Hello, and welcome to the Animal Training Academy Making Ripples podcast show. The show where we share the stories of the ripple making extraordinaires with behavior nerd superpowers who make up the Animal Training Academy membership. I'm your host and one of the happiness engineers at Animal Training Academy, Shelley Wood from Drop Your Jaws Dog Training in Cape Girardeau, Missouri in the United States. We're absolutely thrilled and grateful to have you here with us today.
Make sure you go ahead and hit that subscribe button so that you don't miss a single episode. This show is brought to you on behalf of the Animal Training Academy membership. So if you like the conversations in these episodes, then we want to invite you to continue them with like-minded people in the ATA membership, which you can find out more about at www.atamember.com.
Within the membership, you can get access to twice monthly live web classes, the back catalog of previous web class replays, plus a huge library of videos and projects to help you problem solve your training challenges. And we're a sociable bunch with an exclusive private Facebook group and forums area. It's like a Netflix social media platform for animal behavior geeks. Today we are excited to welcome Sarah Hederly to the show.
Sarah is a dog trainer and specializes in working with owners of Border Collies. Specializing in working with just one breed of dog gives her a vast level of experience and unique insight into the breed, which allows her a greater depth of knowledge to identify problems earlier and has helped her develop her teaching frameworks to help owners create success.
Prior to specializing in Border Collies, Sarah worked as a McTimoney Animal Chiropractor and ran in -person dog training classes, mostly based around the control unleashed system of dog training. Her dogs have been her biggest teachers. Minnie is a sensitive soul who needs her training broken down into the tiniest of steps. Ding is a child genius who needs clear direction and enough stimulation to keep his busy brain satisfied.
He was a rescue and came to Sarah with several issues that they had to work through. Bo is a delight, but his high drive means they work on his arousal issues, and youngest Sparkles is keeping life very real with all puppy-related training. They all have different personalities, but have made Sarah read, learn, find new ways and hone her skills in her breed-specific training. Welcome Sarah. I'm so excited to have you here with us today. Thank you so much for inviting me, Shelley.
Yeah. Thank you for joining me. I'm really excited to have you here and to talk about all things Border Collie and all things dog training. I think this is the first time that we've had somebody on this show that really specialized in just one breed of dog, or at least that that's what we talked about a little bit on the show was their specialization with one breed of dog. So I'm really looking forward to learn more about your work with Border Collies.
So why don't you get us started out today by telling us just a little bit about your story and how you started working with animals and how that's evolved into the work that you're doing today? Sure. Even from a little child, which I presume everybody is the same, had that love of animals. My granddad was actually a farmer and I distinctly remember two of his working sheep dogs, Scotty and Mick, from his farm when I was a child.
And I'm sure that there must be something which has shaped me from those very early years. Horses are also my passion, but the dogs now in later life, I hate to say, I feel like I'm getting old, taking over a little bit more than the horses. So, yeah, we didn't, well, we weren't allowed a dog when I was a child of our own. So when I was about 16, then I managed to go and get one from a farm and took it home.
My dad was absolutely disgusted with the idea, but he's been converted as well now, luckily. So, yeah, she was a Border Collie, had to be, didn't it? She was the most amazing dog. We didn't know anything, you know, we just didn't know what we were doing. Probably not what you would ideally suggest. People go and just buy a sheepdog puppy from a farm. But anyway, we were really, really lucky and she was just the perfect dog.
Which again, shapes then even more of, you know, the breed that you love, the type of dog that you love. So, yes, Border Collies have obviously played a part in my life right from the very start. But I actually went to train as a make-to-mini animal chiropractor initially. And so I worked with both horses and dogs. And I taught some in-person dog training classes prior to COVID.
And then obviously, as the world got shut down in those different times, then it sort of gave me time to really re-evaluate what I wanted to do. And even in my in-person training, I seem to attract a lot of Border Collies. I would say probably at least three quarters of my classes were Border Collies. And so in COVID, obviously, we couldn't get out in person. So I set up my online dog training for Border Collies. And it's just literally gone from strength to strength since then.
I love hearing a little bit about your early experience and can definitely relate. We weren't allowed to have... I lived in the country and we had a lot of animals, but we weren't allowed to have any indoor animals. And I was always trying to get one. I believe my mother has shifted her views on that over the years as well as it sounds like your family has.
And I had wondered before we recorded today, I was like, oh, I want to find out from Sarah if she's always been a Border Collie person or when that developed. So it's very interesting to hear that that developed right away with you at age 16. Yeah, I did have a... Should we refer to it as a blip in the middle? So we had Kim, my very first Border Collie. And then we had Pip as well, who was another Border Collie. And then I actually had a Terrier as well, a Jack Russell.
But when we lost Kim, I really struggled to then get another Border Collie because she was such an amazing dog. I didn't want to compare. And so I actually, I want to, I love the working breeds. And I ended up with a Springer Spaniel. So she was, again, I was really lucky. She was just a wonderful dog. So then it was, do I get as my next dog? You know, what do I get next? And I ended up with a Mini American Shepherd.
So looks like a little Collie, but very different in their personalities and train. And it was only then after that, that I've gone back to Border Collies and felt that I could without comparing to my first unicorn dog, really, as I referred to her. So yeah, now it's Border Collies all the way. So Mini, Ding, Bear and Sparkles are all Border Collies. Is that correct? So Mini is the Mini American Shepherd. But Ding, Bo and Sparkles are all Border Collies. And how old is Sparkles?
You mentioned that she was a puppy. Yeah, she's 11 months now. It's feels like she's been here a lifetime. But yeah, she's still a baby. But yeah, she'll be one next month. Oh, that's a lot of fun. I'm sure a lot of fun and a lot of work as well. Yes. And so you originally started your professional animal journey as in the field of chiropractic. Is that how you say that? Yeah, chiropractic. Yeah, chiropractic work. Okay. And how long did you work in that area? Oh, it was over 20 years.
Okay. And is that where you got introduced to behavior as well during that time and that work? Or how did that happen? I think like so many dog trainers, it was my dogs that led me down that path. I'm sure you can relate. You, like I say, Kim, my first Border Collie was what I referred to as the unicorn type of dog. You know, she was everything you wanted. She was so easy. We didn't know what we were doing. Let's face it, she was our first dog. But she was just a really good dog.
You know, no behavioral struggles. She, despite us, she was really well behaved. And, you know, you could teach her to do so many things. She was just really fun and easy dog to live with. And I suppose really Minnie was my first dog that threw in some challenges. She was a very sensitive dog. And I didn't read her very well when she was a puppy. If I could wind the clocks back, then I would do things differently. But she started me really on my training journey.
So she's going to be 11 very soon. So about 11 years ago, she really put me into that training journey. I'd done things with my Springer Spaniel agility. We trained a little bit of agility, did a few tricks and, you know, fun stuff. But Minnie was the one where I really had to learn and learn fast. So, yeah, she was very, very sensitive. She lacked a bit of confidence, but didn't overly show it. She was very good at hiding her emotions as such.
And so I missed a lot of a lot of her body language and things like that. So I've learned so much through her for sensitive dogs, dogs that need their training broken down into hundreds and hundreds of tiny little pieces so that they can progress. Whereas I then took on Ding, who came from Battersea Dogs Home. He was the opposite end of the scale. He lacked a lot of sensitivity, should we say. He was quite a hard dog. He'd already developed quite a few behavioral issues.
And again, you sort of feel like you're thrown into that world of, well, I thought I knew a lot and now I feel like I know nothing and had to go through that whole journey again because he was such a different dog personality wise to deal with. So, yeah, I feel very, very lucky that I've had two dogs at quite extreme ends of their scales in sensitivity and, you know, a hard driven dog because that then helps me, obviously, when I'm working with others as well.
Yeah, I think I definitely can relate to that, to my own dogs being the driving force that got me, you know, really interested in behavior and working in it. And I think that most of our listeners or many of our listeners probably can relate to that as well. And they're such great teachers and it is and such individuals like you're talking about with Ding and Minnie. So they have lots of lots of things to teach us for sure.
I would love to spend a little bit of time talking about both your move toward an interest in working with Border Collies and some of the unique needs you see with the breed and maybe unique challenges that people experience with them. And then also, I'd love to talk a little bit more about your move into working online, into making that shift online, you know. But let's start maybe by diving into the breed specific piece of it a little bit.
What kinds of things do you think are maybe unique in working with Border Collies and their owners? Yeah, so this is vast. So I find this discussion really, really interesting and I can geek out on it all the time. Because, you know, people say, well, it's a dog. So a dog lunging and barking at something is just a dog lunging and barking at something. But when we're actually working with them, we are dealing with, you know, their emotions. But Border Collies are bred to herd.
So actually, this is where I find a lot of general dog training. It misses the whole piece. Because it may not be that they're fearful. It might be that their herding instinct has kicked in and they actually need to control that movement. So a lot of people say, you know, that their Border Collies are fearful of something because their tail's gone down. But actually, when they're herding, usually their tail drops down.
So even their body language can be misread sometimes because it might look like another dog doing, showing the same behavior, but it might be something else that's driving it. And this is where I think people struggle sometimes working with them because they're not, they haven't got the little nuances to really go, okay, yeah, I've seen this before. This dog is doing this because of this and this is how we need to address it.
And it's really fascinating when I've got a few friends who work with other breeds and just specialize in those breeds and we will compare things that the breeds do, but they always have a strong reason for doing them, which is actually different between the breeds. So one of the examples I can say is a friend of mine, she works with Golden Retrievers and they anchor to the floor quite a lot. Border Collies can lie down and stare at things.
But Border Collie is usually doing it because they've got a hard eye, but they're a little bit nervous. Whereas, then they've got that conflict going on in them because the innate side and the eye is saying, stare at the thing, control the thing. But actually they don't really want to because they're lacking a bit of confidence. Whereas obviously a Golden Retriever hasn't gone into herding mode when they're doing that.
So they may exhibit the same thing and look like they're doing the same thing, but you would approach it from a totally different point of view with the training. So with the Goldens, she would ask for another behavior, usually like a nose touch or something like that. And the dog gets up and touches the nose and then they can get them moving again. Whereas a Border Collie is usually self-rewarding through that eyeing.
So you can't usually break the eyeing and most people say, they are stuck there, I can't move them, I can't communicate with them. Quite often they're actually over threshold at that point as well. So it's these nuances about the different breeds and I wouldn't know that now for all of the other breeds because I'm just working with one breed. So you get to see all of these little patterns within the breed that you work with.
And obviously working online, I can work with people from all over the world. So it's a huge number of Border Collies and their owners. And so you can really geek out on the breed. And so for me, that part makes it even more interesting. Whereas now if I worked with other breeds, I don't think I would be anywhere near as good with another breed because I wouldn't know the tiny little detail that I've been able to learn by working with just the one breed.
So for me, it's really fulfilling to geek out on them and really get into the details. That's really interesting. I liked what you had to say about the nuances of body language and I think it's great that we try to learn as much about body language as we can and that we try to encourage the general population to do the same thing. And I also think it's really important to remember that body language is going to vary.
The meaning of body language is going to vary between breed and between individuals too. So that we don't want to get too locked into, oh, this means this, you know? So that's a really great example of that. Thank you for sharing a bit about that. And I can see where working with a specific breed, you would begin to start seeing these patterns and really thinking about what was driving particular behavior within that breed. Because of what they'd been bred to do over the years.
And I know that we hear a lot of people talking more and more and I'm so glad about it, about meeting the needs of the dogs who we live with. And I definitely hear a lot about this when it comes to specific breeds too. That we should really strive to meet the needs of a dog based on what they were bred to do. And I wonder if you could share some of your thoughts on that, on things, how to best do it, maybe things to avoid that kind of thing. Yeah, I absolutely love this question.
Because I, again, I feel really strongly about this and you might be surprised at the answer I'm going to give you. Because obviously Border Collies are bred to herd. Most of the inappropriate behavior or the unwanted behavior that people say their Border Collies are doing is actually just inappropriate herding. It's what they've been bred to do. But then you hear a lot of people saying, well, it's because the dog isn't working on sheep or playing herding games and things like that.
So then people go, oh, okay then, well, I'll go out and I'll do some herding, whether it's urban herding or with actual livestock. But the problem is that they miss the really key part in that if you've got uncontrolled or inappropriate herding and you haven't got control over that with your Border Collie, then you take it out and you encourage herding behavior to give it a natural outlet. Sometimes that brings that out even more and you still haven't trained the actual control of it.
So it can actually make it worse. The unwanted behavior is worse because the dog is actually then just practicing what it's bred to do even more without the impulse control and the cues from the handler. So I think we need to be really careful in the way that we do these things with our Border Collies to help them rather than actually accentuate the unwanted parts of the behavior.
And please don't think that I'm saying that Border Collies shouldn't be herding because obviously it's why we love them. But they're incredibly intelligent and they need mental stimulation, not just physical exercise. Otherwise you'll just get a fit dog that still needs to work their brain. And then they just need more and more and more physical exercise. So we do need to think about mental training for them. We need to be able to teach them impulse control because they're bred to be impulsive.
Because when they're out there working that livestock, that's not us teaching them how to work livestock as such. It's just us honing their natural ability. So they are impulsive. They have to be to be on the ball controlling all of the flock. But where we need them to listen to us and not maybe inappropriately try to herd the children or the cat or cars or joggers in the park. So we need to teach them basic training which is what it comes down to.
And really get their focus on us rather than being so outward focused so that they think that they have to control everything that moves in their environment. So it's not that I'm not a fan of herding style games but I think we need to be very specific in our approach. We need to have training in place before we actually do that. Which is what most farmers would do. They would make sure that they've got a recall before they put their dog near livestock and things like that.
So it is about the series of events within our training schedule. And border collies can be totally satisfied if they're doing something. If they're given jobs to do. So they don't all need to go and work sheep to be totally satisfied. But they will need mental stimulation, physical exercise because they're bred to be athletes. So we need to meet those sorts of needs but it doesn't have to be through just herding if that makes sense. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me.
I can see where if you had a challenge with a dog who was herding, say cars or children or whatever and instead of focusing on that basic training. Well, I'm gonna repeat back what I'm hearing so you can tell me if I'm getting it or not.
But where it would be important to focus on some of the basics first and get some foundation skills before you considered possibly providing herding as an outlet because maybe providing herding as an outlet without those things in place first would actually just make things a little bit messier and encourage that unwanted behavior maybe even more or possibly even develop some new unwanted behaviors around it I would think, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And do I understand?
Oh, and I also, but I totally hear you and that you're not saying don't herd or don't let them herd. It can be a great outlet. But with considering some other things first and some of the other things that you consider first do I understand correctly that you might lean on some of Leslie McDevitt's work and some control unleashed games to get some of those foundation behaviors in place? Yeah, absolutely.
I am the biggest fan of look at that training and especially with border collies where they have eye, they like looking for movement and scanning for movement. So if we just allow them to do that all of the time it's incredibly self -rewarding for them. So we need to actually teach them that actually it's as rewarding to look back at us as well. And so look at that can be a game changer for that sort of thing as well. So yes, definitely.
And patterns with predictability or if you've got a nervous border collie because they are very sensitive dogs as well. So creating patterns is really comforting for them and they can learn a lot through patterns as well. So yes, a big fan of Leslie McDevitt. Same, her work is amazing for sure. Do you find in using those games that it's kind of that they make sense to the human end of the leash that they're relatively easy for people to use and follow through with?
I think the same goes for all us learners, doesn't it? Patterns make things easier to learn. So yeah, definitely. And I think the dog training is simple. It just might not be easy. So that is the joy of it, isn't it? Learning through a pattern, we can learn the pattern as well. I personally, I need a lot of repetitions of something to learn. Whereas Ding and Bo, my two middle dogs, they're just so quick to learn. But I need a lot of repetition when I'm learning something new.
And so putting it into a pattern makes it so much easier and it's the same for our dogs as well. I don't know if you have had a chance to see this or not. I think it just popped up this week. But in the Animal Training Academy for this month, it's going to be a focus. The curriculum will be focused around Leslie's work. It looks like you have seen. Yes, I'm excited. Me too. I'm super excited about that. Okay, let's shift gears just a little bit now.
And I'm sure that lots of other professionals listening to this show are going to be curious about your switch from in-person to online work. And I wonder if you could just share a little bit about what that process was like for you and anything that you've learned in it that might be helpful for others who are thinking about making a similar change. Yeah, sure. First of all, I absolutely love it. Obviously, it was put upon us.
Shall I say through COVID and our in -person training wasn't allowed to happen anymore. So we went online as an alternative. But actually what I found was I could then support people a lot more fully. Because if you go to a weekly class, you see somebody for an hour once a week and that's it. Whereas actually online, I can support people every day of the week. And so, you know what it's like if you go and learn something, you can only take on a certain amount.
And then you go home and you might practice it with a teeny tiny nuance of it not being the correct technique for a whole week before going back and being able to take the next step. It also made it accessible to people in different time zones. So I work with people now from all over the world. That wouldn't happen in person. So I personally find it a more fulfilling thing. In-person training where people ask for just one-off one-to-ones.
I don't think that you can really get to solve a problem by a one-off one-to-one. Because I know that if you're just really trying to fine tune something, then you can, you know, go and have a one-to -one and it can just give you that one little step that you need to move forward. But one-off one-to-ones for training that is going to take time to change, I don't feel is that successful for anyone, for the owner, the dog.
And it can be then frustrating for the teacher as well because they're not getting the results that they know that they could get by supporting a person more fully. So there is a difference in that obviously I'm an online student as well in different areas. You do have to take some more responsibility to sit down and watch a video or listen to your next step rather than sometimes it can be made a bit easier if you have to turn up at a certain time.
But the pros and the cons are for the same thing, aren't they? Because actually, you may not be able to work at that particular time. So the online makes it more flexible. So there's pros and cons with everything. But, you know, you can get results and you can get really good results online. It doesn't have to be in person. So I now personally prefer it. So yeah, go for it. Is my advice. I'm curious.
You mentioned that and this is definitely a benefit I see from any of the online work I have done, whether as a student or a teacher, but that you can provide support every day of the week rather than just that one time in person. And I definitely see that as a benefit.
But I'm also curious if you have had any challenges or how you have worked through finding a little bit of balance with that, because once a week in person for an instructor is a much more limited period of time than, say, with a computer, you're potentially available from that time you wake up until the time you go to bed, unless there are some sort of boundaries put in place. So how do you has that been a thing for you at all? And how do you work through it?
So I see it as a benefit for me because now my life is so flexible, you know, I can, well, I don't go on holiday that often, but I go to a lot of training events with my dogs and, you know, I compete my dogs in obedience and agility. So I can do that on whatever day of the week that I want and I can get back to people on the online around that really easily. So for me, it's given me a much better work-life balance.
Prior to COVID, I was sat in my car a lot, you know, traveling from client to client. I did a huge number of miles through the year, which was really, really tiring. So I actually find that I'm helping more people in a more flexible way that suits me better as well. So win-win from my point of view. That's great. And do you have like a specific number of clients that you shoot for taking or do you have just like unlimited number of spots? How does that work? Yeah, it's unlimited.
We have approximately 900 members at the moment within the membership. You will always get people that don't post videos for their training for feedback, but they learn so much from other people. Again, because we are specific to one breed, they've got a lot of the same problems. So they're working through the same things. So they're learning from other people as well. And then you get some that are a lot more happy to video their training and share.
So it's a really nice balance, if you like, within the community. And not everybody is going to share a training video every day of the week because we can't train our dogs every day of the week. Do you know what I mean? So it balances out really nicely. Yeah. And then is your online are your online services all set up then as a membership? Is that how they all work? OK. Yes. Very cool. Well, thank you so much for sharing about that and for sharing everything that you have shared with us so far.
I would love to dive into some more specific training talk now and would love it if you would share with us now about a training related challenge that you have experienced and talk to us a little bit about how you worked through the challenge and maybe some of the things you learned from it. Yeah, of course. Would it be wrong to say that my training challenge is Sparkles, my puppy? It's not wrong at all. And if I had a puppy, I'm sure it would be my training challenge too.
All of the challenges that we have had are because she's a Border Collie. So, you know, it's the bits that I embrace can also be the challenges. She's made my life very real. I think it's very easy as a trainer to get your dogs to the level that you want them at and forget then the issues that your clients might be working through. So again, I try and turn everything into a positive and she has reminded me what it's like to be an owner that's working through challenges in training.
So, yes, Sparkles is, she's a strong character. She's very, very hurdy. She's got a hard eye. She loves movement. And even as an eight week old puppy was so independent. Usually puppies hang around you, don't they? You know, they only go a certain distance away. She was so independent and would have traveled miles if she saw something moving. So we had to work really hard to gain our relationship at the beginning so that I was more important than everything else that was moving in the world.
But she sort of came through puppyhood and we were getting there, you know, we were getting a good recall and, you know, we've got a relationship and then adolescence hit and things went a bit feral for a few weeks. And obviously I work with border collies and I'm fully aware of all of the chase issues that can come about. But with adolescence, she totally lost all impulse control for a few weeks.
And all of a sudden, one day we were out in the fields walking and she saw a car go down the road on one side of the field and went to take off after it. She recalled, which was fine, but I thought, oh, you know, she hasn't really gone to chase a car before because I managed that drive in her and not given her access to do things like that. But from that one incidence, she became so interested in cars and even if she couldn't see them, she would have just bolted to try and find them.
So, yeah, we put a lot of management in place initially. She went back on the lead on the long line. Again, I tightened up on all of my criteria around impulse control work. And she then came into season. So, you know, if anybody here is struggling with their adolescent dog, hormones have a lot to answer for. But she came in season and she did soften a little bit. We put in, like I say, lots of management, lots of impulse control work and then rebuilt the recall on the long line again.
And now she is back off lead again. But we had a little incidence this morning, which I was, oh, my heart dropped. My mum went through the gate and she pushed through and went through into the garden, through the garden, into the field with the horses. And my heart sank. And I was like, oh, no. So off I trot to collect my dog. And she'd run around by the time I got to the field, she'd run around the horses as border collies do. So she was on the far side of them.
And I called her and she came running. And so I was so proud of her. You know, so. Yeah, it was one of those things where management failed because obviously the gate got opened. But it just shows that actually she's gone through that part now. She's still got the interest. She's still got the border collie in her. But yeah, to see her recall from that situation, which, you know, obviously I wouldn't put her in through choice, was yes. She's she's got a little gold star today.
Good job, Team Sparkles. That is a testament to all the work that you have done with her to build that recall as well. And not only do I think that it's not wrong for you to share that your puppy is your training challenge at the moment, but I think it's really important to share those kinds of things for professionals to talk about these kinds of things.
I think that with the general public, a lot of times there seems to be or among some people, there seems to be an idea that a dog will go as a puppy or as a young adolescent to a six week training class and they will then be quote unquote trained.
But I think this is a great example of how all kinds of things play into the dog's behavior, including their environment and their stages of development and hormones that are happening and how learning and setting them up for success is an ongoing process. Yeah, absolutely. And I have a problem with six week puppy classes, actually, because the general public, they do the right thing and they find a puppy class and then it comes to an end. And they think that they've trained their dog.
And I can see it from their point of view because it's the puppy class. And it's ongoing, isn't it? Wait till your puppy hits adolescence, then you're probably more likely to come up with issues. But because their puppy has been really good and sailed through puppy class and then it's finished after six weeks, sort of the expectation is that actually they've trained their dog.
Whereas really, maybe an 18 months puppy class where it sees them through adolescence would actually serve them a lot better. I totally understand why some people wouldn't want to sign up for an 18 months class for their dog. But then sometimes, like I say with Sparkles, I'd put in the work, I'd put in management and the training. And yet she hit adolescence and we had, you know, a couple of weeks of really hairy behavior that came out. And that was just her being an adolescent.
Yes, she hit it at a level that, you know, Beau, my dog in the middle, he sailed through adolescence and he was the easiest dog that I've had through adolescence. But look at how many dogs are rehomed in adolescence because the behavior arises and people can't work through it and then they stop enjoying their dog. So she was only doing what a young adolescent Border Collie would do.
Yes, she was quite extreme with her behavior, but no six week puppy class is going to prevent that happening or help see you through it. So I think that sometimes the expectation from a six week puppy class can give the wrong expectation for, you know, first time dog owners. Yeah, I completely agree. And while I don't teach puppy specific classes, I do teach a six week kind of foundation skills class.
And I'm very conflicted about that for exactly what we're talking about right now, that people, I think the expectation if you sign up for a class is that you're going to come out of it with a quote unquote trained dog. And I think that anybody who is working as in the field of behavior probably understands no creature is completely trained in six weeks time.
And so it's kind of hard because there is that that's just the culture, it seems, is, you know, puppy classes, dog classes, this many weeks. These are the skills we teach sort of thing. But we also know or it seems like we think we think even I, it sounds like think this may not be the best setup for learning. So it's really cool that you are helping to shift that paradigm, I think, by moving to your online membership model, which does provide that ongoing support.
And I'm glad that you mentioned not liking the six week classes for this reason, because I think it's important that we continue to try to think of ways that we can shift how we're offering services to people to better serve them and their dogs. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I totally understand it from there's lots of different viewpoints, aren't they? You know, it's expense of training and there's there's so many different types of dogs.
Like I say, Bo sailed through adolescence and was he's a joy, whereas Sparkles, I guess she's 11 months, but there's absolutely no way that she's come out the other side of adolescence yet. And I'm still expecting probably with her quite a bumpy road through just because of the type of dog that she is. So I think ongoing help, but also prevention. But then again, you've got the argument between, you know, none of us try and fix our car if we haven't got a problem with the car, do we?
Not that I'm saying that a dog and a car are the same things, obviously, but if that's that's how we work as a human and how our brain works, we want to solve problems. It's very few people that would go to training classes just for the joy of preventing the problems. Usually the problems arise first, even though as trainers, we would love to prevent all of those problems coming in the first place. So I think that there's acknowledging where our owners are at.
You don't know what you don't know until you know it. As I say, I picked up my first collie from a farm and didn't know anything about dog training. And I was lucky I got an easy one and we bumped along quite nicely with very little help. But look at all the dogs in rescue. And this is really what drives me in that I want to prevent the situation that certainly the UK is in at the moment, where all of the rescue centers are overflowing with dogs. And that's people driven, isn't it?
And it's easy to say, I'll blame the breeders, blame the owners, blame, you know, everyone, the trainers. But actually it's all of that. It's so much bigger. But if we could somehow work towards preventing those problems, then, you know, that would be just lovely. So that the rehoming and the rescue centers were there for what they were supposed to be there for.
For, you know, people that suddenly have a life event that makes it that they need to find a home for their dog, rather than people, you know, just not enjoying their dog, which could have been a trained, you know, could have been trained through or prevented possibly in the first place with the right approach to the dog. And so, yeah, I would love that to change for the whole world, really. Yeah, all excellent points.
And unfortunately, the shelters and the rescues are overflowing here right now too. And I completely agree that finding a way to focus more on prevention and education generally could be helpful in that it's all of those pieces that you mentioned together working. And I also just want to back up just a minute and say that while I think that six week classes are not necessarily the answer for everybody, I don't think they're necessarily a bad thing.
And like I said, I do teach them myself and I think they can be one avenue to introduce people to prevention and management and training. But I think it's important to do things like you're doing with your membership program and think of other things to do as well to increase avenues to more education and more help for those who don't have those super easy lucked out unicorn dogs. Yeah, absolutely.
And with those six week classes, which is exactly what I used to teach before lockdown, I think help to educate the owners so that if they do run into trouble afterwards, that they know that they can come back and get the help that they want or show them what is it the next class up and really educate them that prevention is better than cure. It makes life a lot easier for them as well as their dog. However, if they don't come back, the door is always open. If they have a problem, then they can.
So it is about communication, isn't it? We're not just dog trainers, we're dog guardian trainers or dog owner trainers, really. Absolutely. Yes, we're working with complex systems, the people, the dogs and all the other people that are in the family too. So lots of important stuff to think about there. Could you share with us now about a training situation that you are proud of and or that you found reinforcing?
Well, I find it very reinforcing when Sparkles recalled out of the paddock this morning, but it's a really interesting thing to ponder, isn't it? Because sometimes you can think of, you know, what did I win with my dogs at a competition or something like that? But actually, I think it's more for me about the relationship that I build with my dogs. So it isn't necessarily about ribbons and rosettes and things like that. I'm totally honest with everybody that I work with.
I find teaching loose-lead walking the most boring thing in dog training because it has to have so much consistency, doesn't it? But boy, is it rewarding when your dog can walk on a loose-lead next to you and you're not being pulled about all over the place. But I suppose my passion is, funnily enough, car chasing collies. So Ding came to me and he was a car chaser and obviously Sparkles, you know, had that in her too. So I love working with car chasing collies.
And I love the fact that I can walk Ding along a pavement and cars can go past and he can just walk along on a loose-lead and glance up at me each time a car goes past. So that to me is very rewarding. Yeah, so that's probably one of my favorite things. I could see where that would be one of your favorite things, being somebody who specializes in working with border collies and also having worked through that challenge with your own dog.
It can be super rewarding to go through all of that work and then see the outcomes, the positive outcomes that you're looking for. So wonderful. That makes total sense to me. Could you share with people, if somebody was interested, somebody has a border collie and they're having some challenges or better yet, somebody just got a border collie puppy and they're looking to get them off on the right start. How would they learn more about your membership and how could they sign up for it?
OK, so they can look on my website, which is dingbatdogtraining.co.uk named after my dog, Ding, because he was from Battersea. So dingbat. So dingbatdogtraining.co.uk. I'm also on most of the social media platforms. Facebook is probably the easiest one to contact me on. So it's my name, Sarah Hedderley, dingbatdogtraining on there as well. We don't tend to have the membership open all of the time.
So we open a few times a year and then I find it easier to onboard all of the new members and get them their training plan so that they know exactly where they're going. But you can definitely find information about that either on my social media or on my website as well. Right, wonderful. Thank you so much. And thank you for everything that you have shared with us today.
And before we wrap up here, I want to give you a chance if there is anything that I haven't asked or that you haven't had the chance to share about yet that you would like to mention about Border Collies or your work or training in general. I just want to give you an opportunity to do that if I haven't provided you one already. I feel that we've covered quite a lot. I think really looking at Border Collies, then look at what they're bred to do.
Really understand their instincts, their body language, because that is going to help you tenfold in trying to work through any training issues that you might have living with them. They're not just ordinary dogs. They're special. Of course, I'm going to say that. But, you know, they have their own unique attributes. And I think that with any breed of dog that it's really worth looking deeply into what were they bred to do?
You know, being impulsive, having very movement sensitive eyes, acute hearing. So some have noise sensitivities. A lot don't like touch and having their bodies touched. They work at proximity. So some people struggle with recall because they play stay away and they stand several feet away looking at you. But that's part of herding. So most of the undesired behavior comes from what they were bred to do. So we need to embrace who they are and then we can channel it in the right way.
And I'm sure that side of it can be said for any dog that we've got. Thank you so much. It's been wonderful talking with you and your passion for behavior and for the breed just really, really shine through. So thank you for taking this time to talk with me today. Thank you so much for inviting me. Yeah, you're welcome. So and also thank you from not only myself, but on behalf of the ATA and everybody listening today as well. I love Ryan's community.
He's built the most fantastic membership there. We do, of course, appreciate all of you tuning in as well. And if you have enjoyed this episode and are interested in carrying on the conversation about working with the animals in our lives in the most positive, most fun, and most choice -rich ways, then as mentioned at the start of this episode, the Animal Training Academy community is waiting for you.
Head on over to www.atamember.com and click on the membership button in the main menu to learn more about what members are describing as the Netflix social media platform for behavior geeks. That's it for this episode, though. Thank you so much for listening. You'll hear from us again soon.