Professional Border Collie Training

The Border Collie is one of the best known dog breeds in the world. One of the most outstanding characteristics of this breed is its intelligence and its ability to do many different tasks. To make the most of your dog’s features, you should start professional Border Collie training that meets its needs as soon as possible. In this article, we’ll tell you all about professional Border Collie training.

Before you get started with professional Border Collie training

You must take into account that the best age to start professional Border Collie training is when your dog is three to six months old. This is because your dog’s brain is developed enough to understand the different commands you’ll teach it during the following months.

Also, you should monitor your pet’s behavior. It’s important to detect if your pet has a dominant or submissive attitude. This can influence the result of the training sessions and commands you want to teach it.

If you’ve trained a pet before, it’s best to apply the same techniques that worked the first time. In other words, you should reinforce the aspects that are considered cons and eliminate attitudes that have negative consequences.

Also, remember to use the most suitable objects and elements for the breed, according to the activities you want your dog to learn. For example, a clicker for obedience training or a leash of a suitable length (or a bungee dog leash) for canicross.

Start the exercises

As border collies are very intelligent, they’re capable of understanding many things that you ask them to do. Thus, it’s essential to start correcting your pet’s inappropriate actions or behaviors.

What’s obedience training? This teaches your dog to respond when you call it by its name or to stop jumping on people when it sees them. For these exercises, command voices are used to tell the dog what’s right and wrong.

Remember that, if you train your puppy from the minute you bring it home, it’ll always learn from you. In fact, you can teach it inappropriate behaviors without even knowing it. It’s a good idea to teach your dog one thing at a time so it doesn’t get confused or stressed out. This can easily mess up the training session.

Carefully think about the activities

We’re referring to the sport or activity you want your Border Collie to perform with grace and agility. You should teach it exercises aimed at reinforcing the important aspects of the sport.

In other words, for sports such as agility or canicross, exercises that boost lung capacity and endurance are very important. Their goal is to prevent your dog from getting fatigued quickly, which can make the animal mess up some movements.

Be consistent with the training. In fact, for professional Border Collie training to yield results, you have to practice them every day. But make sure not to overdo it with the intensity, as this will only stress the dog and make it develop inappropriate behavior.

Take advantage of your dog’s intelligence skills. It’s a good idea to play hide and seek with your dog to mentally challenge it and reinforce its search skills. Similarly, it’s important to stimulate your dog’s mind constantly with intelligence games.

Border Collie training according to your dog’s age

Each stage of your dog’s life is an ideal moment to teach them certain tricks. The reason for this lies in the animal’s understanding of what you want and what interests your dog, according to its age.

For example, a puppy is able to learn basic tricks, such as sitting, lying down, and, in some cases, staying still. These simple tricks allow it to behave appropriately.

After four or five months, your dog is able to learn more complex tricks, such as rolling over, jumping, and even learning to bark when you ask it to. You can also teach your dog to relieve itself in the street instead of at home.

After your Border Collie turns one, you can train it as you wish, as it’ll be able to learn whatever you teach it. Keep in mind that each dog has its own particular personality, which may or may not affect the results of the training sessions.

And don’t forget about positive reinforcement when it comes to teaching your dog new tricks! Phrases such as “Good boy” and “Well done” have great benefits. You can also give your dog a treat after every successful training session.