Stock dog clinic to return to Minnedosa

A stock dog training program has announced it will return to Minnedosa to teach farmers how to use their animals to herd livestock.

Making of a Stock Dog, a clinic aimed at upskilling ranchers and introducing newbies to dog handling, announced in January that it will return to the Minnedosa Agricultural Society grounds from Aug. 14 to Aug. 16.

The clinic was held in Minnedosa for the first time in 2025. It is set this year to be all-day event for three days, in which participants camp out for the duration and are provided with meals.

There is expected to be roughly 30 spots available.

Anna Peters said the program is returning because of demand seen last year.

“It was super popular. We had people come from Alberta, Montana, North Dakota, we had someone come from as far as Quebec,” Peters said. “There’s so many people that are just hungry for this stock dog stuff. It’s been so fun, I can’t even explain it.”

The event is free to audit for anyone who wants to come and watch, Peters said.

The program this year will be split into beginners, people starting a young dog and advanced. There will be three clinicians, including Campbell Forsyth, a stock dog handler who has won several competitions since starting in the 1990s.

“The dogs are everything,” Forsyth said in a recent interview. “All we are doing is helping people get the best out of their dog.”

Forsyth trained to use stock dogs himself in clinics when he was looking for ways to steer his 600-head herd on his farm. Now he is committed to the sport and competes avidly, and has participated in the event for several years now, including its debut in Minnedosa after it moved from Saskatchewan.

Campbell said the goal this year is have more ranchers and others compete in the sport to develop their skills with their dogs.

“My hope is that students can come and learn, and retain some of the knowledge when they go home so they can work their stock better,” he said. “Understand their dog; how he thinks, how he reacts to you. The dogs themselves have been bred for hundreds of years to do this. But if you don’t know how to bring it out of them, then you’re wasting a lot of genetics.”

Kevin Donald, who founded the program with his wife Carole roughly 10 years ago, said that he started it to provide an affordable way for people to train. The inaugural year had 10 people, and it subsequently grew every year, he said, pulling people from all over Western Canada and south of the border.

Importantly, the program is tailored to people training dogs for farm work, he said. In passing the successful program on the Manitoba Stock Dog Association, he said he was careful to choose a group that put producers first.

When asked why he favoured the sport of stock dog handling, the founder said that dogs have a special way about them.

“The ability to have a partner that shows up every day, is happy to see you, never calls in sick, is excited no matter if you’re gone three minutes or three hours, is pretty powerful and cool,” he said.

The reason the event is hosted in towns like Minnedosa is to bring some of that farm life to a broader audience, he said. In the past, the event has invited organizations like Ducks Unlimited Canada to connect with people as well, he said.

“It’s a pretty cool opportunity for people to see the dogs. It’s also an amazing event for producers to be able to connect with the people set out to support them.”

Peters said organizers are still looking for more vendors who want to set up on the grounds for the 2026 event in Minnedosa. She said the best way to sign up is by messaging their Facebook page, “The Making of a Stock Dog.”

» cmcdowell@brandonsun.com