Working Styles - how does this dog work livestock

The easiest way to tell a Border Collie from and Australian Shepherd from an English Shepherd is to work some stock with them. Even dogs who have never seen livestock will probably react the way typical of their breed. That's how these breeds have evolved over the last 100 years and it's the best determining factor there is. If you get to use this part of the chart count the information gathered here as double or even triple the value of the other factors.

Shelters don't have a spare flock of sheep around, though, and most people with livestock are not going to be very keen about strange dogs getting a chance to chase the stock around the field. So unfortunatly this is not an easy way to test for breed.

But, on the rare occasion it is possible, this will pretty concretely determine the dog's breed. This is what these dogs were bred for and it is the one thing each breed does distinctly (and well).

"Heading" and "Heeling"

One pair of terms we have listed is "header" and "heeler". All three breeds are quite capable of doing both. A "header" is a dog that goes to the head of the stock and turns them that way, they don't so much drive stock as steer it. This is the typical BC approach and works best on sheep. Some Aussies are natural "headers", too. A "heeler" on the other hand gets behind the stock and drives it to the destination, often nipping at heels to keep the stock moving. This is most helpful moving cattle. Aussies and English Shepherds tend more toward this approach.
Return to the breed comparison chart.