Our philosophy regarding Australian Shepherds is that the more time you put into them, the more you will get out of it. Malpaso Aussies are active and successfull in numerous venues which to us is the true meaning of the often-used phrase "versatility". To us it means that our dogs are biddable, meaning they want to work and perform for you, they are intelligent and they have the working instinct which is so important in our breed. However, nothing is free nowadays so you do have to spend significant time training your dog. Here's our approach.

When our dogs are still young, we make sure that they are raised in an environment that includes lots of different situations that they can react to. Whether it's people that they don't know, sounds that they're not familiar with or just being in a different place, we will expose them so that they can learn to deal with these things.

We spent a lot of time with all of our dogs but especially with our puppies and young dogs. All of our dogs go on several long walks per day. These are structured walks where they learn to stay together, they learn to behave on the walking trails and important commands like "come" and "what are you doin'?"

Feeding time is yet another learning experience at Malpaso. The young dogs learn their place in the pack, their place to eat and to mind their own business when eating. At night all of our young dogs, including the pups, sleep in their crates, all night, quietly, until morning time.

As you can tell, Malpaso dogs understand pack behavior and most of all that human beings are the leaders of the pack. Early on their social learning also includes going places such as dogshows, shopping for dog food and other visits by car. All part of growing up.

By the time real training starts, whether its stock work, agility or obedience, our dogs have the basic skills that will make training much faster and more enjoyable for everyone. We let each dog figure things out at their own pace, since they're all very different from each other. Training must be fun however, we do expect discipline from our dogs that know what our expectations are.

Below you will find some links for further training, especially on stock, as Maarten takes three young dogs, all from the same litter, through his training program.

Maarten's approach to Aussie's working style is an organic one. A good working Aussie basically wants one basic thing - to control his livestock. This is their instinct, behavior and raison d'etre. Our job is to allow them to control their stock, increase their confidence and let them learn which methods of controlling and moving stock work best for them.

Once the Aussie has become comfortable working and controlling their stock, minus any bad and unnecessary behaviors, we can start working on our control over the dog. Frequently handlers want to teach the dog to be obedient first and make the dog work against their own instinct. While this may work in breeds that have been bred for hundreds of years to do nothing but work livestock, our Aussies are not like that.

This, to me, is the main difference. The goal is to allow the Aussie to work, control and become confident first, while keeping the dog out of trouble. Then and only then the dog will become receptive and willing to take our commands that may counteract their instinct.

Further, the Aussie works a certain way. He has strengths and weaknesses because of the way he works. We need to learn to live with these as this is what our breed is and was meant to be and should be in the future.

We must still continue to breed for those characteristics that made the Aussie the versatile farm dog. Changing the working style of the Aussie to work totally different will change the breed as a whole. We at Malpaso strive for those Aussies that work as per the Australian Shepherd Club of America Working Description.

Have Fun!

Maarten

Chaps Moving Cattle - Germany, 2003