The only gadget that can stop him pulling 100% is you, at a year old he has already picked up bad habits by being allowing to continue to do so. Hard graft and persistance are the only tools that will work now, Forget the halti and all the fancy headgear and consider a half check chain.

I couldn't disagree with you more.

Every working dog has to have a heel or at least have a command to be behind the handler. Every book I have read on sheep dog training, border collies, the farmers I have had the joy to work with and the breed experts I have met have all got commands for getting their dog to heel.

If a farmer was carrying out a livestock check and there dog wasn;t under control it would try and work every animlal it came across. The heel command and the "That'll do" command are the only ones that are not a cue for the dog to work so even if the dog set off to work and animal and you gave it a "Down" command it would switch into work mode. When they give their heel command the dog knows it is not needed for work so it can tag along nice and relaxed. The vast majority of farmers don't even use a heel command they will use the "That'll do" to call the dog into them and to the dog that is exactly it. If the farmer wants them to work after that a command is given. If not then they walk away and the dog follows. These dogs have tried to be out in front so much and been told off for it becasue a dog can't follow you if it is out in front, it can't see you change direction and for that split second you could lose control and you could potentially lose your dog and a fully trained sheepdog ain't cheap. Not much change from £2000 for a half decent trained dog.

Who ever has told you that working dogs don't need ot learn how to heel is too lazy to teach it.

a simple rule is that the dog always remains a step behind the master unless told otherwise.

Nope, nobody taught me that at all. It was a personal observation, based on what working breeds do. Some stay behind the handler - many don't. A working sheepdog that stayed behind the shepherd wouldn't be a great deal of use - they have been selected for hundreds on years for initiative and knowing when and how to go out and sort the sheep out, off their own bat.

A sheepdog which always waited for commands would be no use to shepherds in real farm situations. It's the instinctual initiative that makes them successful sheepdogs - being able to work and do the job with the minimal of commands that makes them successful - and conversely it's that initiative which makes many working type dogs very difficult to train when kept as a pet in an urban situation.

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Ah yes but that would be a different situation entirely- offlead and working. Think of all of the comp. obedience dogs who do a beautiful/faultless loose (offlead) heels.
My friend has a farm and works his collie and yes, Meg knows all her commands (in fact she's an excellent worker), however what you call a "heel" command could be pretty open to interpretation. My friend for instance will tell his dog "Here" (after telling her to stop working, in his case "that'll do")and that means "walk with me and stay close", it is not an obedience style heel or even the sort of heel you would see in a pet dog on a lead. It basically means "follow me". He also frequently downs her whilst she is working when necessary and expects her to wait for the next command.

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Sorry I must have missed something but I thought I wrote that word for word of what you just said. I didn't put heel in "" because some use "Here" - I use that - but I used the word heel so the OP would know what I was on about. I know they don't work them to the obedience "heel". Crossed wires I think.

They have a "with me" command or even "close" but that is NOT a heel command, as we would want or wish for in pet dogs.... kind of what I tried to explain in my earlier post

Just means: Sheepdog, come back here, in my general vicinity - I don't need you stuck to my leg, but get back...lol

Maybe now you understand why working dogs of any breed have a difficulty in staying "stuck to heel" in pet situations...?

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I should add that I've only seen my friend use the "here" command when walking out of the field with his dog or when leading her back to the truck again, so really she is working at a distance the rest of the time.

I agree with MerlinsMum in that herding breeds/working dogs are bred for their ability work at a distance and whilst yes trainability and the ability to call your dog to you and control it is incredibly important, what breeds like the border collie were bred for is their very high intelligence, ability to work at a distance, their ability to use initiative etc...

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Border Collies chase sheep. That is 50% of what they do and are purposefully bred to do. The other 50% is to work with the shepherd and concentrate.

If border collies chase sheep all the handler has to do is tell them how and where he wants those sheep to be chased and they do this with the commands. Yes collies have brains and can think and they also use a great deal of "the eye" - never stare a collie down you'll ruin it's confidence.

If they didn't have a command for "Chill out and just stay near" the dog would be working all the time, be wound up to high heaven and would be a total wreck in about 18months because collies are highly strung individuals if you over work them so they need to know when it is their time off so they can clear their head, sniff stuff and generally be a dog and a companion again rather than an employee.

Yep- that's what I was trying to convey
-a sort of "stay close, follow me" type command rather than "glue yourself to my leg".

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