Sleeping on the bed won’t ruin your working dog

There’s a common attitude that working dogs with a real job and pet dogs are two wildly different things, and once a working dog has been treated like a pet it will “ruin” them for the work.

Reality check: if your working farm dog is going to be ruined for work by coming indoors, being patted or playing with toys, chances are you’ve got the wrong dog to start with. The strong genetics and that inherent love for the work that we want to see in a farm dog shouldn’t be so delicate that it’s damaged by where they sleep or how many pats they get.

Our best working farm dogs (including Flight the heading dog in the photos) also lived a lot of the pet life. Coming on trips to the beach or bush, playing agility, training tricks and even sleeping on the bed. None of this affected their ability to work. Work was still their favourite game, and if anything the cross training and exposure set them up for even more success in their working life and retirement.

However there are some aspects we do need to consider more with dogs intended for work so they are set up for success - regardless of where they are outside of work.

🌟Prevent bad habits. If you’re not supervising, put them away in a crate or kennel while young so they’re not channeling their instincts into undesirable behaviours. It’s super easy for a highly driven dog to start fixating on objects, harassing other dogs/cats etc if allowed. At minimum, it’s an annoying habit you have to sort out. At worst, they believe this poor habit is their life’s work and it’s tough to transition them to what you do actually want them working on (potentially where this myth comes from).

🌟Keep them slim. Too many treats without adjusting their food accordingly = extra weight on joints, work is tougher and less enjoyable.

🌟Give them time out. Dogs need rest to be at their prime for work.

🌟Expose them to the work early on. Taking a pet dog at 18mo used to living indoors the whole time and trying to get it excited about work at that stage is much more challenging than if they have been a part of the working environment from the start.

🌟Be consistent. Stop means stop, whether it’s at home or on the job.

This said, provided their needs are being met each day (appropriate care, mental and physical exercise and interaction), how and where you keep your working dog is really personal preference. We don’t need myths around delicate working drive to be okay with dogs living a good working life purely in the role they were born for.

There are some “pet” life skills I think every dog should be taught though, regardless of their job title or where they sleep. You might never use them yourself, but if they are rehomed at some stage and need to adapt to a new way of life you’ll be doing everyone a favour having them able to be as adaptable as possible.

🌟The ability to be kennelled and crated, indoors and outside. Resting and rehabbing an injured or unwell dog who finds life indoors really stressful from lack of exposure is a real nuisance. Crate resting a high drive dog is hard enough when they are used to being crated, let alone when it’s a totally foreign concept. Your vets will also thank you for not having the Huntaway that stress barks down the clinic all day long!

🌟Along with this, confidence in different environments and surfaces in general. I remember taking a 3yo beardie/huntaway to the vets for the first time after purchasing him. Teddy had been working mobs of bulls all week long without a care in the world. Simply walking on lino flooring though - the world was bloody ending, and we ended up having to wheel him through the clinic on the dog food trolley. Teach your dogs that they can walk on more than just grass and gravel and that seeing other humans or domestic animals isn’t some weird thing to be worried about.

🌟 Handling. Dogs need to be able to cope with being handled all over - by you and others - both for maintenance of their coats/nails as needed but also to be able to properly assess and treat injuries that might come up. The inevitable injuries while on the job are stressful enough without also trying to wrangle a dog who isn’t coping.