CindyfromRiley

I'm sure that she wasn't 100% BC, but the BC showed through load and clear. Anytime I went up a ladder, to work on the roof, trim a tree, whatever, she just had to follow. I was 25ft up an extension ladder to talk to a contractor and heard her on the ladder. Seconds later, there she was, licking me in the face. "I'm here, what do you want me to do?" When I knew she was going deaf, I had her trained to hand signals in a week. I still sneak over the spot that she slept at night if I have to get up, so not to step on her. I lost more than just a dog.

An aggressive Carcinoma forced us to lay Cindy down for the last time. She wasn't able to urinate. I was surprised at how fast it took her. The vet, and the labs, diagnosed a bladder infection a month ago, but she showed no sign of recovery while on the antibiotics. So, my best friend, my frisbee buddy, and a startlingly intelligent dog is gone at age 13. It's going to be hard to deal with for a long time.

Is there any sign of deafness? I'm going through the very same right now with my old girl and even though she appears to be able to hear her Yorkie buddy yap in alarm, she won't respond to her name, sleeps so soundly that I can walk right over her and she doesn't know I'm there, and doesn't hear me come in and close the door. The real problem is the apparent anxiety and pacing. When deafness sets in the vet told me she probably feels very vulnerable and will hide at night as well as pant and pace.

She was developing the start of a fungus because her undercoat would never dry. We had to have her buzzed and now she's like a new dog. The panting has stopped, she still eats well, gets a decent sleep at night. Poor thing loves the water and I'll admit there's not always time to comb her out after every swim. The pond isn't the best place for a swim but she likes to chase frogs and will spend a couple hours in the water. She is due this month for a booster and she'll see the vet in a few days, a different vet this time because last year the diagnosis for the same problem was allergies. They seem to blame a lot on allergies. We have a crate that the Yorkie uses when she's upset, but it will fit Cindy, also. I'll try that and see if it helps for storms. She hates storms, but it's been a strange weather year. Mid July and we're seeing mid-70's temps here, and very few of the green cloud storms we usually see.

Yes she is spayed. I remember three or four years ago giving her baths after her wild mud puddle frenzies and I'd get handfuls of hair just running my fingers through. not anymore. Both my wife and I were very careful over the winter to make sure Cindy was brushed out and she had no knots forming. The only two that we saw were both behind her ears, a place she's always knotted up. She's not a neglected dog, and I know most of you wouldn't consider that she is or we wouldn't be here. She loves to dive into snowbanks after rabbits and mice so we'd blow her dry and make sure she wasn't matting up. Last year she loved the buzz cut, seemed cooler, but we kept her out of prolonged sun and risk of burn. I brushed her all winter. She would lay on her back and let us brush away. Even her hips were clear and flowing, something that always hurts her if we're not careful. She's had all of her teeth on my brush hand at times to let me know that I'm trying to pull out something that won't come out. We have a few things similar to what Autumn listed and also a big plastic come with big fingers to start off with. When spring came this year we used the undercoat brush to try to get the thick stuff out but it wouldn't come at all. In fact, my wife made a comment yesterday that she never sees any of Cindy's hair around the floors at all anymore when she's cleaning. This dog just plain doesn't shed anymore, not even the long outer stuff. As I think back, this all started a little over a year ago when she was swimming in a lake at my MIL's. It was her first swim of the year and we noticed the smell the next day, and also the heavy matting, almost like a berber(sp?) rug forming with the undercoat. That was when it hit us that she quit shedding, period. It's obvious that something has changed, but her diet has been the same, only her appetite has increased. You know, see food, eat it. But I've caught her in the cat's food over the years and I know that it's higher in protein, could that have an affect on her coat and shedding? Autumn, it bothers me to buzz her, too, because she normally has a beautiful coat. But under that undercoat mat now we can see there's a yellow color that's probably a fungus that won't wash out and it's the only way to get at it. I'll check the feed and grain, and also there's a Tractor Supply a few miles away in Romeo.

I have no solid answers here, but it was something I was concerned about with Cindy after she was about 8 months old. I've had her checked by a vet more than once for hearing problems and it turned out to be a 'selective hearing' thing. She just plain responded to what interested her. I could call her for ten minutes and she's been in eyeshot of me. But when I changed to a softer, fainter voice and just said 'I'm going for a ride in the car', she ran in from 50 yards or more right to the car. She wasn't deaf at all, she just wasn't interested in what I wanted her for in the fist place.

I had a thread in the General area about my stinky BC and what we've come to see is that her undercoat no longer sheds out to a thinner level in the summer. It used to, and was easy to get a brush through her. For the past few years it doesn't shed out at all, and it gets tied up in knots so bad that the brush hurts her and she won't sit for it. No doubt that's where the stink is coming from because after she swims she never dries thoroughly with that matted undercoat. My concern is about the lack of shedding, is this normal? What have the rest of you done to keep the undercoat from knotting up after a swim? It's so bad that tomorrow she goes in for a buzz cut again, something we had to do last year. I'll see if that affects her nighttime problems and let you know.

When Cindy started that with me years ago whenever I had to go out and couldn't take her, I always told her 'I'll be back in a little while'. This quickly cured her of wanting to go for the car ride all the time, and barking at me for leaving. It still works. It even works for her little buddy, my daughter's Yorkie. Now they just sit there with long faces and don't try to herd me back in. The key was the wording. If I said 'I'll be right back', she guarded the door and wouldn't let me or anyone else out. When we have family here, I have to tell her the same thing when they go to leave. 'They'll be back in a little while', and she settles down. It sounds strange but that's how she is. She's smart enough to know what the words, or the sound of the words, mean.

Cindy was like that for the first 3 or 4 years. She was friendly to everyone. One day the kids were getting on the school bus and she was out there saying goodbye, we thought. Bus takes off down the road, and comes back a minute later. The kids were having a blast because there was Cindy, sitting on a seat on the school bus. Then it all changed for the bad side. We think a mailman sprayed her because all of a sudden she wanted no part of strangers. She became pretty territorial and mean if anyone came close to her.

Cindy is 10 years old and she's starting to show her age, but this one has me a bit worried. She pants all night. She usually sleeps under the bed, but isn't able to maneuver herself in and out of there very well anymore, so she sleeps with her face in a corner of the bedroom. But she pants for hours, something she doesn't do during the day. I'm starting to think she's losing her eyesight and might be afraid of the dark. She still stinks like rotten socks from her pond swims even though I took the suggestions here and hose her off , she's had diarrhea for about a week, and her nose isn't the cold wet thing it always is. It's sounding more like an infection, but she's not listless in the least and she eats like no tomorrow. The panting has been going on for months. I can't put it all together, maybe someone here has some advice. A vet trip is the last resort since I've been off work close to three years.

Cindy is very afraid of thunderstorms, fireworks, gunshots(lots of that out here in the country), a hammer banging on a whatever. She'll go upstairs and behind a chair for about 24 hours. We've tried to sooth her, petting and stroking and soft talk, but nothing works. Now we just let her go and hide. If it even smells like a storm she'll hide, and when I check the radar sites on the net and see a storm a few hundred miles away in Wisconsin I wonder about her. I can't even begin to understand how she knows it's coming from that far. Now that she's 10 she's afraid of the dark, too. She pants most of the night.

I'm not a big fan of dog parks. One thing we have to understand is that dogs are not always social animals. There are instincts that are at work that we don't understand sometimes, and we're fooling ourselves if we think we can control that. I don't buy into the TV dog whisperers or socializers thing where you can teach your dog how to play nice. The instincts to survive at all costs are strong and I don't think those can be trained out. Our Cindy has always been around other dogs and while there are some that she gets along with, others turn her into a monster. There was a big chocolate Lab next door that would come over and lean his head on our screen door and 'sing' to Cindy to come outside. (It was pathetic! ) First thing she did was try to take his face off, next minute they were out running and chasing squirrels together. If you want to read some sad dog park stories, go to the Yorkie forum. Cindy lives with a Yorkie that considers her a big sister and tries to do everything she does. They get along great. But I'd never take either one to a dog park and risk an incident.

Cindy loves to open presents, even if they're not hers, and years ago she opened a pound box of Fannie Mae Trinidads that were sitting on the dining room table. It wasn't the chocolate that she saw, it was the fact that it was a wrapped present. She ate 3/4 of a pound before we caught her. We thought she was a goner but she was fine, no sign of any problems. We do our best to keep anything chocolate away from her. She's a strong girl though, a Parvo survivor. I saw an article about this, that chocolate acts as a cumulative poison in dogs, and at some point it starts to have an affect. Eating one chocolate won't kill a dog but regular chocolate 'snacks' can start to do some damage.

We're new to the forum and have a problem that someone may be able to help us with. Cindy is mostly Border Collie. She was abandoned as a puppy so we're not sure. She loves to swim but has a problem with stinking up the house after. She has a very thick undercoat that won't brush out very well so it takes her a while to dry. In the last couple years she's taken on a very distinct odor that is like ripe socks. The vet hasn't been able to find anything wrong that would indicate a fungus or infection of any kind. She's very healthy for a 10 year old dog. Is there any way to get rid of the odor? Normal baths don't help. I think she likes being dirty anyway.

Hi, we're new here. First post. We got Cindy about 10 years ago as a pup that was abandoned in an empty house. It took us a while to figure out what she was but for the most part she's a Border Collie. She herds us to the bath every morning, and if we're not fast enough to fill her bowl she'll literally shove us in that direction. She loves the water and always has. My first memory of her and water was a big black mud puddle in the back yard that she raced through splashing water everywhere, digging into the mud making her all black instead of white and black. Now, she swims in the pond every morning. She'll run at full speed and just jump right in. The water is 20 feet deep but she doesn't care. We can throw her frisbee in there and she'll jump in after it.