Stop Your Dog on the Move — Exactly Where You Ask
Building a Moving Stop
Teach your dog to stop on the move with confidence and precision. The Building a Moving Stop online training course helps you develop a reliable moving stop — teaching your dog to down while moving — that carries into more advanced stockdog training, obedience work, agility, or anywhere you might need a reliable stop on your dog. Through a proven 12-step progression using simple props and foundation exercises, you'll build a dependable stop before introducing livestock, making it easier for your dog to understand exactly where and when to stop. It's the same skill behind a solid drop on recall: your dog learns to down at a distance, on command, while still in motion.
Unlike a stationary stop, a moving stop requires your dog to understand where to stop, how to stop with control, and how to respond while in motion.
This course breaks that process into 12 easy-to-follow steps using simple props and progressive exercises. Because all of the training is done off stock, you can build this important foundation skill at home before introducing livestock, giving both you and your dog greater confidence as you advance.Â
Start Building Your Moving Stop
Why a Moving Stop Is Its Own Skill
A dog that downs on command while standing still has learned one skill. A dog that stops while moving, in the spot you choose, has learned something entirely different—and that reliable moving stop is what you need when working stock and in many other dog sports.
A Stop That Lands Where You Put It
A stop is only worth having in the right place. A few steps late and your dog has left the spot that mattered — and whatever you were setting up is already gone. Your dog learns that the word means down here, at a place you choose, not down somewhere near you eventually.
Drive Into the Down, Not a Slow Slide
Stopping can reduce your dog's drive, especially on a recall.  We build the opposite — a dog that comes back to you with energy and drops fast, because the drive was built first and the stop was layered on top of it.
Clear to the Dog at Every Step
Each stage gives your dog something obvious to be right about, then makes it slightly harder. You’ll know exactly when to move on and exactly what to do if your dog starts to struggle — no guessing, no frustrated repetition.
Built Before the Pressure Arrives
Teaching a moving stop is done by breaking it down in small steps with clarity for your dog. The distractions are added slowly once the task is clearly understood.
What’s Inside This Course
Build the Drive First
Before you ask for a single moving stop, your dog learns to come back to you with real energy. This is the piece many handlers skip, and it’s the reason so many stops end up slow and reluctant. Get it right and the snappy down comes almost for free.
Give the Down a Place to Happen
Your dog learns to drop on a target — something obvious they can be right about — while you gradually stand up, step back, and get further out of the picture. The down stops being about you and starts being about the spot.
Shrink It, Then Take It Away
The target gets smaller and smaller until there isn’t one. You’ll learn the order to remove things in — get it wrong and your dog goes looking for a target that isn’t there. Done properly, the understanding stays after the props are gone.
Add Movement, Distance and Distraction
Adding movement and distance in a structured way — and then with distractions. This is where the stop becomes something you can count on when your dog would rather do something else.
12 video lessons • Taught entirely off stock • Props you already have at home
Why This Course Exists
Ask most handlers about their stop and you’ll hear the same story. The dog knows it. The dog does it in the yard. But the moment there’s something worth chasing, or there are other distractions - the down comes late or not at all — and the handler ends up saying it louder, then twice, then giving up on it.
That cycle isn’t a discipline problem. It’s a training gap. For many dogs lying down while their body is already in motion doesn’t come naturally, and nobody ever broke it down for them.
So we build it in a controlled environment with little distraction. Each step is small enough that your dog is right most of the time, which keeps them engaged. By the end, “lie down” means something specific and physical: drop, here, now.
Then you take it to whatever you do — the arena, the ring, the course, or a reliable drop on recall out in the open. Your dog won’t have to work it out under pressure, because they already know the answer. The hard things get easy when you’ve put the foundation in.
Why Learn the
PSR Stockdog Training Method?
At PSR Stockdogs, every course is built on a progressive training system developed through years of working stockdogs on livestock and helping handlers build dependable partners. Led by Dawna Sims and Megan Sims-Kennedy, owners of PSR Stockdogs, our online training courses emphasize strong foundation skills, clear communication, and practical techniques that carry from the training yard to real work and competition.
PSR Stockdogs, recipient of the 2025 AKC Herding Breeder of the Year award, is dedicated to developing thoughtful, dependable stockdogs through a foundation-first training philosophy. Together, Dawna and Megan continue to help handlers build confidence, consistency, and trust through a progressive stockdog training system that prepares dogs for ranch work, herding competition, and everyday success on livestock.
Learn more about the PSR Stockdogs training philosophy, our instructors, and our approach on our About Us page.
What you get with this course
12 Video Lessons
Watch Dawna and Megan guide you through each step of building a reliable moving stop. This online training course helps you build confidence, control, and consistency before advancing to livestock, the agility field, or wherever you may need your dog to stop while in motion.
A Downloadable Exercise Guide
Practice each lesson with a printable guide that helps you stay organized between training sessions while reinforcing the foundation skills needed for a dependable moving stop.
Lifetime Access
Return to the lessons whenever you need a refresher. As your dog progresses through stockdog training, or advances in their other sports, you'll always have access to the foundation exercises that support long-term success.
Stop Saying It Twice
Twelve steps, platforms or mats, and a handful of treats. By the end your dog drops where you ask, when you ask — and you stop hoping the down will hold.
Get the Stop You've Been Asking For