Hi all,
I'm looking for a little bit of reassurance/advice.
I've adopted a 3 year old Border Collie recently, he's absolutely gorgeous.
I adopted straight from the family who were self proclaimed "Collie experts" and had had him from a pup, as a result it was strongly implied he was "normal".
I've had Collies before so his excitability d exercise needs haven't come as a surprise but it's becoming quickly apprentice that his last family perhaps weren't giving him all he needed.
He's exceptionally clingy, really very submissive and can get very worried.
He growls occasionally when touched, looks nervous but also wags his tail. He's apologetic afterwards.
I feel like we can get beyond this as he rows to trust me more and I give him more confidence but there are two things in particular that concern me:
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He's clearly never been socialised with other dogs (or people it would seem) so becomes incredibly excited/manic when he sees another dog. He's approached a few and it's been fine, though he flits between nervousness and excitement, but he'll go wild if he can't "meet" them and will thrash and thrash on the lead.
He's a Collie. He needs huge amounts of exercise that can't be provided on lead really so this is a problem.
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He howls when left alone. And howls. And howls. We live in a terrace. I've tried to be with him as much as possible but inevitably he's going to need to be on his own at some point. I'm going back to work next week - he'll have a good amount of company during the day, and will not be alone for longer than a couple of hours but these hours are going to be...loud.
All advice greatly appreciated, I'm aware that these are problems that may fade with time/trust/experience but at the moment I'm getting a bit down about them.