Wairarapa farmer and dog triallist Chris Shaw with his latest pup, seven-month-old huntaway Miley. Photo / RNZ / Gianina Schwanecke / Country Life
By Gianina Schwanecke of RNZ
The secret to training any dog well is forming a strong bond between animal and trainer.
Wairarapa dog triallist and stock manager Chris Shaw would know. He has been working with a team of dogs daily for close to 20 years.
“When I’m picking a pup, I normally like the one that comes up to me; just wants to be me mate,” he tells RNZ’s Country Life.
“They’re going to be with you for a long time so you’ve got to like everything about that dog.”
Miley, his latest pup, is the third generation in a line of huntaways that Shaw has been breeding.
Mum Roxy and big sister Duchess, Dutch for short, are a part of his regular working dog team.
Miley was sired by a “natural working” dog from the Hunterville area named TJ, as Shaw is now more focused on breeding “good farm station dogs”.
One of six born at the end of January, she is now about seven months old - the most important time in a young dog’s life, Shaw said.
“The most important time in a dog’s life is eight weeks old and eight months.
“So that’s the time the dog sort of bonds with you and becomes your mate.
“There’s not a lot of training that goes on at this stage in her life. It’s more of a bonding process.”
Rather than seeing himself as the boss of Miley, Shaw viewed their relationship as a partnership.
“We’re going to be together a long time so we have to get along.”
Miley was chosen for her friendly nature and good “bone structure”.
“She’s got a healthy, athletic physique.”
There is a lot of time and effort that goes into breeding and training up a working dog.
Shaw is in no hurry to rush the process either.
“For me, there’s no set time on breaking in a dog.
“If you do the basics properly, you’ll end up with a better product, whereas if you rush them to get them broken in you get a sort of half-hearted dog that doesn’t want to work with you.
“I’d like to have a dog broken in by two-and-a-half to three years old.”
Shaw said a team of working dogs is “like a bag of golf clubs, every dog has a job”.
Huntaways are the “motor of the team” that help move the stock while heading dogs are like “the steering of a car”.
A well-trained dog is an investment on farm, with the average price for a good working dog between $5000-$6000, though Shaw has heard of a top heading dog selling for $17,000.
For him, it is more about a love of the work rather than the money.
“I get more of a thrill out of breeding a dog and watching someone else do really well with it.”
Shaw started competing in dog trials in 2008.
This year, he won the award for top Wairarapa huntaway with his dog Dixie.
She was also placed third in the North Island, and sixth in New Zealand at the National Champs which was the “icing on the cake” for her recent retirement.
He has high hopes for young Miley who already seems a fast learner.
He starts all his dogs by training for a few minutes every other night on the front lawn.
“Puppies don’t have a very long attention span so you’ve got to keep it short and sharp.”
At this age, Miley knows her name - a tribute to the singer Miley Cyrus - and to come back when called.
“Probably the most important things you put on your dog is a callback, because if they get themselves into trouble at least you can call them back.
“When they’re at this age, one - you want to keep them keen and two - you don’t want them to get hurt.”
From about four months old he starts using a flank rope - a collar placed around her back, just in front of her front legs - to get her used to it.
Practice involves getting her to stand in front of him, looking away.
“I’m just teaching her patience,” Shaw explains.
“A huntaway’s job is to push sheep away from you so they need to learn not to look back at you.”
He also brings her to the stockyards to gauge her reaction to stock and see what it will take to train her.
A more “bold and full-on” dog requires more interference from Shaw and firmer boundaries, whereas if she’s “soft in hand” then he can trust her to figure things out on her own more.
Shaw tries to have the stock already in the yards when training young dogs to take the excitement out of moving them.
He prefers to work with just a few sheep at a time, to prevent the “window wiper” when a dog darts from side to side.
It teaches them to work the sheep as individuals rather than with a mob mentality.
Like the singer, Miley is being taught to use her voice correctly.
“The way I know she’s using her noise correctly is it will go from quite squeaky and high pitched to dropping quite low ... it’s what we call lift, which means they’re using the maximum amount of volume in their noise to get the maximum response from stock out in the paddock.”
Already, Shaw can tell she has the “x-factor”.
RNZ’s Country Life will be watching Miley develop and tracking her training over the next few months.
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