Finding ‘jobs’ for collie in prep for new baby

She's beautiful xx

Hehehe thank you for posting pictures 😍😍 I've never seen anyone else with a collie/lab. Here is mine her name is Riley. More lab but has the brown and white collie colours through her. She is 2. Loves to run like a collie and steal socks and eat like a lab xx

You clearly have no idea about dogs. OP’s dog is a collie which … out of all breeds … needs a job the most.

I always used to forget my phone or the TV remote before getting trapped under a sleeping / breastfeeding baby. Having a dog trained to bring them to me would have been a life saver!

niece taught her3yr old mix to get nappies, pick up blankets, sat on her feet(cold)if she can pick up her toys she can help you and make the baby her baby
rook would wrap her legs around the baby when sleeping

when she was 8 months along he would sit and press his nose on her belly
they smell and hear the movement

newuser75 is right too
bless your babe

Lots of nosework games, hide things for the doggy to find. Coins, toys, scent bits of cloth to hide. Play hide and seek.

This made me laugh so much!

Great thread. No idea collies could do housework! Regretting my lazy tabby cat.

I have a lab-collie cross. She's still pretty young so has two walks a day plus a couple of play sessions with tennis balls and Frisbee in the garden. Today we set up an obstacle course at home and she's learning to go under and over things, along with DS, almost 7. Kept them both entertained 😀

We have a collie with a very active mind, some things we did to keep him occupied when our kids were babies:
In the house:
Stuffed frozen kongs filled with his normal food plus a few delicious left overs. Wrapped in a towel and hidden to find and extricate.
Hiding treats all over the house, building up the time he has to sit still before 'find it!'
Rolling tennis balls back and forth on the floor, he has to watch three at once then suddenly roll one towards him to stop. Add a 'in my hand' command so he knows to drop toys/balls back in your hand not on the floor in front of you, essential for when you're heavily pregnant or breastfeeding and can't bend down.
Dog talk buttons - so he can tell us what he wants (his include garden, food, water, park, play)
Teaching 'settle' in his crate, building up the time in there slowly to 30 mins.
Learning to stand still balancing a kong bone with treats in on his head until told 'go!' To flip his head up and grab it!
On walks
Teaching him 'touch' - to touch something with his front paw/s. Go along a row of posts, he doesn't know which ones you'll say touch next to so has to concentrate really hard. Lots of praise when he reacts quickly.
Teach 'step on' to jump onto things and 'jump down' and 'over' to jump over things, 'around' to circle something. Make walks an obstacle course.
Learning to circle a football using 'away and 'come by' and predict which way you'll kick it for them to stop.
With the running, I'd say this makes a dog physically fit but isn't anywhere as much of a mental workout as a sniffy onstacle course walk. If you can't maintain as much running once baby comes I'd start reducing this now so she doesn't associate baby's arrival with a sudden stop in something she enjoys and start teaching some new commands that the dog can do while you're pushing a buggy.

Re buggies we have the Out & About Nipper and it's great. Can be used from birth with the newborn insert, pushed with one hand so you can hold the doglead in the other and easily goes over fields, beaches footpaths etc. Just needs a cup holder adding for your early morning dog walk coffee!!

Love the idea of getting a small flock of sheep.

My DS at 7mths was sitting up and throwing a ball for my dog. Dog dutifully brought it back to him and the game would last for ages. (DS was walking by 11mths).

Agree with others, teach it to fetch items - from upstairs (for the exercise) bag, bottle, toy etc. Don't worry about germs. Apart from the v early days of course.

Tricks are great! I have a very high energy working mixed breed and on the odd day where we can't do as much I'll do 10/15 mins of tricks and it tires him out really well (especially learning new ones). And scent work games like people have said. You can get good online courses for both!

Was also going to say scatter feeding, used to turn a 1 second meal time into about 20 mins in the garden.

Collies need jobs, that is treating it like a dog.

The ultimate goal, surely?

I have absolutely missed a trick, my JRT is no use around the house.

Nothing useful to add. Just going to say my clever old dog took a few days to learn how to unscrew a Kong wobbler!

She is lovely - the thing that helped with my rottie was target training. Once she got the idea of touching a target with her nose or paw, opening doors and turning on lights was pretty easy.

Oh isn't she gorgeous 😍

Accountancy?

This is so sweet

Collie owners: get him to load the washing machine, fetch the remote and file your tax return. Dachshund owners: I mean, he does know what sit means, it’s just that he’s not really in a sitting mood right now…

I had a spaniel so not as intelligent as a collie but still pretty smart. He loved being asked to go and get a certain toy from his box, they all had names and he rarely got it wrong. He also used to take notes up and down the stairs to DS which was fun. I’d give him a note asking DS if he wanted a cup of tea or something then tell the dog to ‘take it to your brother’ and off he’d go and then come back with the reply.

He also loved boxes and envelopes so those filled with a few treats and hidden around the house were a big success.

My dog likes to play find the treats. He will even wait ‘at base’ behind the sofa whilst I hide them. We do that on wet days.