Putting whistles on a Sheepdog

Putting a dog onto whistles...

Putting a dog onto whistles is one of the most enjoyable sessions we do with our dogs…

We wait until are dogs are pretty competent and with good control on voice. When we then come to add the whistles, they pick it up really fast.

The way we add the whistles is very straight forward. In the same way we taught the voice command, we put the whistle to the action.

Give the dog the voice command it already understands and as it takes it, immediately add the whistle. For our stop whistle we use a longer drawn out whistle akin to a horse rider’s ‘whoa’. Our get up or walk on whistle is a couple of pips. You will likely find this one is taken readily as just about any sound or excuse will set them away again!

We add 2 different whistles in the first session, generally a stop and walk on. This avoids your dog learning and ingraining one whistle, for example a stop whistle then down the line thinking any new whistle command means the same thing!

Like most of our training, we teach this at hand getting them happy and confident before we move on to bigger distances. If the dog stops listening at distance then we return to work at hand though one of the advantages of whistles is that it improves communication.

We teach one flank at a time sticking to voice for the other for a couple of sessions to avoid confusion. Most dogs pick up their whistles really quickly so it might only take a few sessions or a week to have them fully on them.

It helps to have distinctly different whistles for your different commands so that if it is very windy and the dog only catches half it still understands. We use a sharper 2 tone whistle for one side and a lower 3 tone for the other hand.

It is helpful to have a recall whistle!

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