Lawgirl

Not sure if there is any NADAC in Brisbane? Tunnellers or the hoops may be better for an older dog than the jumps. Otherwise nosework, or even something like Rally can be good for an older dog. Rally can have one or two jumps in higher grades, but with straight approaches and not at high speed. I call it an obedience obstacle course. Or you can look into track and search or lure coursing. I just checked Dogs Queensland's website, and there are trials in both disciplines, so there must be clubs that teach it. These might work for an older dog that is still active.

Clever girl!

He is gorgeous! Love the last one. Have his ears settled on being one up one down, or is that just that photo?

Oh, I recall seeing that face a time or two

I agree with everything that is said above as, especially about the suggestion that 20 puppies is probably way too much stimulation for your puppy, and an abnormally large puppy group. Border Collies are bred to be sensitive to the minutest movement of sheep. For a little puppy, that much movement must be overwhelming and frightening. Be his protector; keep things at a distance, let him observe from where he feels safe and allow him to set the pace of his interactions. I have also found that my BCs are somewhat 'breedist', in that they get on best with other herding/working type dogs who have the same body language and play styles. This is not the case with every BC, obviously. But if there are some puppies that are very boisterous and 'in your face' in the group, or some of the brachycephalic breeds, like pugs, frenchies and boxers, BCs can have difficulty reading their play. If there are some other BCs, Aussies etc in the group, can you maybe arrange a small play meet with one or two other puppies away from the big group? And your puppy is gorgeous

She looks more like a Jackie or a Shawnee to me. Thank you very much, you have paid the puppy tax - for now! She is a real cutie pie! I look forward to seeing her grow. I am afraid I do not have a lot of advice for toilet training in winter with snow. Not something I see a lot of in Australia. I suspect letting her out of the crate as soon as she goes in is a bad precedent to be setting though.

I think you will find many people on this forum join in your view of the rare need to wash their BCs. I have four BCs, two aged six and a half years, one aged five years, and one about to turn two. George (6 and a half) has been groomed, I think, three times, and bathed about six times. Oscar, also 6 and a half, has been groomed about five times and gets bathed about every four to six months. Bailey, aged five years, has been washed maybe five times. Shadow, who came to us at 11 months, has been washed twice.

Best of luck with the surgery and to you and Kenzi!

Welcome to the BC Boards MVZ! I hope you will feel free to ask questions and share your fun experiences with us. We will do our best to help. Also, we are always happy to see photos of puppies (hint, hint!).

I am glad it seems to be working! I must admit I am not talking from personal experience, but from group experience from others on this forum dealing with things like dogs afraid of a car etc. If things take a backwards step, you just need to go back to where she is comfortable again and go more slowly, breaking things down into slower steps, but hopefully that doesn't happen.

Also, after my long read above, I wanted to say that I love the look of your dog, and she reminds my of my boy Oscar. I love a whiteface BC in Agility. Makes them much easier to pick out in the photos of an event.

I think with all dog sports, it is easy to get very caught up in them. I can only speak about agility, which is what I do, and I am in Australia, which means I will have a different perspective. But I will give my perspective. Agility has many different handling systems, theories on how to approach it etc as you can shake a stick at. My advice is to relax, work on building a good relationship with your dog, make everything as fun as you can and enjoy the ride. Your first dog will always be special, but will always be the one where you learn the most, and probably make the most mistakes. If you are a super competitive personality, you will want to go to a top trainer, practice regularly, make or buy your own equipment, immerse yourself in the culture and theory, compete as soon as you are ready, and then enter everything you can, travelling to every competition you can and advance through the levels to elite competition. Or my preference, especially as a first timer, is to take your time, maybe help out at some agility (or other dog sport) trials first to get a feel for what they are about, how they run, what is involved, how different people work. Talk to people you like watching work their dogs about where they train, or what system they use etc. Do some basic foundation work (lots of videos online) to build up core strength, build a connection, etc. Decide which system you like and either go to a local trainer or do courses online. Stay positive and make things fun for your dog. Have a go, laugh at your mistakes and keep trying. In Australia, we have a saying "I'm not playing for sheep stations here". The meaning being that I am not competing for some incredibly valuable trophy or prize, I am doing this for fun (or exercise, or friendship etc). That is my attitude with agility. My boy loves, and I mean LOVES, going over jumps. He is never happier. It is not my idea of a good time to run like a mad thing around a field for 30 seconds. I do it because he loves it. When it stops being fun for him, it stops being fun for me. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be an elite level competitor in agility or any other dog sport. If that is what you want to be, go for it, I will be cheering and admiring from the sidelines. But it is perfectly acceptable to just want to have fun, to keep trying and learning and improving. Not everyone has the time, money and dedication (or aptitude) to be an elite level athlete in dog sports. We can all have fun and try to do our best.

I guess the question for me is whether removing the implant is going to relieve the immediate pain only to cause other pain. I am sure the original surgery was a well considered choice because the alternative was a negative outcome. Does removing the implant mean Kenzi goes back to the negative outcome? Does the removal also mean ongoing pain or loss of function? Would that be worse or better than the current situation? Are you balancing function versus pain? I don't know enough about your situation to know what the answer is, and it is a horrible dilemma to be in. I am not generally in favour of long term pain relief, partly because of side effects and toxicity, but also because, at least in humans, it can actually make pain worse over time. I have no idea if it is the same in dogs. Sorry I can't be more help. I have no answers; I have never been in your position and I suspect it comes down to a very personal decision in your particular circumstances with no absolute right or wrong answer, only what is right for you and Kenzi.

I have a dog who is not a fan of being brushed, mainly because he has quite wiry fur on his hindquarters and bloomers. I tried one of those mitts and had no real success; he didn't hate it, but it did bupkiss when it came to getting undercoat out. It might be a good massage? I have found that I have to get him really relaxed with a good scratching and petting, then sneak out an undercoat rake which I had hidden away, and brush him quite gently, interspersed with pats and constant reassurance. Even then I can really only do a section at a time. The best I have found is a narrow but long toothed, double row undercoat rake designed for long coat and wiry coated breeds. He seems to tolerate that brush the best out of all I have found so far. I guess it pulls his fur the least. But that is more due to his coat type than a blanket fear of being brushed like your dog. I do like the look of the brush you have bought. If I was going to go for a brush for a dog that was afraid of them, that looks like a good one.

Lots of games you can play with puppies. Trick training is perfect. Aside from the basic sit, down, shake, you can start doing things like bow (by capturing when she does the move naturally while stretching), touch with nose, touch with paw, roll over, turn around and the ever cute gimme a kiss... I think there is something like "100 things to do with a box" which is full of ideas, or look at trick training videos.

So what you need to do is desensitisation. Depending on how bad she is, you start by putting the brush down somewhere and rewarding her for looking at it. Then, when she is comfortable looking at it, you no longer reward for looking at it, but you reward her for moving towards it. Then you reward her for getting closer. Then for touching it. Then you start over with you holding it still. Then with you touching her with it. Then, finally, you can think about starting to brush, very gently. This is going to take time and lots of treats. There was a video on a sudden fear of a kitchen thread recently which shows the sort of process you go through to over come fear in a dog. Same theory, different fear. Small steps, lots of positive reinforcement.

Let's be honest, it is really the way that your BC looks at you, like you are their whole world, that makes your world just that little bit better every day...

Also in people, foods that you eat when your body is under stress, you can develop an intolerance for. My partner once ordered a burger when he was sick, and when he bit into it, the bacon was raw. He threw up everywhere. Now he cannot tolerate any pork product, but this has developed over time. When we first began our relationship over ten years ago, he could still eat pepperoni and salami, but now he cannot even tolerate those. My mum cannot tolerate apricot chicken, because she ate it once when she had bad morning sickness. These are obviously not allergies, but intolerances. If a BC can develop an fear reaction from one bad external experience, is it outlandish to posit an intolerance from an internal experience?

If it is possible, I would be looking at going to another vet clinic to get a second opinion. Fecal testing would be high on my list as well. Then think about an elimination diet if the fecal testing came back with nothing, following veterinary advice. I have also heard anecdotally about chicken being a big issue for protein allergies. I am in Australia, so I would probably go with kangaroo as the protein to reintroduce to him. I understand it is a lot harder to get in America. There are obviously other options, including fish, lamb, duck, beef, venison etc. In Australia, we even have an option of crocodile! With food allergies, it comes down to either making food yourself, or becoming very skilled and diligent at reading ingredient labels, and reading them every time, because ingredients can change without notice. The only other thing I will say, is that I have a dog with a sensitive stomach, and I find that giving him a tablespoon or two of natural yoghurt does help when he has runny poop. This WILL NOT WORK FOR EVERY DOG. A fairly large proportion of dogs are lactose intolerant, and if your dog is in this category yoghurt will not help. If your dog can tolerate lactose, some natural yoghurt (and I mean unflavoured, unsweetened, natural yoghurt - the one I buy is just bio-dynamic milk and the yoghurt culture, with no extra milk solids, thickeners etc - it is better quality than what I eat) may help.

Very impressive, well done!

One thing which several of my BCs do, and which I find in equal parts annoying and endearing, is if they think I am paying too much attention to my phone , and not enough to petting them, they will put their paw on my phone and push it down, not hard enough to knock it out of my hand, but enough to say, "Stop looking at that thing, I am here, love me!"

D'Elle, I have not been in your position exactly, but I do not know if I would be able to bear not having at least one BC. All I can say is to keep your heart and eyes open. That was how our third BC came to us - as a give away puppy on an on-line classifieds website. Another dog we re-homed was on the website for weeks because his advertisement was misspelled "boarder collie". We searched for collie instead of border collie by mistake one day and he came up. It may sound very woo-woo, but I do believe that dogs and people are destined to meet each other. Your dog will come to you.

Awesome work to both of you, congratulations! They really are such smart dogs, I love to see their brains working behind their eyes. I also second the notion that we like puppy photos!

Once I started reading, I could not stop. I am so terribly sorry for your loss, but also happy that you had 11 wonderful years with such a very special dog. The two of you were clearly meant to be. I hope in time the great memories of your time together help the pain.

I am very far from being a fan of 'nope ropes', especially living in Australia, where we have more than our fair share of the most dangerous ones, but even I felt sorry for this one. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-14/nike-the-carpet-python-riddled-with-ticks-recovering/10711112 He was apparently named Nike after the tick shape in the Nike brand (what Americans call a check sign).