This is an excerpt from the book Positive Herding 101: Dog-friendly training by Barbara Buchmayer, shared with permission.
As I read the short email in 2011, I had no idea that destiny was knocking at my door. The message was from a woman in South Africa asking if I would help her train a herding dog using positive methods. She had never trained a dog for herding, nor had she even worked a herding dog. In fact, she knew virtually nothing about herding. I immediately realized it would be foolish to get involved with this project because we would be limited to using email, video, and Skype to communicate tons of precise information and complex concepts. Yet I was deeply into figuring out how to train herding using positive reinforcement and I knew it could be done. So the question became: could two people with the same vision, but very different backgrounds, turn a rambunctious border collie pup into a useful herding dog while 9,000 miles apart?
