Teach Your Dog to Think When Stock Is in the Picture
Ground Work for Stock Dogs - Level 2
Your dog has the foundation. Now it's time to prove it with stock in the picture. You'll layer every skill from Level 1 into real stock situations — building the impulse control and partnership that keeps training from turning into chaos. Access to livestock is required.
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What You'll Walk Away With
Ground Work Level 2 is where you increase the distraction and proof your foundation around stock. Every exercise puts livestock into the equation — not to work them, but to teach your dog that stock is part of life, not a reason to lose their mind. You'll build the layered skills and pressure awareness that separate dogs who can partner with you from dogs who just react.
Skills That Hold Up Around Stock
Your dog will sit, down, stay, and recall with livestock right there — not because you're forcing it, but because the foundation is deep enough to hold under real excitement.
Pressure and Release You Can Feel
You'll learn what pressure actually is, where it comes from, how to apply it, and — most importantly — when to take it off. This is the skill that makes everything on stock work.
A "That'll Do" That Means Something
Your dog will learn to immediately disengage from stock on command — not drift away, not slowly comply, but unlock and come to you. It's your safety net on stock.
Walk Up, Get, and Distance Control
You'll teach your dog to walk straight into stock without flanking, and to move away from stock on command — the building blocks of controlled, confident stock work.
What's Inside the Course
Module 1 — Working Around Stock
Stock is in the picture for the first time. Your dog practices the skills they know with livestock on the other side of a fence — and learns that excitement doesn't change the rules.
Module 2 — Increasing the Pressure
You'll learn what pressure really means, where it comes from, and how to help your dog work through it calmly instead of reacting — whether they amp up or shut down.
Module 3 — Advancing Skills Around Penned Stock
The exercises move into tighter spaces with more stock contact. Your dog learns to walk up, recall, and hold a loose leash in alleyways where the distractions are everywhere.
Module 4 — Skills with Stock
Stock is now loose and moving. You'll work walk ups, stand-stops, and real pressure-and-release with your dog actually in the pen — not watching from outside.
Module 5 — Advancing Skills with Stock
Gates, starts, "that'll do" with live stock, and the "get" command under real pressure. This is where everything comes together and your dog proves they can think and partner with you.
5 modules • Video lessons with multiple dogs demonstrated • Builds directly on Ground Work Level 1 • Access to livestock required
Why This Course Exists
Here's what happens without this step: you do your ground work, your dog is great at home, and then you get on stock and everything falls apart. The dog can't sit. They can't come when called. They blow through every command you taught them because the excitement is just too much.
It's not that the training didn't work. It's that there's a gap between "knows the skill" and "can do the skill when stock is right there and instinct is taking over." That gap is what this course fills.
When your dog gets around stock, their brain goes to a heightened place. They can't receive information. Your job is to layer these skills in gradually — backing up to where they can think, building from there, so when things get exciting, the foundation holds.
The handlers who take these steps find that when they actually start working stock, their dog can listen. They can hold a stay at the start. They can disengage when you say "that'll do." They're a partner, not a problem you're trying to control.
What You Get
Lifetime Access
Use this course with every new dog you bring home. Come back to any lesson whenever you need a refresher — your access never expires.
Post Your Videos for Feedback
Working through an exercise and not sure if you're reading the pressure right? Post your training videos directly in the course and get feedback.
Prerequisite: Ground Work Level 1 Skills
Your dog should understand a recall, sit, down, stay, and walking on a loose leash before starting this course. Access to livestock is required.
Get the Complete Foundation and Save
Ground Work Level 2 is one of three courses in The Essential Foundation for Your Stockdog bundle. Together with Building Connection and Ground Work Level 1, you get everything your dog needs from first focus games through pressure-and-release work, impulse control, and calm first sessions around stock.
Buy all three individually: $387. Get the bundle: $330 — save $57.
View the Bundle & SaveBridge the Gap Between Foundation and Stock Work
The handlers who layer these skills in are the ones who find real partnership when it matters most. Start today.
Start Ground Work Level 2