But Anne - we are talking working sheepdogs here. What is your experience in training these types of dogs?

Have to agree.Having been around working sheepdogs,quite a lot,and having been on one of Barbaras courses,her dogs love her ,she loves her dogs. If i remember rightly this beardie had been chained up for 12 mths deprived of the job he was meant to do.!!!!!!!!

Quite extensive really considering a large number of ex-workers that are handed over to us because they're no longer of any use , mainly collies, g.hounds, springers, Shepherds, Rotties. Although often we're trying to redirect or train out their working traits so that they can find pet homes.
At the end of the day there was no need for Sue to be so heavy handed with Herbie, more praise and less aggression and I'm sure she would have gotten better results.

I'm not debating that, it great this dog was given a chance to work, it's just such a shame her handling skills are so aggressive.

That wasn't quite my question earlier. I appreciate collies and other breeds come through the rescue.
My question was more what would you do to work a dog like this to sheep. How have you dealt with a working dog thats job is to work sheep but in this case the dog was agressive to sheep. How have you trained a working dog like this? or even your training methods to train any dog to sheep. Could you go into more detail

Sorry Anne, you are talking about modifying behaviour in rescue dogs to be placed in pet homes. I was talking about training a dog for a job that he has been bred for generation after generation to do. If you have never trained a collie/beardie etc to work sheep then I don't really feel you have the correct experience to argue against Barbara's methods.

Who is Sue???

I disagree and it's not just me. Having seen professionals training working dogs they use praise when the dog is getting it right, like Barbara did on the odd occassion but imo not enough.

You can lavish as much praise as you like on the dog once he has finished working, but I can almost guarantee that the first few times you take a young or inexperienced dog to sheep, it will be so excited and wound up that it won't even hear ANYTHING you are saying to it.

You say you have seen professionals training dogs, do you actually mean training working sheepdogs? Training a sheepdog is not like any other training. The man who trains me to train my working collies is an internationally renowned sheepdog handler and trainer. He knows his stuff.

My answer was to Moobli not yourself.
However in answer to your question, When dealing with a dog that is aggressive toward other animals the golden rule is NOT to use aggression. You slowly desensitise the animal and again use positive reward training, ie praise when the dog is getting it right. I personally would have muzzled the dog, I think Barbara took an unnecessary risk and it could have so easily gone wrong, luckily it didn't, well from what we saw anyway. Herbie is obviously an extremely intelligent animal, a firm no and restraint (long line) when he got things wrong and freedom and praise when he was getting it right I believe would have been far kinder and would have received better results.

Sorry but in the case of collies, I debate this.
To put it simply when training collies, I agree totally with Moobli. You are not teaching the dog to do something ie, to get it to sit. You are taking the dogs natural instincts letting them use it and only stopping if they go wrong.
If you are working a collie, most of it is the dog working away from you, therefore physical praise is impossible. You also don't have time for voice praise, as the dog works to command at a rapid rate and normally at distance voice is not used.
Moobli knows a great deal more about working collies than I do but I have just started with my boy and training is completely different to anything I have done previously. As Moobli says the praise to the dog is allowing it to continue on the sheep.