From Idaho Ranch Life to Dog Training: Robin Brown’s Beginning

In this first podcast episode, Kimberly Thiessen and Robin Brown introduce themselves and explain the purpose of the show: to share Robin’s 30+ years of dog training experience in a more accessible way, with Kimberly interviewing and learning as a beginner who needed a dog after adding sheep to her longtime cattle experience. Robin describes making dog training her sole living for at least 25 years, the nonstop nature of the work, and how fulfilling it has been. Robin recounts growing up on Idaho ranches that required long cattle drives between seasonal ranches, early mornings with a camp cook, and a strict work ethic under her father. She explains her early dogs—Border Collie/Australian Shepherd crosses—as companions that also helped move cattle, and contrasts that rough, stress-driven style with a turning point around age 20 after watching a sheepdog demonstration using whistle commands that she calls “poetry in motion.” Inspired, she began self-teaching from books (including "A Way of Life" by Glen Jones and "The Farmer’s Dog"), acquired a small group of cull sheep to train on despite resistance from ranch hands, and later attended an USBCHA judging clinic with Bill Burau, where she took extensive notes on outruns, gathers, cross drives, and flanks. She describes buying her first registered Border Collie for $600—equal to her monthly income at cow camp—making payments to breeder Gary Erickson, and noticing major differences in intensity and eye compared to her crossbred dogs. Robin shares early training methods she learned, including a stock stick and a trainer using cut hose pieces thrown at dogs, and reflects that her early approach relied more on physical effort and force than feel. The episode ends with Robin teasing a future discussion about a later moment when “feel” transformed her training approach, to be covered in the next episode.

00:00 Welcome to the Podcast: Meet Robin & Kimberly
01:45 Why This Podcast Exists: Mentorship, Stories, and Helping More People
03:23 Robin’s Life as a Full-Time Dog Trainer: Passion, Sacrifice, and Fulfillment
04:09 Growing Up Ranching in Idaho: Cattle Drives, Camp Life, and Work Ethic
06:51 First Dogs on the Ranch: Buddies That Worked (Sort Of)
09:17 The Turning Point at 20: Seeing Sheepdogs ‘Poetry in Motion’
11:29 Self-Taught Beginnings: Books, Free Sheep, and Training in Secret
13:32 First Clinic & Learning the Rules: Outruns, Lines, and a 200-Page Notebook
16:39 Leveling Up with a Pedigree Border Collie: Genetics, Intensity, and Being Overwhelmed
18:48 Early Lessons & Old-School Tools: From Force to Finding ‘Feel’ (Next Episode Tease)

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