1. Socialize your puppy.

Don't just get a pup and put them in a kennel or put them in a stall in a barn and expect them to come out a year latter and have someone be able to train your dog.  Let a puppy be a puppy.  Lots of contact with the family, and in my personal opinion, there is nothing better than having a puppy grow up with kids.

2. Teach your dog the basics early on.

That means spending time with your pup.  Teach your puppy it's name.  Teach it to come when called.  Teach what NO means along with a down and a stay.  Those are basic things that if you don't teach, your trainer is going to have to all at a cost to you.  It is always more fun to start with a well behaved dog.

3. Teach your dog good kennel habits.

Crate train your puppy.  A puppy will resist a crate at first because of the confinement, but will learn that a crate is their own protected area and love the security a crate provides.  Provide adequate time out of its kennel to do its duties.  A dog likes to have a clean place to live and will appreciate not having to use its house as a toilet.  There is nothing worst than a dog that is always fouling its kennel.

I know a lot of people just let their dogs run loose.  This is not acceptable for a working dog.  The number one reason of mortality for working dogs is being run over by a vehicle.  That speaks for itself.  I don't know how often someone will bring in their young dog, we put it on the stock and it looks like it is afraid of the stock or it looks back at its owner afraid to go to the stock.  Almost always you find out that the dog was out running loose and was chasing the horses, cattle, sheep or even chasing cars and was gotten after for doing that.  That translates into punishment for working .  To an untrained dog, what might be chasing to you is working to the dog.  Many of these dogs, when you get them on the stock and encourage them will work again but many will never reach their full potential.  This is a mistake that can easily be avoided by putting the young dog in a kennel and not letting these problems occur.  But you are going to say, Heck, I don't want my young dog in a kennel all the time but also don't want them chasing after the horses or running down the lane after a car.  That is true, but the way to stop them is to have control on your dog and once you start getting your dog broke you will be able to have a down and whatever it is chasing, you will be able to down it, stop it and call it back to you. And that is the best way of controlling the situation.

4. Allowing your pup to watch the stock.

To just sit and stare at stock either from inside its kennel or out, running up to the fence and just sitting there by the fence and watching the cattle or sheep all day long can make a young dog both clappy and sticky on sheep and develop too much eye.  That is easily avoided by moving your dogs kennel to where it can't see the stock, building a blind and keeping it in a kennel.

5. Teach your pup that you don't like barking all the time.

It is fairly easy to do when they are pretty young.  You can just yell NO harshly at them and again they should know what the word NO means from you previous training.  And if necessary, grab them by the nose at the same time and say NO.  By the time a pup is 3 to 4 months old and if its barking you should just be able to say no and have it be quiet.  If you do send your dog out for training when its almost a year old and its barking, the first thing your trainer is going to have to do is work on it to stop the barking and its counter productive to bonding with your dog.

6. Electric Fences.

And for some reason I hear this fairly regularly, I went to work the stock for the first time or my dog was looking through the fence and it got hit by an electric fence.  When a dog is looking at the stock and its mind is focused on the stock and it is hit by an electric fence, the dog thinks it is the stock that did it not the fence.  He doesn't relate to the fence hurting him, just the stock.

7. Introducing your Dog to Stock.

When you go in to introduce your dog to stock make it a really good fun experience for the dog.  Use dog broke stock.  Don't let your dog get driven into the ground by the stock that is not broke or too spoiled.  Help your young dog.  Use your voice to praise your young dog.  Get your dog excited about the stock.  I don't think there is anything a dog can do wrong the first time you take it to stock.  Whatever happens the first time a young dog goes to stock, I'm not disappointed.  It's not the way they start, it's the way they finish that counts. For young dogs, keep the training sessions short.  10 minutes or less, 2 times a day is much better than once for 20 to 30 minutes.

8. Timing is everything.

Ultimately, for quick results training a dog, you need to give correction when the dog is thinking about doing something wrong, not after it is done.  For example, if your dog is a big time gripper, the time to correct is when he is thinking about gripping not after he has gripped.  When you watch your pup, most generally it will grip in the same direction all the time.  Watch for that grip and when you see it coming, be prepared for the correction.  Warning signs of the impending grip are the tail coming up, picking up speed, or a change in the eyes.  Make your correction before it grips.  Most people say,     "Well I can't correct it because it never does that at home."  I can assure you that it is thinking about gripping at home and you have to think like the dog.  Stop thinking like a human and start thinking like the dog.  When you start thinking like your dog, training will be easier for you and him.

9. Dogs are creatures of habit.

If a dog does something wrong and does it once it is no big deal but if it is allowed to do it over and over again, it becomes a bad habit.  Anytime a dog does something 15 or 20 times it has become a habit.  The good news is that if it does something right 15 or 20 time it becomes a good habit.  The lesson to be learned here is, don't let them do it wrong in the first place because it is a habit you are going to have to change.  It takes a long time to make a bad habit into a good one.  If your dog did something correct 5 or 6 times and you are thinking how great that was and then does something wrong once you are going to have to do it again 5 or 6 times correctly before you are back to where you started when he did it wrong just that one time.  When training your pup you need to make use of every opportunity for good habits.

10. Shorten Back Up.

Number 10 may be something you already know.  That is, no matter where you are in training, whether it is a very young puppy learning to come to you or you are working on your dogs out run or just trying to get your dog to stop, if you are having difficulty with it, you need to get closer to the dog.  To shorten things up.  Again, don't let your pup get the opportunity to do something wrong.  Don't expect your puppy to come when he is in hot pursuit of the neighborhood cat.  Instead, get into a control situation, where you are fairly close, where you know he is going to obey and set it up where you can say "That will do" and he will come to you.  If you are having outrun trouble, don't try to fix it at 2 or 3 hundred yards.  Fix it at 75 yards or 50 yards even and then slowly make your outrun longer and longer.  If you have a failure, back it up.  Do half the distance again and work your way back out.  This is the golden rule of dog training.  When ever you are in trouble just cut everything in half.  Get control and slowly work your way out again.

    To me, I think the main difference between a professional and someone just starting to train stockdogs it that the pro sees a problem before it ever gets to be a problem and avoids it completely where a beginner doesn't know they are having a problem until it is too late and then they have to go fix the problem.  Be ready to spend quality time with your pup and seek professional help if you are unsure or having a problem before it develops into a habit.