[laurlitt]

Here are my opinions:

An HIC is testing the instinct and if it's there, it will exist with our without some training. If you have trained a dog to a herding title and then get the HIC, it should go without saying that the dog had the instinct required to do the training/title...

As for TT, the training begins at 8 weeks old when the puppy comes home and is exposed to sounds, surfaces, strange people, gun shots, etc... So I guess you can say that the dog has been training all along for a TT. I doubt that a dog who didn't have this socialization could pass a TT...

So in both cases I don't think 'training' changes/negates the results.

I wouldn't prepare for either of the above or a CGC (these are all part of our dogs normal growing up and at the right time the dog should be able to walk into any of these 'tests' and pass.