Hi, we’re Yen and Claire, a mother-daughter team sharing a home with our Border Collies, who have taught us more about resilience, instinct, and kinship than we ever thought possible.

It all started with a Border Collie named Raven, who was more than just a dog. He was a mirror reflecting our own struggles and triumphs. Yen had already been immersed in dog sports, like agility, as a passionate hobbyist. Wanting to obtain formal education of canine behavior, she pursued two professional certifications: a Certificate in Behavior Adjustment Training in the Netherlands in 2014, followed by a Certificate in Training and Counselling in 2016. But Raven quickly showed us something these certificates didn’t: that standard training frameworks fall short when it comes to dogs whose instincts run incredibly deep.

Raven’s herding instinct emerged at 5 months old, and when it did, it quickly became a force of nature. His relentless need to control movement, fixation on cars and all vehicles, and unstoppable urge to chase often left us baffled and overwhelmed. Suddenly, Yen’s extensive formal training felt inadequate. Raven challenged everything we knew about dogs, and compelled us to find an entirely new approach.

Living in a bustling city, we had to get very creative about meeting the demands of our high-instinct Border Collies. Through Raven, we discovered something transformative, a way to not just manage his instincts but honor and celebrate them. 

When we first started looking into sheep-herding alternatives, the most common recommendation was fetch which is a ball-chasing and retrieving game that more closely resembles exercises used to train gundogs than anything related to herding. We knew there had to be a better way, something genuinely suited to the Border Collie’s herding instincts.

That’s how Better Than Fetch™ came into being, put together to fulfill Raven’s instinctual needs without sheep. These herding games allowed us to embrace Raven's true nature, transforming the daily frustration of unmet instinct into clarity and focus.

Today, we put our all into helping fellow Border Collie and Herding Dog guardians through sharing valuable, behavior-consultation-worthy information into easy-to-understand formats on social media. Because we know firsthand what it’s like to feel at a complete lost with a dog whose instincts defy traditional training methods. And we know the feeling of hope that comes when you finally learn to work with their powerful instincts instead of fighting them.