jinksd1

Awww...poor baby. Sorry your pups going through a rough time.

I'm no expert, but my experience has taught me some things. I fully believe that I accidentally "taught" one of my dogs to be more fearful of storms and fireworks when she was young. Of course, I was young, too, and didn't understand that's what I was doing. All I knew was that I could tell she was scared, so I comforted her every time. As she got older, she seemed to become even more fearful, and she developed some terrible behaviors in seeking comfort from me, which really didn't seem to help her feel more calm anyways. I've found that what seems to work much better is to act completely normal and nonchalant when my dog shows fear of an item or noise, starting in puppyhood or whenever the fear starts. I don't rush to comfort. She can be near me and maybe even in contact with my leg or something, but I don't pet her or croon comforting words, and she can't climb on me or get under my legs or basically do anything that I wouldn't normally allow her to do (without my command). Those behaviors would result in a normal correction ("off", "get out of there", etc.) delivered in a normal tone. I think it calms the fear to some degree to see that I'm acting as if nothing abnormal is happening and that I don't seem to be concerned. They really do look to us as their leaders and feed off of our energy. Now for a recent exception to that. When I used the food processor for the first time, it scared the crap out of Nox. She was only about 9 weeks old. She was fearful but still curious about the thing making all the racket. So I picked her up, let her sniff it, and dipped a finger in the food in it and let her taste it. Then I turned it on for just a moment while she was near it, then stopped it and let her sniff it and have another taste. Then I put her down and went about my business as if everything was normal. She's never shown the slightest fear of it since then, and I use it weekly while she's hanging out in the kitchen with me (which she does whenever I'm cooking). I don't think that would have worked with every dog and in every circumstance, but I had a feeling it would work that time, and it did.

Thank you for the great information. I don't know that we'll much agility-type stuff, because I just don't see continuing with it when she's older. We don't have the space, money, or time to fully train her in agility later. We're already training basic commands and tricks. That's really the reason I love Border Collies and wanted another one, because I love training tricks and such. But I thought it would be fun to add hoop jumping, frisbee work, and a few other more physical activities that I didn't do with my last one. Since I can't really start jumps yet, when can I? Should I wait until she's 10-12 months? Older?

My pup is about four months old. I know that many activities are much too hard on her developing body to be doing them now. We don't even take her for walks yet, though we do take her to a dog run once a week and let her sniff and play and run as she likes for about 20-30 minutes. It's my understanding that most anything she does on her own during play and normal life is okay, but regular walks and other physical activities can result in repetitive motion injuries or her just plain hurting herself at this stage. Right? Well, I'd really like to start some basic training with hoop-jumping, frisbee, etc. So far we just play fetch with the frisbee by rolling it on the floor in the house (she chases it and brings it back), and I've just started getting her used to walking through a hoop (not jumping through it). My question is, can we do a little more than that? This is just for fun for us, not to train her for any kind of competition later. We really only do one activity for maybe at most five minutes (usually less). Could I for example start having her jump through the hoop with it off the floor a couple inches if I don't have her do it more than maybe 3-5 times in a row, once or twice a day? If not, at what age will this be okay? I want to be safe and keep her healthy, but I really want to start training her in some more fun stuff.

Thanks to all for the reassurance. I suspected I didn't have much to worry about, but it's good to know for sure. We'll just keep on working with her, knowing she'll get it eventually.

Hello, everyone! This is my first post here. I've had my 11-week-old Border Collie for about three weeks now, and I think things are going fairly well, but I have a question about potty training. We're crate training, and we of course started potty training as soon as we brought her home. She has it down about 90-95% so far, but she still has accidents inside sometimes. I know her little body is still maturing, so probably some of it is that. She seems to have the most trouble when she's been playing a while. When we let her out of the crate, we immediatly take her outside (where she always at least pees 100% of the time), and then it's play time. When she's been playing a while, sometimes she seems to be so into her play and so active that she suddenly has to pee and will squat right then and there with no warning. Usually we can startle her, and she'll stop mid-stream, at which point we take her out. She also sometimes tries to poop inside, but that's easier to catch, so we haven't had any actual accidents in a while (but I'm concerned that she even tries). We never punish her for accidents, in case anyone is wondering. We do have her on a schedule and make sure she goes out often, especially when exiting her cage and after meals (fed three times daily). She doesn't have any accidents in her crate. My question is whether this is something to be terribly concerned about. My last Border Collie had it down by 9 weeks old and never had accidents after that, so maybe I'm expecting too much based on that. I'm unsure if she might be developing bad habits that will be hard to break, or if this is completly within the realm of normal.