I have been reading three different sheepdog training books at the same time.

Sheepdogs Their Breeding, Maintenance and Training By R.B. Kelley (first published 1942)

Training The Working Kelpie by A.D. (Tony) Parsons (1990)

Positive Herding 101 by Barbara Buchmayer (2021)

The first two books are getting pretty old (particularly the first) but they both have great information in them both from a historical training perspective and as a contrast to positive training. Not coming from a ‘modern’ positive training behaviour background (because I am older) I have found the Buchmayer book really useful. I admit I struggled through the first half as it is fairly academic, expanding and explaining behaviour in an academic manner. It is very formal and reads like a teaching lesson plan. When did life become so acronym driven? RAMs? Rules and Mechanics. There are so many lists I became a bit overwhelmed. Once it gets onto actual training it was much easier to relate the theory to practice. I did enjoy the relief of the Tony Parsons book which is written more in the manner of a chat with a knowledgeable, larrikin  Australian bushman. I was interested to see that Tony has just released a new book which I will buy and review once I read it. I think it is more about the history of Kelpies with less content on training than his previous books.

Kelpie: The Definitive Guide to the Australian Working Dog Hardcover – 2 November 2021

I am interested in the psychology and wellbeing of my dogs though and continue to search out new information. Current practice has changed a lot (mostly for the better) and most of the punishment based training of years gone by would no longer be acceptable. https://www.companionanimalpsychology.com/ is a great site and I recommend this article on positive punishment.

A definition of positive punishment given in the article is

‘Punishment means something that reduces the likelihood of a behaviour happening again i.e. the behaviour goes down in frequency. And positive means that something is added.

So positive punishment means adding something after the dog did a behaviour that makes the frequency of that behaviour go down’.