How Our Community Deals with Nerves

Issue 36, September 2026 | Article put together by Laura McKillop from our communities inputs | Photo by Freddy Simpson

Nerves are something everyone in this industry has, and almost nobody talks about. We share the good runs and the clean scores, but rarely the bit beforehand when your heart's going and your head's somewhere it shouldn't be. So we put the question to our community and the response was worth putting in print. 

Why We Get Nervous and Why It's Not a Bad Thing 

Before we get into what to do about nerves, it's worth understanding what they actually are, because once you understand what's happening in your body and why, the whole experience starts to make a lot more sense and feels a lot less like something you need to fight. 

When you step into a situation where the stakes feel high, being watched, being judged, wanting to do well your brain triggers what's known as the stress response, or more commonly, fight-or-flight. Your body releases a rush of adrenaline and cortisol. Your heart rate climbs, your breathing gets shallower, your muscles tighten up, and blood gets redirected away from your digestive system and toward your limbs. Your senses sharpen. From a survival standpoint, your body is doing exactly what it was built to do, preparing you to either face a threat or get out of its way. The problem is that your nervous system can't always tell the difference between genuine danger and standing at a trial post with fifty people watching. It responds the same way to both. 

Here's where it gets interesting. There's a well-established principle in psychology called the Yerkes-Dodson curve and while the name sounds complicated, the idea is simple. Performance and pressure exist on a curve. Too little pressure and you're flat, disengaged, going through the motions. Too much and you freeze, overthink, fall apart. But right in the middle, in that sweet spot of moderate arousal, is where most people perform at their best. In plain terms, a little nervous is actually good. It means you're switched on and it means you care. The goal isn't to eliminate nerves, it's to keep them in that useful middle ground rather than letting them tip over into the kind that cloud your thinking and tighten your hands. 

There's one more thing worth knowing, and it's perhaps the most practical piece of science in this whole article. Research has shown that how you interpret your nervous feelings changes how they actually affect you. People who tell themselves "I'm excited" before a high pressure moment, rather than "I'm nervous," perform measurably better. The physical sensations are almost identical between the two states. The difference is the story you attach to them. Anxiety and excitement are two sides of the same coin and one works against you while the other works with you. This isn't just theory either. It's something our community figured out long before it had a name. 

Nobody Will Remember Your Run 

One of the most common threads running through the responses we received was this: we spend a lot of energy worrying about what other people think, and most of the time that worry is far bigger than the reality ever turns out to be. 

Nan Lloyd put it plainly. "Most of us are worried about criticism from other people. Realistically, nobody will remember your run. Don't try and fight the nerves, just accept it and go with it. No matter what happens to you, it will have happened before, to somebody else." 

That last line is worth sitting with. Whatever goes wrong out there, a dog that won't stop, sheep that split, a whistle command that lands a second too late, it has happened to someone before you and it will happen to someone after you. Ross McIntosh echoed the same idea more bluntly: "It's you vs you out there. Most of the time the things you worry about, no one cares about." William Cox kept it just as direct: "Not to be blunt, but who cares - once you step in the ring it's you, the dog, the sheep and time. No one else. As long as you come away from it having fun, that's all that matters." 

Troy Irwin brought some welcome honesty about just how universal this feeling actually is, pointing out that nerves in front of others aren't unique to working dogs at all. "I can remember being so shy when first given the job of spruiking as an apprentice butcher, in and outside of the shop flogging chickens. OMG, so so shy. It didn't last long and I soon got the hang of it. Just concentrate on the dog and the job at hand." And Chelle Ellen made an observation that's easy to forget when you're caught up in what everyone thinks of your run: "The people whose opinions genuinely matter are usually the ones encouraging you to do your best, not pulling you down." 

The audience in your head is almost always bigger and harsher than the one actually watching. 

Trust the Work You've Already Done 

Several community members pointed to the same root cause of nerves: uncertainty about whether you've prepared well enough. And the antidote to that uncertainty, they said, is the preparation itself. 

Lisa Bracks offered some of the most detailed advice in the thread, centred on having a clear plan and sticking to it. "Plan one exercise at a time. Have a training regimen. On trial day, train what you've been practising and stay the same person you are at home on the trial ground, which is hard, but don't confuse your dog. They are counting on you to stay the same." She also pointed to the value of keeping a journal for each dog and taking it to trials, a practical tool for staying grounded in what you know rather than spiralling into what you don't. "Have a mentor, someone you can discuss training and problem solving with that has an open mind and thinks similar to you about the animal. It's a form of control and gives you confidence." 

Mitch Perez kept it even simpler: "Results will come if things go smooth. Keep the basics right and work with what's in front of you. Keep it basic." Kinko Kelpies Working Sheepdogs added: "Walk to the handler's post calmly and think that you can win with this run. If something bad happens during the run, tell yourself don't give up, the rest of the run could be enough to still win it." 

This is the core of what experienced handlers seem to come back to again and again. The trial doesn't build the dog, it reveals the dog. As the saying goes, and it's one that means a great deal to me personally, ribbons are won at home and you go to the trial to collect them. You can't fix what isn't there once you're in the ring. The dog is what it is on the day. But knowing what you have, and what you don't, is itself a form of confidence, and that confidence is built at home long before you ever pull into the trial ground. 

Just Trust Your Dog 

Kerryanne Thompson wrote what was arguably the most passionate response in the thread and it deserves space, because she's onto something important. 

"I soon learned that things can go wrong for the best of them, so I just walked in not worrying about anyone else and just reminding myself: just trust your dog. Know your dog's strengths and weaknesses. I do it because I love working and competing with my dog, and I do it for myself, not for anyone else." On the nerves themselves, she reframes them entirely: "Little nerves for the right reason, not what other people think, are good because it means you care so much. Embrace them little nerves and enjoy it. If I don't have any nerves at all, it means I'm not into it and I'm very blasé about the whole thing." She ends with something that cuts through a lot of noise: "Our main job is to keep things calm no matter how the stock or dog is behaving. We need to keep our shit together and keep things calm. There is only one person that has to like your dog, and that's you." 

It's also worth acknowledging that for those who are earlier in their journey, nerves can feel even more overwhelming, not just about the run itself but about whether you belong in the space at all. Boatique Menagerie shared something that will resonate with a lot of newer handlers: "I am still at the door step trying to build up the confidence to take that final step. I might be able to find helpful tips and comfort in the stories from smaller people." If that's where you are right now, that's okay. Everyone who has ever stood confidently at the post was once standing exactly where you are. 

The Practical Stuff That Actually Works 

Beyond the mindset shifts, community members shared a range of practical strategies, and there's something here for everyone regardless of where you're at. 

Breathing came up more than almost anything else. Chelle Ellen described spending a few quiet minutes before going in focusing on her breathing: "It helps settle my mind, slow everything down, and reminds me that my only job is to work the dog in front of me, not the crowd around me." Megan White said something similar: "I concentrate on the dog, the sheep, the course, and once the bell goes I just try to live in the moment. I need to breathe more and really take my time before stepping off at each obstacle." 

Slowing down was another consistent theme. Chris Back's comment received more likes than almost anything else in the thread, and possibly for good reason. "Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. When you're in a hurry, go slow." It applies in the ring, it applies in the yards, and if you're honest about it, it applies to most things in life. 

Visualisation came up too. Oscar Thorpe shared his approach before he even gets to the gate: "Get them home, it's just a job. Try to visualise the run before." This is a technique used widely across all elite sports. Mentally rehearsing a clean run primes your brain to execute it, because your nervous system responds to a vivid mental image in much the same way it responds to the real thing. 

Kat WO shared her method of breaking the run down into manageable pieces rather than trying to hold the whole thing in her head at once: "I break it down to what I want to achieve into chunks, the cast, the lift, each stage. I comfort myself by assessing what training worked and I work on forgiving myself for letting my dog down at times." 

Tracey Lindsay reframed the bigger picture: "It's a ten year apprenticeship, I was told when I started. Why should you not go through everything that every other person went through to get success in the sport? Trust the process and enjoy the journey." 

Damon Peacock put it simply: "Treat it like a normal work day and remember it's just another day to learn and improve." Nancy Withers, who has been in this industry long enough to have seen plenty of the best come undone, offered perhaps the most grounding perspective of all: "It was always the dog, the sheep, the course and me. I knew the capabilities of the dog and didn't expect more. It's a sport. Enjoy it." 

And then there was Nikki West, who reminded us that sometimes the answer is refreshingly straightforward: "Put a good playlist on my phone, have it on loud speaker and have fun. But don't get side tracked dancing and influence the sheep." Seamus Hindson was equally pragmatic: "Wooosah. Say it three times and everything should be fine." 

Nerves Show Up Everywhere 

Something worth acknowledging is that the nerves we're talking about don't live exclusively on the trial ground. They show up any time you're doing something that matters to you in front of someone whose opinion you respect, a mentor watching from the fence, a potential buyer sizing up your dog, the boss watching you work, a friend whose judgment you value. The same response that kicks in at the post kicks in anywhere the stakes feel real, and the same tools apply. 

I want to add something personal here, because I think it fits. 

When I took over this magazine and started talking publicly about working dogs, I felt the weight of a lot of eyes. I'd grown up competing with stock horses rather than working dogs, and I was aware of that gap and aware that people in the industry knew it too. The imposter syndrome was real and honestly, it still shows up from time to time. But what got me through it, and still does, is reminding myself that you don't have to be the best at something to write about it, gather information, help educate people, and contribute meaningfully to a community you care about. Knowing your limits isn't weakness. It's honesty, and in a community like this one, honesty tends to go a long way. 

Growing up competing with stock horses, nerves were something I had to learn to manage early. The thing that helped me most was learning to actually park a mistake and keep moving forward, not just pretend to set it aside but genuinely do it. Whether it's a bad transition in the showring or a dog that's blown past a stop at a trial, the rest of the run still has to happen. You can carry what went wrong or you can carry what comes next, but you can only do one of those well. Something I've taken from both horses and dogs is that at some point you have to accept that you've got what you've got on the day. You can't fix it in the ring, you go home and fix it there. The preparation happens at home and the trial is where you find out what you've built. Sometimes what you find out stings a little, but that's not failure. That's the process working exactly as it should. 

Nerves Mean You Care 

If there's one thing that came through in every single response we received, it's this. Nerves aren't a sign that something is wrong with you. They're a sign that something matters to you. 

Kerryanne said it best: if she doesn't have nerves, she's not into it. That restlessness before the gate opens, that awareness of what's at stake, it means you care about your dog, about your work, about doing things properly. What changes over time isn't that the nerves disappear. It's that they start to feel less like dread and more like readiness, less like a warning and more like a signal that you're switched on and present. 

That shift doesn't happen overnight. It happens in the yards at home, in the quiet sessions when no one's watching, in the small moments of trust that build between you and your dog over months and years. And then one day you're standing at the post with your heart going and your hands steady, and you realise the nerves are still there but they're working for you now. 

That's not a bad place to be when the gate opens. 

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Thank you to everyone who shared their thoughts and experiences — Oscar Thorpe, Nan Lloyd, Ross McIntosh, William Cox, Kerryanne Thompson, Lisa Bracks, Mitch Perez, Kinko Kelpies Working Sheepdogs, Chelle Ellen, Megan White, Kat WO, Chris Back, Nancy Withers, Tracey Lindsay, Nikki West, Damon Peacock, Seamus Hindson, Troy Irwin, and Boatique Menagerie. This article came from you and all of our followers.