Collies

[TwllBach]

I have a lovely little collie bitch who I adore. We have had our ups and downs, including a massive down period just after I got her. We bought her from a farmer, to whom she had already been returned once, when she was approx 17 weeks old. The down wasn't her fault, I have come to realise, it was all on me...but I love her now and she is such a good girl (nearly three years old now.)

I would like to hear stories about other collies please

I would also like any ideas as to what 'tricks' I can teach her now we have the basics down (sit, lie down, get off, high five, 'where's your tummy?' get back, wait, watch and most importantly 'come for a cuddle )

I have seen minimuu talk about gym balls? I would like to know more about this as we have moved recently to a garden that lends itself to lots of fun times out doors!

I phoned my mother the other day specifically to tell her how much I loved my little dog

We have 3 collies - 2 dogs and a bitch. They are fab! The 2 boys are so similar except that the elder one was bred on a puppy farm and did time in a petshop. It took us a long time to sort that one out, being at the time very recent dog owners. Our bitch is lovely and has always been very easy. The youngest used to bolt, which was really a nightmare. I eventually found a sheepdog trainer who shifted our behaviour slightly and he is now a reformed dog. I'm not sure what she did.
I love collies! I have threatened to start heelwork to music with the youngest - then I can wear appalling clothes and dance around idiotically to some hideously butchered music while my dog has a fab time.

The older dogs used to do agility quite well. That is great fun although there is not as much running about as some people might think.

I worry about agility training because I don't want to look stupid in front of other owners I don't think I am confident enough in my ability as her owner to stop her from doing silly things in front of everybody, otherwise I would love to take her. I am toying with the idea of saving up for a few little jumps for the garden, or even just making them out of odds and ends though.

The sheepdog trainer - were they expensive? Did they change her behaviour or yours IYSWIM? I know that a lot of the earlier problems I had with mine was because of my attitude/behaviour etc. I was just lucky that I had a collie who is intelligent enough to allow me to correct my own mistakes with her.

Dashing off to play agility with my collies (don't care that I always look stupid!!!) but I love this link

how to round up mates on St Patricks day

Will be back to talk collies later

Not a Collie owner, but take part in Agility. Find a friendly fun club as it is great we all look very stupid on occasions I tripped over the dog last week and fell flat on my face. He went through a phase of doing the wall of death jumping every jump in the building.
The collies love it, it really keeps their brains active.

Second what Lizcat says about agility - you could not find a friendlier, tolerate and helpful group of people. We all really do make major mistakes and nobody minds at all, I could list all of my agility C@@@k ups but it would take too long! So something to consider - collies do love it.

Tricks to start with would be

a nose touch - put your hand out the dog will come and sniff- click and treat
eventually the dog will start to touch your hand and that is what you will click and treat.

You can then move onto a push command - get the dog to touch a post it note on you hand when he touches it click and treat.

When you have a good push command you can put the post it note on doors to push them shut or on the gym balls to push them into goals etc

Another good trick is to tug then you can get the dog to close doors by pulling on a tuggy, tuggy washing out of the tumble drier and washing maching, tug off your coat or socks etc.

Next trick is a drop - then you can get the dogs to tug the washing out of the machine and drop into the washing machine etc hours of fun and less housework for you!

I love all dogs and have many breeds myself but collies are fab dogs so quick, so willing, so active and just desperate to work for you all the time and the bond with a collie is second to none.

I have two. One is from a farm and is the most laid back boy ever (unless agility or cats are on offer!). The other was researched carefully, from an obedience background and I'm afraid is a complete basket case :o

I did everything right with him (and still do), but he's just, well, weird! He hates noises, children, scooters, horses, people looming out of the dark, a bin on the other side of the road that he's seen a thousand times.... But he is so lovely and cuddly that we don't mind.

I love the housework idea she is already my official washing machine to clothes line buddy so she will love that.

We did try to get her to shut the door, but she slammed it shut really hard once and scared herself silly

Those are some brilliant ideas, thank you. And I will definitely investigate my local agility group.

Obviously mine hates horses too, but mostly because on the first walk that I ever took her on, she slipped this harness thing I had for her and ran under the fence in to a field with two horses in. We had no recall then, I'd only had her a day or so, so she wouldn't come back to me and these two horses chased her up and down the field until I stopped panicking climbed the fence, picked her up and chucked her back over

Another collie owner here. Love my boys, they are amazing intelligent dogs, although not without their ishoos

Agree the bond you have with a collie is really special, but not a novice pet. Too many end up in rescue when they become difficult due to boredom, and lack of exercise. V sad.

Right! We have started our nose to palm training and she is enjoying the treats learning something new. We struggled in the beginning because I was putting my hand out to her like I do when I ask for a high five, but we figured it out in the end.

She has also helped me in the garden today I am making my first foray in to gardening and she has merrily tipped my seed packet over several times!

We've got an 8 month old collie boy.. He is so naughty... My husband was dead against training classes but i think he's regretting it.. Still haven't had him out of his cage during the night yet because he would chew everything in sight.. We can't let him in the garden unattended as he digs holes. He's taken on a couple of long walks a day.. When does this get any easier ? We've got a baby due in 7 weeks I was hoping he would be behaving himself by now !!

i have a collie. he's 12 and lovely.
i've never managed to get him to do tricks. he sits and stays and walks beautifully but that is it. you can see in his eyes he thinks 'why?' if i try to get him to do anything. like he is above 'tricks'. bless him.

New I've heard people talk about 'the teenage years' for dogs, could that be it? It's supposed to be when they regress etc... I know that me and DP realised about a year ago that she hadn't been 'naughty' for a week or so and in the last five months she has honestly transformed in to the dog I had in mind when I got her she's three next month.

It was hard in the beginning though. I was pregnant in January last year and again in September, so there was a chance we would have had a baby around when she was still young. Unfortunately, neither pregnancy lasted longer than 11 weeks, but I do think that the older our dog is when we (hopefully) have our first, the better!

Have nothing constructive to add, as I don't own a Collie but my brother does.

I just wanted to share the picture my brother took yesterday, of him sunbathing in the garden.

He's a bit of a fruit-loop (the pup, not my brother...although... )

Loves his cuddles and if he gets told off for being naughty (regular occurrence) he will run to me as I'm the only one who hasn't had to 'have words' (due to the fact I don't live with him )

It took our now 4 year old Border Collie to the age of 2.5 to settle downa dn stop chewing everything.

He's our thrid, and he's fab, slightly exciteable but everyone on camp knows him and DH and I are referred to as the Sgt Collie and Mrs Collie!

So I've got another few years of his chewing yet then.. The other thing he does which drives me crazy is he sneaks upstairs (we don't allow him upstairs) when we are not looking and takes a dump on my 5 year old DD's floor. I figured it was a dominance thing.. But it's vile and it drives me mental.. He's had more than one telling off for that this week !!

Newtothisstuff that is why your collie is pooing and weeing upstairs is because you are telling him off.

See it from his point of view - he is worried desperately needs a poo cos he is worried - he knows he will get told off so he sneaks away from you all to poo in peace and hope that you do not find it and get cross!

So you need to ignore all wees and poos indoors, take him outside regularly ad give him a yummy titbit when he poos in the right place.

It is not a dominance thing at all - just the opposite - he is worried and trying to please you by doing it out of your sight.

Yes we leave the back door open when we are indoors unless mad dog from next door which is the size of jersey cow is out and she barks at my poor wee collie and he barks back so we bring him in so that he knows he can go out when need be.

New I sympathise about the crapping, it's horrid isn't it. I can't give much advise though, I firmly believe that the house training was sheer dumb luck on my part! Saying that though, someone once commented on how I focused on the negative with my dog because I thought we had 'cracked it' in terms of toilet training. Once I took a massive step back and deep breath I realised I was getting so stressed out about it that I was miserable and actually being a little bit mean to her as well, so she was stressed and sad. I tried to find as many opportunities as possible to praise her, even if she just sat still for a second, especially focusing on weeing outside. After about a week, I found I was happier, so was she and our relationship had improved. His was probably when she was about ten months old.

Ignore it if I'm patronising you, it's not intentional

Haha no its not patronising !! He's fine 99% of the time he usually just goes and jumps at the back door.. It's just every now and again he goes upstairs and does it on Dd's bedroom floor.. Nowhere else just there haha

We have had a really lovely day today it's amazing what a bit of sunshine can do. She is currently tucked right up in the curl of my knees on the sofa, absolutely exhausted! And I caught the cat fishing in the stream at the back of our garden.

I have a question though - could someone talk to me about collies and children? I've seen a fair few posters mention (in passing) that they aren't great with children, is that true? There is absolutely not a malicious bone in her body - I've seen the cat wrap all four limbs round the dogs head and almost hang by her claws and the dog didn't bat an eyelid...

So I have two collies as mentioned above. One has no problem with children at all. He sits near DS (14 months), likes being stroked by him, brings him a ball etc.

The other one is really scared of DS. He can't handle that DS moves and makes noise. He would rather not be in the same area of the room as him. He is also scared of children (especially on scooters!) that we meet in the street or who walk past outside. He's not aggressive to DS (and wouldn't get the chance to be!), he just runs away.

Both of your dogs sound like what I would class as a typical collie (although admittedly I don't have much experience!) I would say that mine is a mix of your two - love love loves cuddles but can be extremely nervous. I remember taking her to the vets and cringing because she was cowering like she was some poor abused little doggy and I made a nervous comment about it to the vet. She said that she sees it a lot in collies because of their temperament and because of something else I can't quite remember.

My concern with mine would be that she would do her wily coyote run all the time around a baby. A sort of hunted, stalking, herding thing that she does.

... And how do you deal with your second dog? Do you just ignore the behaviour?

Collies are very sensitive and quick to react to anything. Think of what they are breed to do. A sheep separates off from the herd and they run to return it without being asked.

So around children they can find it quite stressful - however mine love DC's as they will throw the ball for them for hours and hours. However children move fast and collies react quickly so it can be quite hard for the collie to be around young children. Again there are always exceptions but generally most collies find DC hard work and it does increase their stress level if amongst DC's who are not used to the collie ways.

Re the herding stalking behaviour she will do it if you let her. You do need to find an outlet for this behaviour, all collies need to be able to release this instinct. If you don't you could have problems. However the fantastic thing about collies is there fab instinct control - watch them herding sheep they may want to chase but if the command has been given to go down they will.

So get your collie working (on anything, trick, agility obedience) regularly and you are more likely to have a more relaxed dog able to cope with family life. If the herding behaviour starts around your DC's you must give the collie some other behaviour to learn to do in that situation.

Re your dog at the vets, can you go the vets and just enter the waiting room treat the dog and go out again. DO this often (most nurses and receptionists welcome this and will treat your dog as well) very quickly your dog will be happy to go to the vets. Just takes a little bit of effort but well worth it not to have a vet phobic collie.

Clicker training is fantastic for getting collies over there little "isshoos". Re the bikes and scooters again they are fast moving and will cause many collies to react unless trained not to. Click as you see the bike approach and treat, very very very quickly the dog will turn to you or come to you as he sees a bike approaching.

The joy of collies is that they are so quick to learn, good and bad behaviour but will always give you the behaviour which gets the most positive response. Telling off or harsh handling and you have a problem for life.