How to Teach a Border Collie Their Name

Series Summary

Man has long had a unique relationship with the animals on this planet. We’ve also trained them to herd or hunt other animals. Yet, perhaps as a gentler development from this history, we have begun to bring animals into our homes, to domesticate and care for them, and to call them friends. When we domesticate them, we also faces challenges with their personalities, their inherent genes and dispositions and their quirks -- all the characteristics that make us love them can also make them difficult to work with.

In this free instructional obedience video series, our expert will show you many tips, techniques, and tricks to use to teach your dog to take commands. Learn how to coach your dog through distractions, stress, anxiousness and more as you watch a professional work with so-called difficult dogs in difficult training situations.

Video Transcript

"Hi! I'm Melanie McElroy with Taurus Training for Expert Village and today we are going to talk about training dogs. Border Collies are wonderful dogs. They are considered by many to be the smartest dogs on the plant. They are bred to work with and independently with humans and as you can see, they are very distracted by their environment. Border Collies are wonderful to work with. They are very quick so it is easy to have a lot of patience with them. This is Bubbles, she is a dog I have not worked with before. So the first thing we need to talk about is how to get her to pay attention to me. So I am going to start with the name game. I am going to actually use food as a lure to actually get her to look at me because she is so intense on whatever is out there; probably a squirrel. So I am going to move the food to my eyes. Now Bubbles is looking away. That is a typical Border Collie characteristic. Luring isn't working so I will try something else. I am just going to try saying her name in a bright happy voice. Bubbles. Bubbles. Good! So I got a little bit of eye contact. If you notice she did not even take the treat. That means there really is a herd of squirrel or an imaginary herd of sheep over there, so I need to work a little bit harder with Bubbles. Now ideally I would end the session and go inside and work with her but let's try it one more time. Bubbles. Bubbles Good! So I had to be patient. That little lick means she is really nervous and again, she didn't take the treat. So this is more of an example of how any dog especially a Border Collie can be too intent on their environment in order to work with him successfully and this means we need to go inside. "