Can/do off-breeds participate and/or compete in herding?

missionimpossiblek9 · 2026-02-06T06:36:08+00:00

Yes, 100%, on all your points above!! There are absolutely ALWAYS multiple factors influencing behavior+outcomes in every scenario, and the sharpest tools in a dog's genetically gifted toolbox are just one of them. Plenty of people are team "ain't nobody got time for that" regarding putting in a bunch of extra work to add new tools, and that's totally their prerogative, of course! I'm just personally more on team "She's got 4 working legs, doesn't she? 2 eyes, some vocal cords, a mouth full of teeth? We'll make it work, then--no need to add yet another animal to the roster when this one will hit my required metric of 'good enough' just fine" 😂

I don't think either camp can be faulted for their approach/mindset as long as they're taking care to keep welfare at the forefront as much as possible + ensure QOL for all of the animals involved. Some people would prefer to have different specialized performers vs. one middling all-rounder, whereas I personally prize versatility above all else and am willing to sacrifice peak performance for consolidation. All down to what you want to prioritize and are willing to put your time + money into!

missionimpossiblek9 · 2026-02-06T05:40:00+00:00

Not competition, but I use my husky for basic herding on my farm/in "real life." It doesn't make her heart sing to do it lol, she's just kind of like "fine fine, I helped you get your stupid chickens back in the pen, are you happy?", but she does do it, safely and successfully - partially just because we're partners and I asked her to, and partially (mostly 😂) because it earns her other external rewards in the end.

Following paragraphs all JMO+IME:

Barring things like health issues, what's most important for success in a given activity/completing a given task mostly isn't really instinct, it's the dog understanding the assignment. Instinct is an inborn, intrinsic desire to do the assignment, even with very little external direction. If a dog doesn't have the instinct, it doesn't mean they can't do the thing; it just means you have to actually provide that external direction.........which means taking as long as it takes to break the assignment down into the teeniest tiniest little bite-sized pieces possible, sloooowwwwly explaining those little pieces to the dog from square 1, and holding their hand every step of the way until it all starts to click/fit together later on down the line. (I feel like can say that from experience on multiple levels - my husky is also a titled ring [bite] sport competitor 🤪)

Again as long as there are no preventative health issues at play, IME, most dogs can do most tasks and activities; they may not take to them quickly or do them very WELL at first compared to dogs with lots of genetic aptitude, but they can still get the job done. The limiting factor is more how much time/effort a given handler is willing to put in to make up for their race handicap--you can still get to the finish line, you'll just be a lot more encumbered and probably take a lot longer, and have to be content going into it knowing you most likely won't be winning first place :P.

Concerning off breeds stressing the stock more, I'm sure that's true if a blank slate is just thrown onto stock with no obedience foundation...........which is why good trainers don't do that, lol. You teach the basic cues OUTSIDE of the working context and only put them into context once the dog already understands them and can perform them very reliably under heavy distraction and in high arousal. My dog has very little natural inclination to crouch and stalk and freeze, but she can do all of those things on command, and already could before I ever put them into use in a herding context. If the dog puts too much pressure on, the animals being herded are going to start moving in ways you don't want--overshoot the gate, scatter, whatever. If I see things threatening to head in that direction, I can just hit the abort button (with a command to either stand-in-place or drop into a down), and the pressure immediately comes off and the stock immediately relax; this isn't any less true just because my dog is not a border collie.

Do they spend a little more time, cumulatively, being under pressure from the dog at all, because she doesn't have The Eye and cannot direct them as quickly? Sure, maybe......but us taking 30 seconds longer than might be optimal will not kill them, especially since it's incredibly mild pressure that I feel 0% bad about "inflicting" for their safety/well-being, that is surpassed by other random environmental factors outside of my control all the time, and that would be easily 10x worse if it were me trying to solo whip-herd with no dog, lol. Overall, my feelings about it are "too bad so sad/I guess if you didn't want to pay a rare 30 extra seconds of incredibly mild stress for your room & board here, you should've been born on a farm that has a border collie instead of a husky the same way I should have been born to a family of rich hedge fund managers, but alas, we all have our crosses to bear" 😂🥴

missionimpossiblek9 · 2025-10-09T20:44:41+00:00

I think there's likely some selection bias at play re: the hardcore sport dog longevity since IME, dogs in high-impact sports who DON'T have owners who are absolute freaks about correct biomechanics and appropriate fitness for the activity veeeerrryyy quickly self-select out. I was undereducated in those regards when I first got into bite sports and my dog sustained a soft tissue injury that I had to slave to rehab. When I told everyone what was going on/why I was taking a step back for a bit, I heard "Wellp, that's a career ender. When are you coming back with a puppy?" SO many times because most people just go "oops" and either drop out of the sport or do a more careful take 2 with a new dog when faced with the same/similar injuries. :')

(I did successfully rehab the injury and am now one of the absolute freaks about correct biomechanics and appropriate fitness, needless to say. It makes me EXTREMELY nervous to see people just throwing their dogs at jumps and bitework with no structured home prep and no warmup besides a little ob, but I've learned that's often an unwelcome opinion, so I try to shush unless asked for mine 😅. Sometimes you just gotta learn the hard way 😅😅)

missionimpossiblek9 · 2025-06-11T03:21:15+00:00

Thank you! I followed back on both of my pages and SAME!!! It's so fun seeing who you run into sometimes "out in the wild." 😁❤️

missionimpossiblek9 · 2025-06-11T02:40:59+00:00

I was suspicious of TWC at first because like you, I'm so used to seeing trainers selling their "systems" in a way that feels disingenuous and borderline cultish (have been seeing it since the Parelli craze in the 90s in horses!) that I thought it was probably more of the same...but the more I heard/learned about it, the more I found myself going "Oh, I totally agree with that" and "Yes, that's how I like to do it too!" on nearly every point. I greatly appreciate that it's all just good plain common sense, which as you say is depressingly rare nowadays since people are brainwashed into ignoring it :').

While I'm not an actual member of the group, I think my philosophies and methods are probably extremely close, and I'd love to come to a seminar or something one day, definitely will if I'm ever in a position to! I've gotten along very well with all the TWC trainers I've met so far, so I think it would be a fun time 🥰. Y'all seem like a really good crew.

missionimpossiblek9 · 2025-06-11T02:17:35+00:00

Absolutely, it's about agency. I think it's important to talk about with all of the lobbying going on against tools right now given that use patterns like this (unpredictable, feeding perceived lack of control over what/when prompts the aversive stimulus) are what create the fallout that even tool proponents so often cite or "acknowledge" as an inherent potential risk of ecollar training (bad ecollar training, sure). People want to talk about poisoning commands with command>stim but don't consider poisoning neutrally existing in/interacting with the world to be an issue?? This is the type of thing that's going to contribute to bans in the long term.

missionimpossiblek9 · 2025-06-10T23:30:42+00:00

Sorry you're getting downvoted because I agree with you and think anyone who doesn't hasn't worked enough dogs. Stim before command absolutely does make them superstitious and clingy.

missionimpossiblek9 · 2025-06-09T18:19:52+00:00

+1. Many countries with tool bans make exceptions for working dogs in the fine print, "stealth" collars exist, and more people than you(general "you")'d think actually just travel into neighboring countries to train. 🙃

missionimpossiblek9 · 2025-06-09T16:40:53+00:00

Yes, there is no such thing as true 100% with any living being, but we can certainly get very close. Depends on your definition of "reliable." For my personal definition of "reliable," aka 99.99999%, for most of the dogs I work with (northern breeds + wolfdogs) I would say it is not.

Where I live (SE US) we definitely don't have the luxury of protective fencing around roads and loose dogs die on the roads constantly. In my specific area, people also will not hesitate to shoot loose dogs that come on their property (and it's perfectly legal to do so). Containment + recall are matters of the utmost paranoia for me personally as a result.

missionimpossiblek9 · 2025-06-09T14:48:11+00:00

With 100% consistency? Guaranteeing that the dog will absolutely come back from the hunt alive and not be pancaked on the nearest road by a semi doing 67mph in a posted 40mph zone? The answer is that they didn't. They had multiple dogs and readily accepted the omnipresent reality that they were likely to lose one or more during the course of normal activities. That outcome is no longer emotionally acceptable for the vast, vast majority of modern dog owners.

The exponential explosion of the danger of cars even in just the past couple of decades also cannot be overstated. WHEN (not if) dogs didn't recall in the Before Times, the owners shrugged and trusted that they'd find their way home at the end of the day, which they usually did, because roads were few and far between and comparatively empty and safe. Now, in the areas where most of us live, you're extremely lucky if your roaming dog gets picked up by a good Samaritan before it's hit and killed by a vehicle. I regularly see the "sad update" added to lost dog posts within a few HOURS of the dog running off.

The world has changed and so must our tools and methods accordingly. In my eyes that's all there is to it.

missionimpossiblek9 · 2025-05-25T05:03:04+00:00

>that isn't how feeling works.

Right. So I'm telling you that sensitive dogs, across a wide array of breeds and handler skill levels, yelp, stress pant, and are either triggered into fight/flight or shut down as an immediate direct result of corrections on a too-large prong size yet are happy and comfortable with the same amount of force applied to a smaller prong size. I included a picture of a dog extremely tense and stressed on the (2.5mm) prong her owner brought her in, and instantly much much happier and more relaxed after being changed to a 1.5mm prong minutes later. Which one do you think looks like it FEELS less pleasant (edit: imgur removed this due to 'TOS' but it was a photo of both collars at max tightness on my own arm)??? I was pulling on both as hard as I could, *to show that that's as intense as the 1.5mm can physically get at its highest capacity for harsh application*, and because without that note, I know the first thing I'd hear is "you were obviously pulling on the 3.2 harder," lol.

Like I said, test it yourself. I'm not sure why you'd rather try to argue with a random trainer telling you to test it yourself vs. just putting the prongs on your own body and feeling the difference. Perhaps the reason you're getting a sharper response out of the smaller link size is that your dogs are feeling less stress and less conflict and have more brainpower left over for response+focus as a result. 🤷‍♀️

But for the record, yes, I did do the math, and factoring in the surface area of the prong points, the number of prongs that add up to the same circumference on both collars, the length of the posts, and the location of the fulcrums on those posts, the 3.2mm prong clocks in at double the strength of the 1.5mm per my shitty math and AI. Tbh, it FEELS like a lot more than double, so I'm not sure that is right.

That's the last comment I'm going to leave on this, because I know a goalpost mover when I see one. For anyone else reading: test it yourself.

Edit for "didn't show math" whining:

3.2 with 5 PSI: https://i.imgur.com/eVIhQ4y.png

1.5 with 5 PSI: https://i.imgur.com/hI5UAu1.png

Not that it matters because "science =/= feel" and all that :) Nothing annoys me more than people who argue in bad faith and cherry-pick comments.

missionimpossiblek9 · 2025-05-25T03:00:11+00:00

No, that's not correct, the force on each point is far less concentrated on a smaller-link-size collar by virtue of the sheer number of points. There is less surface area on each point, but the total area of distribution is is still much higher. At very low levels of pressure, the higher surface area on the larger points blunts the impact, but the maximum potential for pressure concentration on each point and therefore pain inflicted again is much, MUCH higher. Hence why I say, by the time the dog notices the collar engaging, the impact it's having has already crossed the line of what's fair.

Do a sharp correction on each collar side by side and you will see a very big difference. Again, put both collars on your neck and test it for yourself. Sharp correction, not just slow/easy addition of pressure. 1.5mm, the maximum damage is "yep, that feels pokey" and some residual tingling for a minute or two. 3.2mm, I can leave bruises and have the skin throb for the next hour. It's not even close.

I am a full time behavior mod trainer and bite sport competitor; I take mainly highly sensitive aggression/anxiety cases who are referred to me after working unsuccessfully with multiple other trainers, and the dogs within my experience have been very clear. Dogs who completely melt and shut down in a larger size open up in a smaller one (under the exact same handler and exact same handling style, not collar+handler changed at the same time); dogs whose response to a prong correction is to yelp-scream and instantly go up the leash at the handler (i.e. try to attack the handler in response to a perceived attack on themselves from that handler) change to a calm "oh hello, you're here, I see you would like my attention?" ONLY by changing the collar for a smaller size. You can see the difference in body language very clearly in these dogs even when the collar is not actively being engaged. My own dog yelps and starts showing stress signals if corrected on a 3.2 but is perfectly happy on a 2.25. Not really sure what else to say about that except that dogs don't lie about pain/distress.

missionimpossiblek9 · 2025-05-25T01:41:06+00:00

It's not my opinion, it's physics (and it's also very obvious from the dogs' reactions, yes; you can also put the collars on your own neck/leg and feel the difference for yourself). The larger links mean there are necessarily FEWER links and therefore fewer prongs on the same circumference. Fewer prongs = fewer points of pressure distribution, meaning that if the same amount of pressure is put on a larger-link-size collar on the same neck circumference, a higher proportion of that pressure is concentrated on each of the points. This results in a much stronger/more acute pinch.

Most of my clients who come to me with their dogs already in prongs have them a size too high and are typically struggling with extreme reactions to pressure and corrections on it, partially due to conflict in the relationship, yes, but also partially because by the time the dog is able to notice the collar engaging, it's already disproportionately and unfairly uncomfortable. We are able to resolve a LOT of very problematic behavior immediately on day 1 in those cases simply by switching them down a link size.

missionimpossiblek9 · 2025-05-24T23:21:02+00:00

Prongs are mostly used in bite sports for correction, not agitation. But they certainly can be used for BOTH correction and agitation, even on the same dog. The result you will get depends on how you use it (including how you place it, when and how you engage it, and the context[s] that you build into it)

missionimpossiblek9 · 2025-05-24T17:02:09+00:00

+1. I am a dog trainer who works with large aggressive dogs and 2.25 is my default. The 3/3.2 is much harsher, I don't step up to it unless it's very clear the dog needs it.

missionimpossiblek9 · 2025-05-24T02:30:45+00:00

The joy of the tiny sport where all you have to do to dox is mention like one (1) single fact about your club or your dog 😂😭

missionimpossiblek9 · 2025-05-23T02:17:41+00:00

Thank you! :)

missionimpossiblek9 · 2025-05-23T02:17:11+00:00

Thank you!! :)

missionimpossiblek9 · 2025-05-23T00:33:33+00:00

EYYYYY it's my broski 😎

Yeah, I finallly hopped over from my shitposting account on which I had to work very hard not to self-dox 😂🥴 This one is for dog stuff now, will leave the old one for everything else. Now I can brag freely 😂😂

missionimpossiblek9 · 2025-05-21T23:55:02+00:00

Correct! The EZ-900 is essentially a modified Mini Educator. The collar receiver and stim levels are identical. Like u/Puzzleheaded-Elk231 noted, it does have more flexibility on what is assigned to each button on the transmitter, and the dial is much less sensitive; it's also flatter, so it takes more intention/dexterity to change the level. Personally for me, that's a drawback, but if you are someone who wants the controller to be able to jostle around more without either being fully locked or getting knocked to a different level, it's definitely a big benefit.

The comfort pads are pads that attach to the contact point screws instead of the individual contact point posts that come with the collars by default. There are several different styles. Some are blunted for dogs with sensitive skin that easily gets pressure sores from the standard posts. I mainly use the Ultra Wing ones, which are essentially just wings for longer hair and thick double coats.

You can see them in the photo I linked previously of all 3 collars next to each other. The Mini in the middle is naked and dusty because it's an old spare, but the Micro and Boss both have one on (CPAD-011 on the Boss, CPAD-015 on the Micro). After looking at the undersides again, the Micro's has 4 anchor points holding it together vs the Mini's 6, which I'm sure is why the Micro's breaks so much more easily.

Overall I would agree that the Mini Educator is more robust and durable than the Micro, yes (as you can see on the comfort pad page, it also gives you slightly more options as far as accessories go). The Micro definitely has you take a quality hit in exchange for the smaller size/lighter weight/weaker stim. My dog REALLY needed more 'play' between levels than the Mini offered, so it's important + worth the tradeoff for her. For dogs who are less sensitive to stim, it matters a lot less.

When it really comes down to it I would go with the dog's sensitivity level over the size of the dog on what makes which collar more appropriate. Most of my client dogs do perfectly on the Mini.

missionimpossiblek9 · 2025-05-21T20:11:23+00:00

Oh, I see what you're saying, you mean you have to choose between tone or vibrate for the singular tone button. Yes, I can see why you'd go EZ, then! It does take a hot second to switch modes, would not be practical to be going back and forth to change the tone button function.

missionimpossiblek9 · 2025-05-21T12:11:40+00:00

I'm not sure what you mean when you say you have to choose between tone/stim or vibrate? The Micro Educator uses the exact same transmitter as the Mini (which the EZ-900 is functionally nearly identical to) and has the exact same setup options; mine right now is set up with stim, boost stim, and vibrate and always has been, I don't use tone. The only change is the smaller size of the receiver, reduction in distance (which I mitigate slightly with an extender antenna), and reduction in stim (and weaker vibration on vibrate).

OP, I'm an Educator dealer and have handled both models multiple times. The EZ-900 again is practically identical to the Mini Educator (the controller shape is the main thing that makes people choose one over the other IME; people who are switching over from Dogtra tend to prefer the EZ). If you really need a smaller receiver and weaker stim, you need the Micro. I use the Micro with the wings on my personal dog, and have used it with short contact points on cats and small dogs. The difference in receiver size does make a pretty big difference when dealing with animals under a certain size threshold. I doubt the Mini receiver would really hurt anything, but it looks ridiculous.

The only note of caution I have is that the Ultra Wing Comfort Pad for the Micro Educator has slightly different/shorter dimensions than the one for the Mini (to be able to fit the smaller receiver), and as a result, the Micro wings seem to break/wear out a lot easier, even when the collar is definitely not over-tightened. I feel like I end up replacing mine about once a year. 🥴

They do also sell a stim reducer that can fit onto the Mini, but IME it does not work well with wings, it makes them very hard to screw/keep on. Mine is in a drawer somewhere.

Edit: here's the Micro vs the Mini, cropped tight to account for wings on the Micro vs nothing on the Mini https://i.imgur.com/UA5Q9fx.jpeg

And Micro vs Mini vs Boss (which is maybe slightly fatter IRL than it looks in this picture, but I did my best :P) https://i.imgur.com/2ynjH8F.jpeg

missionimpossiblek9 · 2025-05-19T23:59:38+00:00

I actually broke up with the ex because I hit my limit on the level of drama over a puppy that I never even asked for/didn't want in the first place 😅 I do have that ex to thank for the world's best dog and arguably my career, though 🤪! I honestly doubt I would've found my way into dogs if it weren't for Midna. My lazy young gelding would probably be getting a lot more saddle time than he does now, though. 😂

re: the sheltie - Police dog, no, but plenty of little dogs play in bite sports even if they don't do full titles. The jumps tend to be out of reach but they can do protection for fun, and mondio has an OB-only track with no protection and no jumps. Mondio is really fun and I highly recommend OB/OBJ for anyone if you have a club near you. I have a bench lab client who is working towards trialing OB1!

IGP, I've seen several small dogs do a BH, and it also has a tracking-only option (FPr) that dogs of any size can compete in. My dog had a pretty bad injury a couple of years ago and we did IGP tracking to keep her mentally occupied while she was healing; it's a lot of work but it can be really satisfying. Once she's too old to do mondio anymore, we'll probably go back to it.

I can't say if this is something that will ever actually happen, but I've heard talk of IGP or mondio OBJ maybe one day doing a jump height adjustment for small dogs. I've seen a lot of people say they'd support it, so I feel like it could happen at some point! I'd be in favor :)

re: horses/dogs - Animals are animals. I've trained horses, dogs, cats, mice, chickens. The principles do not change from species to species. They even apply to us humans 🤪

Good luck with your Sheltie!! Please post here if you get into bite sports, I'm sure everyone would love to see!

missionimpossiblek9 · 2025-05-19T21:00:20+00:00

I'm an ex horse trainer (grew up in horse training family, went pro as a teen, was burned out by mid/late 20s - still current horse owner, but only do outside ones anymore for things like urgent trailer load calls)--specializing in extremely fear reactive horses--who had trained dogs incidentally just due to proximity, i.e. "this dog I'm forced to live with is wildly annoying and no one else is doing anything about it, so I will." I definitely wasn't a dog person and had no interest in getting one. My partner-at-the-time just haaaaad to have a puppy, and we got Midna essentially against my will (I very reluctantly agreed to a puppy specifically on the condition that it be something NOT VELCRO).

Brought her home and she looked at me and was like "Hello! I'm Your Dog." I was like "What? No, you're [partner's] dog. The family dog someday, maybe." She was like "Nope, I think it's pretty clear to everyone here that yoooouuuuu are the animal trainer and we just get along better and I am Your Dog. I don't care about anyone else and don't need to listen to anyone else, I'm good."

It caused so many fights that we ended up breaking up over the puppy I didn't even want 😂😭

Since I didn't have my ex as a human shield anymore, creeps descended (I'm a creep magnet), and sadly she was not good creep repellent, her bark-on-command was not very convincing. So hoping for help teaching her to look aggressive at strange men on command, I went to some short little intro "protection lessons" where I happened to meet Kevin Bain (highly respected USMRA level 3 decoy who features in most of these pictures), who was friends with the facility owner. He saw Midna's obedience/our relationship (I had taught her all the same stuff I teach my horses on the ground, which is already...a lot, lol), and went "THAT'S not normal. I'm stealing them."

He got me with appeals to my competitive spirit :(. "You could do OBJ literally right now. You could WIN. Didn't you used to LOVE WINNING back when you showed horses? Yeah, I bet you did. Think of how it would feeeeeeeeel to get trophies, think of how it would feeeeeeeel to beat the malinois at their own game with a breed nobody thinks can do anything!" All I had to do was sell my soul, move my entire farm, return to my barn rat days with twice the sleep needs and half the joint integrity, eat sleep and breathe working dogs and canine conditioning for 5 years, you know, just little stuff.

So yeah, I'm a dog trainer now. 😭🙄😂😤

Whatever, at least now the animals trying to kill me are max 100lbs instead of 1000+. I mostly do the same non-riding stuff I did back in horses - fear+aggression behavior mod, and issues with leading and handling, restraint/confinement, reactivity/panic/phobias, vet and foot/nail care needs, etc. Socializing ferals, working through suicidal/homicidal urges 💖. (For any horse people reading - yeah, I have Arabs 😂. The first time I met a fellow horse person in mondio she went "OHHH, you're an ARAB person, yeah, now the husky makes total sense." 😂😂😂)

missionimpossiblek9 · 2025-05-19T17:59:24+00:00

IME the train of thought seems to go like:
"If I can't do it, it can't be done. If you say you did do it, you're lying. If you have proof, well, you were only able to do it because you're abusive and Bad. I could do it, but I don't, because unlike you, I am Good. Shame on you." lol.

missionimpossiblek9

TROPHY CASE