Producing my second video - Training and Working a Border Collie
Within a few years, I realized that with the
interest in this video I should buy a professional camera and start
the whole project again. A professional camera and a professional
format would allow me to edit the source footage and thus make a
tighter and better video. In 1989 I finished Training and
Working a Border Collie.
This remained a great video for us and was watched by thousands of Border Collie
trainers and handlers all around the world.
I was happy with Training and Working a Border
Collie until one morning at about 6 o'clock. in 1994. The
phone rang and at the other end of the line was a very disgruntled
cattle rancher from Nevada. " This video is all about training a
Border Collie on sheep", he said. " I don't have any sheep, I'll
never have any sheep. I don't like sheep". I tried to explain to
this fellow that the whole process of using the Border Collies
natural instinct of balance, as demonstrated in the video, would
work the same whether on sheep or cattle. "Just try to imagine the
sheep are steers", I said. By about the 4th time he said, "look
young fellow, you don't know what you're talking about. Border
Collies won't work on cattle the same way you're showing them
working on sheep in your video", I decided then that it was time for
a change. After I put the phone down, I said to my wife, "today I am
starting on planning out a new video on training Border Collies and
this time I'm going to include everyone. I don't want to have anyone
like that on the end of the phone again".
But to be honest, similar phone calls over the years had led me
to think that showing training on sheep alone was not fully
explaining the whole deal. There had been people who had a few acres
and no stock at all. Then there were the cattle farmers with
feeders, the cow calf operators, big and small, the turkey farmers
who wanted to know if a Border Collie would help them out. And so
the list went on! It was just this one fellow from Nevada who lit
the fuse.
(Border
Collie training information)
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