I recently made a trip to Georgia to attend a workshop a friend and fellow trainer was giving at her training center. Cyndy Douan of the Georgia Dog Gym presented an informative workshop on Border Collies. I don’t own a Border Collie, but I do own Cap, who is an English Shepherd. English Shepherds are similar to Border Collies in activity levels and their desire to herd and/or do farm chores. So much of the material that was presented was applicable to my dog. In fact, much of it was applicable to herding dogs in general. Other than the origins and history of the breed, many dogs of the herding group have a lot of drive and the need to work. Unfortunately, we don’t all live on farms with livestock for the dogs to gather. There are many of these dogs that channel that drive doing dog sports like agility, frisbee, obedience or flyball.

So while we were there we decided to see how Cap liked some of those things. You would think that since I am a dog trainer, I would have already started my do doing these things. Well, not so much. I find that after a day of working with other dogs, scheduling appointments, and doing all the sundry cores involved with running a business, I don’t always have the desire to work with my own dog. So having a weekend away at another location with my dog, I can focus on him. We discovered that Cap really enjoys the agility obstacles and he can jump quite well. He also is interested in frisbee. He is at least willing to chase down a roller and pick it up when he catches it. There is a disk dog group in my area and I think Cap and I will be giving them a call soon.