By Andrea Arnold
Bryn, a seven-year-old registered border collie, and her handler, McBride resident Jennifer L’Arrivee earned top recognition at the 2024 Calgary Stampede World Stock Dog Championships.
The competition requires 60 canine-human teams to compete twice over two days, each time completing a pattern around the arena. The handler is given a pattern the dog must complete, while moving a trio of sheep through and around obstacles and then into a pen, gathering points in a race against time.
“I was more nervous before our second trial,” said L’Arrivee. “There was a lot at stake, as the scores are cumulative.”
She says they compete in big field trials usually, so the close quarters and proximity of the spectators in an area is vastly different.
“The building holds about 5000 people,” she said. “The crowds didn’t bother her (Bryn) at all.”
L’Arrivee has been training stock dogs for 30 years. Having grown up raising horses, the transition to dogs was a natural one.
“I love working with, training and building relationships with a working dog as opposed to a pet,” said L’Arrivee.
At present, she she works with five dogs, all border collies. Two are still quite young, one is another competition dog and one that is used exclusively for work.
There are important qualities that make a good competition dog, she says. They need to exhibit tremendous self control as they move the livestock. They cannot just chase the animals, they need to move with precision and purpose. As she works with a dog, L’Arrivee hones in on their natural ability and adds commands as they move through training.
“Training starts when a dog is 10 months to one year old,” she said. “Old farmers say that it takes four years to train a dog. One year for each paw. It takes a long time to learn many different types of terrain, as well as different types of stock.”
In the world of stock dogs, two main types of stock are used in competition, cattle and sheep. L’Arrivee only works with sheep.
L’Arrivee said that in order for a dog to be successful as a stock dog, their instinct, or desire to work, has to be first and foremost.
“Secondly, they need to be willing to work with me,” she said. “A hard headed dog is not good for competition.”
Although the principles of training are pretty similar between trainers, the way they are implemented can be different. For example, many trainers train their dogs to respond to both voice and whistle commands. L’Arrivee is one of these. Because of the similarities, a dog that has had their training started by one person can be bought or given to another, and the training can continue.
“It may take a little while,” said L’Arrivee, “but with a working dog, their instinct to work usually overrides everything else.”
L’Arrivee loves to compete. Now that she has retired from teaching at the McBride Secondary School, she hopes to travel and compete in field trials next year. A field presents a whole different set of challenges from the arena. In some cases, the sheep may be almost a mile away from the handler, and the dog must respond to escort them through the course into a pen.
“A key skill for a dog to develop is learning to communicate from a distance,” she said. “That training starts very young.”
This is her eighth time competing at the Calgary Stampede, and her second appearance in the finals.
When she isn’t competing or training her own dogs, L’Arrivee has created an online platform to help provide information about training, https://doreriverbordercollies.com/ She even teaches other handlers through online courses. She started creating the courses three years ago and now has students from the US, Iceland, New Zealand, Australia, United Kingdom, and Alaska, as well as Canada.
