Step by Step

By Bruce Fogt

Issue 8

Teaching a dog to make a good outrun can be very difficult with some dogs, or very easy with others. Some have the gift of a natural outrun and others must be painstakingly taught on every step of it. Some dogs know instinctively where to run and where to stop to lift the sheep properly; others require training to teach them where they should be in relation to the sheep at a given distance. If your dog is a natural outrunner, you are lucky. It is a real joy to watch an untrained young dog leave your feet and to see it turn its head in as it runs to gauge the distance to the sheep, and through instinct, determine where it should go to be in perfect balance with the sheep and you. 

Most dogs, however, do not begin with a natural outrun. Most will begin by running tight against the sheep or even through the middle of them. However, this does not mean that the dog will never have a good outrun; it just means you need to teach it to gauge the proper distance that it should be from the sheep as it goes around. Often, even the dogs who do have natural outruns do not display them right away. They are sometimes so keyed up to be working that they are not thinking. 

It is important to determine what an outrun is. When a dog is going around the sheep on an outrun its whole purpose is to get into balance position on the sheep without disturbing them until it is in proper position to lift the sheep straight to you. In other words, it is just going around to balance point on the sheep. With this in mind you can see that when you first begin teaching the dog to balance you are also teaching it to do a small outrun. Even though the distance may only be ten yards, you are still allowing it to go around the sheep to bring them back to you. Ten yards is a very short distance for an outrun, but you have to begin somewhere; and if you cannot get it right at that distance, you have little hope of getting it right at five hundred yards. 

The ground work for an outrun is done up close with the dog and sheep. Teaching it to go around the sheep, staying the proper distance off and running with thought and purpose is the first step. The distance the dog should be from the sheep on an outrun is somewhat determined by the distance the sheep are from you and the dog when you send. For example, if the sheep are ten yards away, the dog should run in an arc of at least that distance around the sheep; but if the sheep are two hundred yards away, the dog should then run in an arc that is perhaps seventy-five to one hundred yards off the sheep. 

The whole idea is for the dog to stay far enough away from the sheep so they are not disturbed until the dog is behind them and walking up to lift them toward you. However, you do not want it to run too wide because that wastes time and is wasted effort for the dog. The ideal outrun at a long distance will look like the outline of half of a pear with the stem part being where the dog is sent from. When it runs in this pattern it demonstrates that it is reading the distance to the sheep and knows where to run to conserve energy without disturbing the sheep. A dog that runs in a big half circle will still get around its sheep but it will have expended much more energy and does not display its ability to read the stock. 

 I feel that it is important to begin teaching a dog the proper distance away from the sheep very early in its training. Usually as soon as I feel it knows it is supposed to go around the sheep and balance them to me. I will begin to put pressure on the dog to stay off at a proper distance. Care must be taken that you do not push it off too far as this may result in a dog that runs too wide. 

I use the same principle to push a dog off wider that I do when teaching a dog to balance. The dog should be repelled by you when you run at it. As the dog is starting around the sheep, I will run at it and should “get back.” Timing and body positioning are the key. You need to block the dog enough to tell it is wrong but not enough to stop it completely. Keep in mind that you are trying to communicate that it needs to run wider, not that it is going the wrong direction. Therefore, timing and the proper amount of verbal discouragement, or sometimes encouragement, will improve your ability to communicate to your dog what you want. Like all training methods, it is possible to over-do the corrections; the result being a dog that runs to wide. You must always balance your training procedures to fit the personality of each individual dog. 

 When you start to send our dog around, be sure that you are in the proper position so you can make a correction if necessary. Normally I like to be at least half way between the sheep and dog standing a few steps off from the direction I want it to go. This tells the dog clearly which direction you want it to go because that side is open for it to go around to balance. Then if the dog starts to cut in, run at it in the direction that will head it off. You don’t want the dog to stop, but you do want it to bend off from you and go wider around the sheep. Experimenting with corrections will help you to see what combination communicates the idea best to your dog. Different dogs require different degrees of firmness. If you are not getting results, you may need to be more aggressive toward your dog. As the dog starts to get the idea, start to back off your pressure on it to allow it to do it right on its own. 

 One of the main problems is that people expect too much too fast. When they have the dog going around at a short distance they then try to make it go a much greater distance before the dog is ready, When the dog is running correctly at a short distance with you standing halfway between, start to move gradually back each time until you can send it from your side without the need for a correction. After you have a dependable short outrun, you can begin to increase the distance, but always be sure that it is doing it properly before moving on. 

 When training I always like to give the dog a variety of work rather than continually drilling it in one area. After some work on widening an outrun, I like to break it up by just walking and allowing the dog to bring the sheep along with me. As long as it is working quietly, I will allow it to work and think on its own. This seems to take off some of the mental pressure that can build up during intense training sessions.