Learning to See What Your Dog Is Telling You
I supervised a test last spring where a handler missed every signal her Shetland Sheepdog was broadcasting. The dog crouched, shifted weight forward, tracked the sheep with intense focus. Beautiful instinct display. But the handler kept calling him back, thinking he was about to attack the livestock.
After we finished, I walked her through what I had observed. She had been so focused on preventing disaster that she missed the communication happening right in front of her.
Reading body language during instinct testing takes practice. The signals differ from everyday behavior, and the environment makes interpretation challenging. But understanding what your dog is telling you helps you work with their instinct rather than against it.
The First Moments Tell Everything
When you enter the pen and release your dog, watch their initial reaction closely. Those first few seconds reveal more about underlying instinct than anything that follows. Knowing what evaluators look for during the test helps you understand which behaviors matter most.
Immediate Orientation
A dog with strong instinct orients to livestock within the first breath. Their head turns, ears prick, body squares up to the stock before conscious thought seems to engage. This automatic orientation suggests genetic programming is activating.
Dogs without instinct may take longer to notice the livestock or show only passing interest before shifting attention elsewhere. Some need the stock to move before engaging at all. This delayed response does not mean absence of instinct, but it suggests lower drive than dogs who orient immediately.
Body Position Drops
Watch for the characteristic drop in body position that indicates herding mode activation. Shoulders lower. The head comes down to eye level or below. Weight shifts forward onto the front feet. The whole body seems to compress and prepare.
This crouch differs from a fearful crouch. Fearful dogs pull their weight backward, ready to retreat. Instinctive dogs push forward, even while low. The direction of weight distribution tells you whether you are seeing drive or avoidance.
The Freeze
Many dogs with strong instinct freeze completely when first encountering livestock. They become statues, every muscle locked, processing what they are seeing. This freeze can last seconds or minutes.
Do not interrupt the freeze by calling your dog or moving closer. Let them process. The freeze often breaks into sudden, purposeful movement as instinct takes over. Interrupting it can prevent the behavior you came to evaluate.
Eye Contact and Focus
The way your dog uses their eyes around livestock reveals the nature of their interest.
Hard Eye Versus Soft Eye
Border Collies and some other breeds develop what handlers call eye, an intense, unwavering stare that pressures stock to move. This hard eye involves fixed focus, minimal blinking, and complete stillness of the head. The dog’s gaze locks on and does not waver.
Other breeds show softer eye with more movement and less intensity. This does not indicate lesser instinct, just different breed style. German Shepherds and Belgian breeds often work with softer eye and more physical presence than staring intensity.
Where They Look
Instinctive dogs focus on the stock as a group, tracking the flock rather than fixating on individual animals. They shift focus smoothly as the group moves, maintaining awareness of the whole.
Prey-driven dogs often lock onto a single animal, typically one that moves differently or shows weakness. This targeting of individuals suggests hunting behavior rather than herding instinct. The distinction matters because it affects trainability and safe working potential.
Breaking Focus
How your dog handles distractions tells you about the strength of their drive. A dog with strong instinct maintains focus on stock even when called, when other dogs bark, when people move around the pen. Breaking that focus requires significant effort.
Dogs with weaker instinct shift attention more easily. A noise, a movement, your voice calling can pull their eyes away from the livestock. This suggests lower drive, though environmental factors like exhaustion or overstimulation can also cause attention breaks.
Movement Patterns
The way your dog moves around stock distinguishes instinct from prey drive more clearly than almost any other signal.
Approach Style
Herding dogs approach stock with deliberate, controlled movement. They advance slowly, often in a slight arc rather than straight on. Each step seems calculated to maintain pressure without triggering flight.
Prey-driven dogs rush in. They charge directly at stock, often triggering panic responses. The speed and directness of the approach reveals intent to catch rather than control.
Wearing
Watch for wearing behavior, where your dog moves parallel to the stock as they shift position. The dog adjusts their own position to stay with the group, moving when they move, stopping when they stop.
This tracking behavior happens without instruction in dogs with strong instinct. They follow the stock because their genetics tell them to, not because they learned it. The Herding Instinct Institute considers wearing one of the primary indicators of genuine herding instinct.
Balance Point Seeking
Dogs with instinct naturally seek the balance point, the position opposite the handler that keeps stock between them. Without any training, they work to maintain this positioning, adjusting as you move.
Watch what happens when you shift position in the pen. An instinctive dog repositions to stay balanced. A dog without instinct may stay where they are or move randomly rather than in response to your location.
The Turn
Herding dogs turn differently than dogs in prey drive. They arc around stock, often at considerable distance, to approach from another angle. This flanking behavior positions them to redirect movement rather than simply chase.
Prey-driven dogs turn tightly, staying close to target, ready to grab. The radius of the turn indicates intent. Wide, sweeping turns suggest herding. Tight, close turns suggest prey pursuit.
Pressure and Pace
How your dog modulates their intensity around stock reveals their natural understanding of the work.
Reading Stock Response
Watch whether your dog adjusts pressure based on how the livestock react. If sheep start to panic, does your dog back off or push harder? A dog with instinct typically reduces pressure when stock become stressed, maintaining control without causing chaos.
This pressure regulation develops fully through training, but some natural adjustment appears in raw instinct testing. Dogs that consistently escalate pressure regardless of stock response may have prey drive rather than herding instinct.
Pace Control
Instinctive dogs often match their pace to the stock’s movement. When sheep walk, the dog walks. When they trot, the dog trots. This synchronization happens unconsciously, a natural adjustment to maintain appropriate pressure.
Dogs without instinct often run at full speed regardless of what the stock is doing. They cannot read the necessary pace from the situation because the instinct that would inform that reading is absent.
Stress Signals Versus Drive Signals
Some behaviors could indicate either high drive or high stress. Learning to distinguish between them helps you understand what your dog is experiencing.
Panting
Heavy panting during testing can mean physical exertion, excitement, or anxiety. Look at the rest of the body to interpret. Panting with forward weight and focused eyes suggests excited drive. Panting with pulled-back ears and averted gaze suggests stress.
Lip Licking
Quick lip licks often indicate stress or uncertainty in dogs. However, during high-drive herding work, some dogs show lip licking as part of their focus pattern. Context matters. Frequent lip licking combined with avoidance behavior suggests anxiety. Occasional lip licking during intense focus is typically nothing concerning.
Tail Position
Tail carriage varies enormously between breeds, making interpretation tricky. Generally, a tail held in the breed’s natural working position suggests comfortable engagement. A tucked tail suggests fear. A highly flagging tail may suggest overarousal.
Watch how tail position changes during the test rather than judging any single moment. A dog whose tail tucks when first entering but gradually rises as they engage is becoming comfortable. A dog whose tail tucks progressively lower is becoming more stressed.
Communicating With Your Evaluator
Share what you observe with the evaluator after the test. They may have seen things you missed, and your observations may clarify behaviors they noted.
Describe specific moments rather than general impressions. Tell them about the freeze when your dog first saw the sheep, the moment they started wearing, the turn that seemed wider than you expected. These details help build an accurate picture of what your dog demonstrated.
Understanding body language helps you become a better partner in whatever work follows testing. Whether you pursue formal herding training after certification or simply use this knowledge to enrich your dog’s daily life, the ability to read what they communicate serves every aspect of your relationship. The meaning of different test results becomes clearer when you can accurately interpret what your dog demonstrated.