lead if necessary — that establishes the pecking order. Take the dog to the track without stock on it and walk around. Let the dog smell all the smells; you don’t want anything scaring the dog when it’s time to run. Enforce the lie-down right there on the track and praise the dog for obeying. The dog has to enjoy what it’s doing and know who it’s working for. A few extra days go a long way in securing a long relationship. See Taking Your New Track Dog Home for the full first-week plan.
Common problems — cause and correction
Correction: You didn’t teach them to be afraid of the dog and the noise, and they’re out of shape — it would have been better to be running a little all along instead of waiting. Build stamina: run 2 laps for a couple of days, then 3, then 4, and so on. Small amounts of exercise can be run on consecutive days until you’re up to the amount you want. You can also let the stock rest a few minutes after a couple of laps to catch their breath — the pause shouldn’t hurt what you’re trying to do; people take breaks between sets when they work out. You may also have to retrain the association between the bell and some sort of pain.
Correction: Several causes. The track may not be letting the stock run hard, and the dog may just be turned loose instead of being handled. If this dog has a lot of herding instinct, passing is natural for him — he needs a slow-down command, something to make the dog break stride so the animals gain a step or two. Also, the track design may be keeping the animals from stretching out; if they’re breaking stride too many times and you can’t reconstruct the track, try banking the turns so they can run through them.
Remember: the idea is for the stock to fear the sound of the bell, because they associate it with pain. The dog carries the sound, but he never gets so close that they feel like they have to turn and fight. They always feel like they’re getting away — and their stamina has been gradually increased so they can run a long time if need be. Train the animals to be afraid of the dog and the noise, put them on a track where they can run without breaking stride, and handle your dog so he never crosses that fight-or-flight zone. Do these things and your running will be effortless and over in a few minutes. Good luck!
P.S. Most of the dogs I sell are young, because there aren’t many old track dogs out there for sale — most people’s kids show for 8 or 9 years, and by then the dog is too old to sell. Do your groundwork to build the young dog’s confidence so things go well while you’re waiting for it to mature and become that old dog you’ll never replace.
Archive note: Restored from the 2006 archive of the original “Running Dogs” page, lightly edited for readability with the owner’s voice preserved.