Customer Reviews

Working Sheep Dogs: A Practical Guide to Breeding, Training and Handling (Landlinks Press)

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This is one of the best, most insightful books on working stock dogs I have read! It would be useful for training a dog, as well as what to look for in breeding good working dogs. I very much appreciated Mr. Williams' detailed descriptions of the traits that go into making a good, independent working stock dog. He describes them, and talks about how they interact in a dog. He also gives practical advice for training a working dog. I found it very helpful.

Man's best friend can also be one of man's best workers. "Working Sheep Dogs: A Practical Guide to Breeding, Training, and Handling" is a comprehensive handbook to raising and training one's sheep dogs to serve their tasks. Covering every aspect of raising and educating a dog in terms that one doesn't need to be a veterinarian to understand, "Working Sheep Dogs" is a seminal book on the subject. A deftly composed and highly recommended pick for community library pet and wildlife collections.

This book is probably more interesting to stockdog breeders than trainers. The first half or so of the book discusses in great detail the working traits/instincts and how they combine to create different working styles in dogs. How some traits modify other traits in both good and bad ways. Why breeding two dogs who seem like a good match fails to create the litter wanted.

For trainers the discussion on traits may shed light on different problems that show up in dogs and why. As for fixing them, Mr Williams prefers to breed better dogs and not try to train out the faulty traits. For stockmen relying on dogs to make their living this makes more sense than taking the time to try and fix problems bred into modern dogs. Perhaps this seems harsh for us hobby herders but our livings and lives don't depend on our dogs stock savvy/ability.

The second part of the book does go into training dogs and what is expected of the dogs. Lots of good information and explanation of the differences in working styles of dogs for paddocks (large open pastures) and yards (pens, stockyard facilities). Mr Williams does believe that the ideal stockdog can do both but that trials have made more specialist dogs and fewer all around dogs (and selected for traits more for style than good work). His discription of the ideal stockdog in the introduction made my day, it was the discription of the ideal English Shepherd! Both are rare these days though.

I loved it, I loaned out my first copy and never got it back! So I bought another one.