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

[PirateGirl]

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.

Yes. This is similar to the person who was talking about the uncomfortable person walking through the city and the dog picking up on it. Dog's also pick up on your calm. My husband wants to yell at the dog when she barks, I think it's counter productive. I try and be calm and the dog is calmer. I don't get worked up and the dog doesn't get worked up. With strangers we just tell them to ignore the dog, and it works like a charm and she wants to be buddies within moments, but if they engage her when she is riled up then she get's more excited (not always in good ways). My dog has anxiety in the car. The better I am at totally ignoring her and driving like she's not even in the car, the better off we do.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Yes. This is similar to the person who was talking about the uncomfortable person walking through the city and the dog picking up on it. Dog's also pick up on your calm. My husband wants to yell at the dog when she barks, I think it's counter productive. I try and be calm and the dog is calmer. I don't get worked up and the dog doesn't get worked up. With strangers we just tell them to ignore the dog, and it works like a charm and she wants to be buddies within moments, but if they engage her when she is riled up then she get's more excited (not always in good ways). My dog has anxiety in the car. The better I am at totally ignoring her and driving like she's not even in the car, the better off we do.

This is a lot of what Cesar Milan teaches. It's usually not the dog, but the owners creating bad behaviors and anxieties in their dogs. Dogs read their people and react to what the person is feeling.

 

[Folly's place]

And people praise the wrong things all the time! Dogs don't hear sympathy, they hear praise. So anxious or aggressive behaviors get encouraged, and it makes me crazy too.
To go further out on a limb here, it also makes no sense to me to do the cookie thing rather than praise. It's 'feed him another cookies/ treat, ignore negative behaviors, and it's wonderful'. Ugh! Try that with a Chessie…
I want to be a leader, not the Cookie Monster!
And no mama dog or pack leader uses food as a reward in canine society.
Just sayin'
Mary

 

[Birdsong 82]

Yes. This is similar to the person who was talking about the uncomfortable person walking through the city and the dog picking up on it. Dog's also pick up on your calm. My husband wants to yell at the dog when she barks, I think it's counter productive. I try and be calm and the dog is calmer. I don't get worked up and the dog doesn't get worked up. With strangers we just tell them to ignore the dog, and it works like a charm and she wants to be buddies within moments, but if they engage her when she is riled up then she get's more excited (not always in good ways). My dog has anxiety in the car. The better I am at totally ignoring her and driving like she's not even in the car, the better off we do.

I agree. And I had to learn that. But it's just like a kid.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

And people praise the wrong things all the time! Dogs don't hear sympathy, they hear praise. So anxious or aggressive behaviors get encouraged, and it makes me crazy too.
To go further out on a limb here, it also makes no sense to me to do the cookie thing rather than praise. It's 'feed him another cookies/ treat, ignore negative behaviors, and it's wonderful'. Ugh! Try that with a Chessie…
I want to be a leader, not the Cookie Monster!
And no mama dog or pack leader uses food as a reward in canine society.
Just sayin'
Mary

You are very correct. The pack leader uses body language and posturing. Same with chickens. My last Aussie spoke dog very well and taught me it. She was an incredible dog that way. She could turn on the Fuji in an instant or do a muzzle grab for a correction on another dog. She carried herself well, everyone got out of her way.

 

[Birdsong 82]

Yes. I like to praise them once they've calmed down and stop and only then. Once they are sitting and not barking or growling for awhile is when it changes to positive reinforcement. They've caught on
Molly hates for us to be upset with her so it's almost like she knows when she can't keep her cool and puts herself in a room to stay calmer

 

[Kris5902]

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.

Not trying to talk you out of them at all... most of it is in the raising and handling the behaviors. I’m certain you can deal with them, if you want to take it on again. I take some issues with the way the dogs here behave. I prefer a little more formal obedience as well as the intuitive (on the dog’s part) approach. And I am a huge fan of Cesar Milan’s methods. The Farm here has had border collies exclusively since the mid to late 80’s. And they are wonderful dogs. My Husband has most of the older stories on the dogs before we moved here. They have been mostly a positive thing, though for actual herding a little more formal training wouldn’t hurt either.

My Father (just turned 65) recently tried to adopt a German Shepard cross puppy from the local SPCA. He ended up returning her, not that she wasn’t a good dog, and she didn’t have any major behavior issues. He just realized that at that point in his life it wasn’t a good fit for him. Energy, health, and time wise. They ended up getting an older Boston Terrier, and he has a Malmute that occasionally visits for more high energy days. “I’ve got to go... have to walk the ‘puppy’, this dog is going to kill me!” (With the exercise he means, and it’s good for him )

 

[ShrekDawg]

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.

LOL Libby used to drag Frank around by the collar. She doesn’t really do it much now but they also haven’t been wearing collars outside much lately. But poor Frank. she still occasionally clamps down too hard on his neck lol they like to play hard, especially her, so sometimes she kind of torments him and we usually try to discourage that. Too many body slams/pin downs/clamping but then usually he eventually body slams her back

 

[ShrekDawg]

I love Boston Terriers. Great little dogs. Considered getting one of them too but idk yet.

 

[ShrekDawg]

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.

Yeah, I find most of the behavior problems in dogs result from bad owners or just ignorant owners, even if well meaning, rather than bad dogs. I find there’s very few if any actual bad dogs. Most of the problems are just from them being spoiled brats.

And often they’re fixed with a bit of training and instilling rules.

Exercise is another huge one. Far too many people under exercise their dogs if at all. They just stick them in a crate all day and think one walk a day is enough. Maybe 2-3 if the dog’s lucky but it’s still just around the block and often they hire a dog walker, don’t even do it themselves.

Underexercised and bored dogs cause a lot of problems.

And under trained. People don’t bother training it either or think it should be fully trained by 6 months old.

And then when it isn’t and/or when it’s wild and crazy cause of this combination and the fact it’s in the teenage years anyway, they dump it.

And those owners using those tiny leashes sound like idiots. I also hate retractable leashes. That’s another pet peeve of mine. Even on little dogs because far too many people let them wander wherever, paying no attention to them, and they charge to the end yapping at everything or run into the street cause the owner isn’t paying attention.