Border Collies, Australian Shepherds, All Herding breeds, Tell Me About Yours

[Kris5902]

I must admit I am a bit scared of Chesapeakes.

I know not all of them are like that but I once knew a very unstable, protective dog and it almost bit my brother a couple times. Belonged to his friend. It was just aggressive or crazy or something.

And at the dog park one time there was this dog that, to me, looked like a Chessie mix or maybe lab/pit bull, looked a lot like chessie to me though. Either way, it was going after every dog there and the owners did nothing. We don’t go anymore hah

But chessies scare me cause of that.

I know most people don’t like them because of their popularity and overbreeding but I do love a good Golden or Lab. Also love Tollers though and flat coats.

It is almost alway a problem with the owners... somehow. Even a well treated dog can develop personality problems around behaviors the owners might not even notice they are exhibiting.

I saw a lot of what I described as “pink leash syndrome” (long before the color coding for behavior issues became a “common” thing) I would be walking home late at night in the city and there would be a “big mean dog breed” (pitbull, Rottweiler, German Shepard, mastiff etc) being “walked” on the end of a cute little pink nylon leash by a clearly uncomfortable with her current surroundings owner. Dogs pick up on that body language, and then want to defend their human from the “threat” even if that’s just a 17 year old girl walking home from work, on the other side of the street mind you, at 1 am because the busses stop running at midnight through suburbia.

You can get the same thing in most breeds of dogs. Like our Boots. A smaller border collie, but she can turn into a charging nightmare of flashing teeth if her human isn’t home and you approach the house. Luckily we don’t get many unannounced visitors to the house, but she has bitten me, my husband, his father, and three other people we know of. It is both an upbringing thing with her, and compounded by her age, blindness, and near deafness. The community still raised $4,000 for her vet bill though when she badly injured herself jumping out of the van.

An interesting behavior though... if she comes too hard at the wrong person Celti and Delta will physically intervene. She charged the little girl who lives on property as she was bringing the eggs to the house one morning. Girl didn’t know the owner wasn’t home that day. The boy dogs stopped Boots before she could make that mistake, but with the big humans... I guess they think we can deal with it. Either way, they aren’t “my” dogs, but I would have trained them a bit differently. They have very much a pack mentality and hierarchy in the group.

 

[chickens really]

Lisa all your dogs are happy. It doesn't matter what you choose. The next one I get will be as trained as the ones I have. I'm just wanting slower breeds.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Wow, so much great info... we currently have 4 working border Collies for herding our sheep, they aren’t all great at it, but some of that is due to age and upbringing/training. They are excellent defenders against Raccoons, can climb trees, and could probably drive the truck on their own if given enough time to learn it.

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Amazing dogs but they have no understanding of when to stop. Celti would chase and retrieve toys until he dropped if the human would just keep throwing it, please? Please??? He has also been known, if left to his own devices, to walk himself two or three miles down to the beach looking for some entertainment (the small humans are often there, and they will throw things I bring them!) he can pick up a paper clip or a single piece of hay from the floor and deposit it on your lap to throw for him... please? Which is pretty good for an un-neutered male for behavior and roaming on a very large property.

Boots is aggressively bonded to just one person, and if that person isn’t there will defend her house quite viciously. If that person doesn’t really like you, she is even more aggressive. She is a biter. She is also almost completely blind and half deaf with age. She had a rougher start to her life and never quite got over it completely, even after all her years here. She can’t see the sheep, but she still wants/needs to help herd them.

Alice gets hot spots and has to get a belly shave in the summer, and it isn’t even particularly hot here. She has some hip problems and severe arthritis, again, mostly an age thing. Both the girls are mostly “retired”, but just try telling them that when the feel up to “working”.

Delta is taking after his Father, but is more heavyset with longer silky fur, yes it’s long enough to braid, but he doesn’t like to talk about that incident, though our female WWOOFers thought it was quite giggle worthy at the time! His only real “training” at herding is coming from watching Dad Celti work, and all things considered, he is learning it fairly well. A bad habit he shares with his Father and Alice is rolling in Poop, preferably horse, but sheep, chicken, and cow will also do (in that order).

Chasing and catching birdies is his (IMO) worst habit, though he’s fascinated with baby chicks, and will try to herd (unsuccessfully) the grown chickens. He will catch ravens, swallows, and such, and took on a Bald Eagle once; he almost got it, there were feathers everywhere, but the Eagle escaped (it was feeding on a deer carcass when he caught it, and they are a prolific pest animal here that greatly damages livestock, though for his safety I would not encourage that particular behavior) He also will dig up buried lambs that didn’t make it, and likes to lick the poopy lamb bottoms.

So, No doggy kisses, thank you very much! Delta is the newest generation here and will probably help train a few new dogs in the coming years, once Alice and Boots pass on. Wonderful dogs to have around, but they must have “work” or they tend to get a little neurotic. Mere mention of the “R” word and they are climbing trees to get it, say “sheep” and they are ready to bring them, and if they manage to get into a truck, you had better take them somewhere so they can help you do something... because why else would you have opened the door?

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Your dog's are gorgeous. I thank you again for talking me out of getting another. I have only experience with one. You have experience with multiples of the breed. I guess I might be in trouble if I got too busy of one. I'm still thinking on it, thank you for sharing your adventures with your border collies. Sounds like it's been a wild one.

I still think the breed is so good looking.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

She was just under a year when we got her and she's about six years old now but almost still as playful as a puppy. When we first got her it was hard. I never had anything try my patience so much and I have a teenage daughter! But I knew she was young and she was getting used to having freedom. And I'm glad I stuck it out to She's so sweet and just such a happy dog. Unfortunately trying to calm her anxiety and it taking so long we never got a chance to train her as necessarily a herding dog but every animal we have she has loved from the beginning. Never cross towards any of them just interested in wanting to play
Her owner did care and that's why she found her a new home because she knew it wasn't right to have her locked up that long every day and she had tears in her eyes when we picked Molly up. Until about a year ago we tried to send her updates letting her know she's doing well

Some puppies are more challenging than others. Being locked up isn't good for any dog. I'm glad you were able to give her a better home, and keep in touch with her last owner.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Hip dysplasia affects a lot of the large braids. We took care of a yellow Labrador the last two years of his life and I've never seen it that bad. I have heard also that Collie's and German Shepherd's or at risk of it. We have a Shepherd Collie mix who is about 13 now and about three or four years ago we noticed we needed to start helping her into the car and onto the couch. She doesn't seem to be in pain from it but it has slowed her down a bit. She was kind of more of a calm dog anyway and I think her age added to her slowing down.

Here we have rampant lymes disease, and anaplasmosis, both can leave dogs crippled if not treated. I have dealt with early arthritis because of it in my first Aussie. It was heartbreaking.

It's sad watching our dogs get old isn't it?

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

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This is Sadie is Shepherd Collie mix. But you can only tell by looking at her. I love her To no end but she is far from the smartest dog I've ever met. So many times where she's done something and I just looked down and shook my head. But the friendliest dog you'll ever meet. Even my mother who absolutely hates animals likes saddie. And for the breeds that she is she is she's always been super calm. She loves to go to the park things like that but otherwise she prefers a nice couch to lay on with her head on somebody's lap. And she loves to wear coats and costumes and such. She always gets excited when she sees them I guess she knows how good she looks
The second picture is the two girls headed to the park.

Look at her gentle face. Sometimes they are better not being so bright. I haven't had a dog yet that likes wearing clothes. I try. Of course around here they get dragged around by their coats by the bigger girls.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I totally trained my neighbor's dog to stop taking dinosaur sized dumps in my yard with the garden hose. Cleaning up after my own dogs is enough of a project thank you, I do not need more poop piles from a 125 lb. dog whose owner must think it never poops because her yard is miraculously spotless. When we moved into our house the yard was full of dog poop, the previous owner of the house did not even have a dog. We quickly learned it was the neighbor dog and I found the hose to be fairly effective at stopping that routine.


@Kris5902 Oh man, your post reminded me of an incident I will never forget, I have one dog that is a roller in all things gross (the aussie mix) and is a pro at finding an elk leg in the wilderness, and the other, well the other is the eater of all things gross. One day both dogs had wandered off a bit and were not returning when I called. I found them on an elk carcass, one was eating it, maggots and all, the other was rolling on it at the same time. We were living in a camper at the time and I was trying to get off to work and they both got a bath in the stream that was icy spring runoff. I hated them that day, but can't help but laugh (and cringe) about it now.

we had a hound dog that like to bring back all kinds of nasty.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Long ago I had that 'Lassie' thing in my head, and wanted a Collie. Then I met a breeder who had a fair number of them, beautiful to look at, but not at all smart. Those narrow heads, tiny often malformed eyeballs, not enough 'upstairs' to be appealing. I got over Lassie, and never went back.
My age is showing, because I got over the whole 'RinTinTin' thing too. Finding a GSD with a sound mind in a sound body was just too difficult!
I've had two high intensity 'perpetual motion machine' dogs, one a smart GSHP that I loved, and a rescue Dalmation, never again.
The Shorthair was very very smart, and very very stubborn. I'm a stubborn German too, so he had a lot of training and was wonderful, finally.
Disney cursed Dalmations with the movies showing them as they aren't. They are guard dogs, and people don't see that, and it was tricky sometimes.
Mary

It is unfortunate what has happened to collies and GSD. I don't like the snippy looking head either, and the coat is too much. I cringe every time I watch a dog show and see a German shepherd. It's so sad what they have done to them. I had one back in the 80's. She was normal like they used to be in the back end.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I just wanted to throw this out there... we seem to agree that working/herding dogs are smart (which generally equals trainable) and high energy and/or high strung and bossy. One thing we worked on with the trainer which helped immensely was training the dog to be calm which also included training the dog to look to me to figure out what to do in stressful situations. I can't for sure tell you if inside that brain of my dog she is calm, but she knows how to act calm when she is excited/stressed/etc. She will now very deliberately lay on the floor with her head on her paws (head and ears up is alert, head down is calmer) and stare me down. She is showing me that she is containing her excitement/anxiety and she is looking to me to figure out what I want her to do next. She is not all over the scary stranger guest that just walked in the door and she is not begging for food or playing with toys or looking out the window at whatever made that sound... she is waiting for direction on what to do about whatever it is that has her worked up. Working dogs want to work and they want to please you. If you can teach them to pay attention to you at all times, they will wait for the next set of directions in all situations (ideally). When we are out in the national forest (off leash) and she sees a stranger approaching, another dog, a wild animal (other than a squirrel because we always let her chase squirrels), a parked vehicle, a tent, anything out of the ordinary, the old behavior was a barking charge, the new behavior is that she stops what she is doing, returns to my side, waits for me to clip on her leash and waits for a command. If I see/sense something first, all I have to do is call her name and she stops in her tracks and comes to my side to wait and see what's next. The next command might just be "it's ok, go" and she returns to being a wild dog in the woods, but it might be to just sit and listen for a minute and be calm. Once dogs get used to having direction from you, and once they think you are always watching, they will look to you for direction in future. They can be trained to control their wild side because they tend to want to please you. Plus your next command might be something fun, like fetch, or go jump in the creek, or go get that squirrel/fox/etc., or go greet so and so.

Most people reward anxious behaviors by trying to comfort the dog. I find it's best to ignore any signs of stress. That's how I do it. I sit quietly at the vet, my dog sits quietly, while dogs around us are yelping, jumping, and owners are saying stuff like your good boy, and rewarding that excited behaviors

We practice being calm here. It's one main technique I learned from Cesar Milan. Calm the mind, calm the body.

 

[chickens really]

Darla wears clothes. No one messes with her clothes.
Darling Darla is definitely bossy..