Busting the Herding Myth: Car Chasing in Border Collies with Rachel Rodgers
Your Webinar Description:
Car chasing in border collies is often dismissed as “just herding”, but this explanation does little to reflect what the dog is actually experiencing and can actively hinder effective intervention. In this webinar, we’ll move beyond the herding myth and explore why traffic chasing is not a true herding behaviour, but instead arises from a complex interaction between breed-related sensitivity and overwhelming emotional states. Drawing on research from ethology, neuroscience, and veterinary behavioural medicine, we’ll examine why cars are unlikely to be perceived as prey, and why fear, frustration, arousal dysregulation, anticipation, and pain are far more relevant drivers of this behaviour.
Learning Objectives:
- Understand why explaining car chasing as “herding” is inaccurate, and how framing it as such is unhelpful from both a training and welfare perspective.
- Learn about the key emotional drivers behind car chasing, including fear, frustration, arousal dysregulation, anticipation, and pain, and how these interact in individual dogs.
- Become familiar with the most common differentials to work through when assessing car chasing cases, helping you identify which factors may be contributing in each dog.
- Explore emerging research suggesting that, in some dogs, car chasing may meet criteria for abnormal repetitive behaviours.
- Build in-depth, breed-specific insight into why border collies are particularly vulnerable to developing this behaviour.
- Leave equipped to design more effective, ethical training and behaviour plans for border collies who chase vehicles, with a strong focus on safety, emotional regulation, and welfare.
Who should attend?
- Dog Behaviour Consultants & Behaviourists
- Professional Dog Trainers
- Shelter & Rescue Staff managing behavioural intakes
- Dog walkers and other pet professionals
- Border collie caregivers
Your Presenters- Rachel Rodgers – MSc, BEd (CANTAB), ABTC-CAB, ABTC-ATI, KPA-CTP.
As the owner of The Collie Consultant, Rachel supports border collies and their owners throughout the UK and worldwide, working primarily via video consultation. She has lived and worked with collies for over 30 years, and while completing her MSc in Clinical Animal Behaviour at the University of Lincoln, she established The Collie Consultant. Through this work, she has been helping border collies and their families resolve behaviour problems for the past six years.
Rachel has a particular interest in abnormal repetitive (compulsive) behaviours in dogs and has featured on several podcasts discussing welfare-led, science-based approaches to behaviour. She is also a qualified teacher, with strong people skills and a passion for helping owners improve the lives of border collies through clear, evidence-based understanding of their behaviour. Over the years, she has also volunteered with a range of rescue organisations, further informing her welfare-led approach to behaviour support.
She has trained and competed with border collies in a range of dog sports, including obedience, agility, and flyball, and has also trained her own collies to work sheep. Rachel currently lives in Lincolnshire, UK, with her three border collies, a cat, and eighteen pet sheep.
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Bookings
Bookings are closed for this event.