In my articles, I have written about the emotional state of sheep in different training and handling situations, and about how fear directly affects a sheep’s ability to learn. In this article, we look more closely at the subtle signs of stress in sheep and what sheep behaviour tells us when the animal does not…
Halter breaking was developed in a time when animal handling was based on survival, efficiency, and control – mainly from the 1800s to the early 1900s, before behavioral science, stress physiology, or trauma research even existed. In a world without an understanding of emotional states, without knowledge of how fear affects learning, and without the…
Have you ever stopped to think about how the halter you use actually works?And more importantly: what does it feel like for the sheep? In sheep halter training, the halter is never just equipment. It is a communication device. It shapes how the sheep experiences pressure, how safe it feels, and whether it is able…
When you decide to start preparing your sheep for shows, you also step into the world of animal training. Sheep showmanship training is, at its core, animal training. Guiding a sheep’s behaviour can be very demanding or surprisingly easy, depending on how well you understand sheep behaviour, emotions, and learning. Frustration is a natural reaction…
Sheep training with positive reinforcement is not just about using food rewards or scratching. It is about timing. Timing is everything. Many people already use rewards with their sheep. They give food, they scratch, they talk softly. But if the reward comes at the wrong moment, the sheep is not learning what the human thinks…
Sheep are intelligent animals, even though people often think otherwise. They learn quickly what is beneficial for them and what is not. Every experience, including using a halter, is always connected to an emotion. The emotion a sheep feels when a halter is put on its head depends entirely on how the halter has been…
If your child is training a sheep for show, this is for you. You are not only caring for and training an animal. You are shaping how your child will see animals, training, responsibility, and how their actions affect others. You are teaching them how empathy is built and how animals should be treated for…
When your family joins my online sheep training course, you are not left alone with the material. All course participants are warmly welcome to a private Facebook group that supports everything taught in the training. The teaching videos and structured lessons are found on my website, on the course content page. The Facebook group is…
One of the most common triggers for fear and stress in sheep is restricted movement. This often occurs during routine handling, such as: From a human perspective, these methods are often seen as practical and efficient. From the sheep’s perspective, they remove its primary survival strategy as a prey animal: the ability to move or…
There are basically two ways to make a handling situation “safe”: The biggest difference between these two approaches is the animal’s emotional state. When a sheep feels safe, everything becomes calmer. When a sheep is afraid, it resists, panics, and the risk of injuries increases. If the animal doesn’t understand what is happening and cannot…