I am using a standard shepherds whistle which goes inside the mouth when blowing, takes some getting used to. You need to develop your whistles for stop,come here, left, right and walk on. there must be consistency with each whistle command to avoid confusion for the dog.
So far after one lesson she understands stop and come here and responds much quicker to the whistle than voice command. I suspect that she is finding it more interesting to learn new skills.
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There's nothing finer than seeing a dog working with a shepherd. When we were first considering getting sheep and working out what we needed to get in place I asked a farming friend if we needed a dog and she just laughed at us (we only have a dozen sheep). So Millie would quickly get bored here. We move fields by putting a dog collar on the ram (who is now very used to it). He then walks alongside me like a dog and his ewes or lambs follow. We did once have an ex-shepherd mate drop by and let his retired sheepdog have a run. It took a while for Scruff to get motivated but it was effective and nearly brought a teat to my eye to see it up close. We'll look forward to reading of Millie's progress.
Oops, that should have read "tear"
Hi Stuart
I could manage without a dog but even with only 30 sheep it makes loads of jobs such as checking feet, fly strike, worms etc. so much quicker. She also helps get the chickens in at night so we are waiting for the last bird to go in before securing against foxes.
But in the end I got her because I always wanted to train a sheep dog and I have loved every minute of it, she make a great mate on the field and driving round the country side.
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