Lawgirl

Snow is not a fear for a lot of Border Collies. I live in Australia and my boys love the cold and wet (no snow though) far more than the heat. Luckily we are having a fairly mild summer by our standards where I live - only one 40+ degree Celsius day so far (104 Fahrenheit), although other areas have not been so lucky. PS she is so cute!

I have the private opinion that Border Collies are a little breedist - they know which breeds they like and which they do not. Other border collies (and other working breeds likes kelpies) will get along just fine, but sometimes other breeds are not welcome. Of course you always get exceptions who like every breed, or who like specific other dogs, but in general, other working dogs are better.

Those are two great photos. Puppy time passes so quickly (looking back I mean, it can feel unending when in the middle)!

When my Oscar passed away late in 2019, his littermate George lost his appetite nearly entirely. George often goes through a picky phase around late Winter/early Spring (southern hemisphere) and he was in this when Oscar died. He almost stopped eating entirely, and really would only eat if I hand fed him, and only a limited amount then. He lost quite a lot of weight, probably 4-5 kgs (8-11lbs). In the end, I found an air dried all meat kibble called Ziwi Peak (from New Zealand) and feeding him that and also roast chicken picked off the bones lead him to eat. I gradually added back in sardines, natural unflavoured yoghurt or cottage cheese, my homemade casserole and his normal kibble until he was eating normally again. I will add this was not cheap - a 1kg bag of Ziwi Peak cost me around AU$65, and lasted a couple of weeks.

As a Christmas present to my OH a couple of years ago, I found one of those print-your-photo-on-anything websites and got four small cushions with photos of our boys. Here is a photo of our George resting his head on his own cushion. Dogception!

And the uninformed think border collies all look the same! You can tell yours all have different personalities just by looking at them. Love the photo and welcome to (active participation in) the Boards!

Hear Hear! I can almost keep puppy fever at bay with admiring the pictures of everyone's puppies. Now I just need to deal with the jealousy...

So many puppies lately - I am in second hand heaven! Welcome to the Boards, welcome to the BC life, and congratulations on your beautiful girl puppy!

OMG, that tongue action! Fantastic photo, fantastic subject.

OK maeflower, time to start a Rylie thread to keep updating with all of your wonderful photos! It will also be a wonderful record for you to access over time.

It sounds to me as though you have found a very sensible behaviouralist. I am firmly of the opinion that agility bred BCs are not bred to be pets, and have a range of issues with temperament/hyperarousal/hyperactivity. I do love the idea of amping up the treats, but a small word of warning - liver treats are very rich, and in my BCs cause some very memorable and smelly, nay stinky, gas. This may not be an issue for you, but if Darcy suddenly becomes a gas machine, those treats may be the issue...

Wisk is gorgeous, I am a sucker for odd colour eyes! Actually I am a sucker for a lot of variations of BCs lol bot one of my first BCs had different colour eyes too, same sides as Wisk.

Gorgeous puppy! Is there any way you can perhaps block off the space under the armchair? If she feels possessive of this space, or resists coming out, maybe block it off until she is too big to get underneath and this will remove the issue of her feeling defensive under there. I am a believer in avoiding issues when possible. I would say that having a second crate downstairs where she can be placed for immediate time out is a very sensible thing, or an x-pen. I am surprised that the trainer is recommending multiple verbal corrections. I can understand using physical pressure (getting in their space) to encourage a dog to not do something/be somewhere but I have never seen or heard a recommendation for multiple verbal corrections. As for the issue with her working out about treat signals, perhaps try using a clicker. Once you "charge" the clicker, or even use a marker word instead of a clicker, then you can reward the behaviour in a timely fashion even if you are not right there with the treat. I understand the issue with too smart puppies. I had a puppy who was scared of other dogs and was barking at them, so I was encouraging him to look at me, and stop barking, with treats when he did. By the second day, I realised he had started deliberately barking at way off dogs and then immediately looking at me for a treat before I said anything, as a way of scoring more treats...

Welcome to the world of photographing BCs!

I am not sure about skijoring, but I know that with agility, most reputable clubs will not start full training (e.g. jumps and weaves) until dogs turn 1 year old, and competition where I come from is not until 18 months, to permit joints and bones to fully grow. So you could probably start some light stuff from when he is a year old?

Ok, now you say you are a photographer, I can understand how you get such amazing shots of Rylie!

OK, completely off topic, but puppytoes, OMG, that profile picture, so cuuuuuuute! I really needed to see that right about now.

Welcome to the boards Maeflower! I see you got the memo about puppy photos! Your puppy is beautiful, and I love the difference a couple of months makes between puppy fluff and adult coat, and so shiny! May we know the name of your very intently gazing boy?

How can you last a few minutes?! I would last seconds at best!

Welcome to the Boards waffletastics! I second what D'Elle has said in that BCs are very adaptable and trainable dogs. If you have a puppy in mind, and you know the parents, that will give you some idea about the likely personality of the adult dog. I say likely, because dogs can be very different from their parents, or turn out different than you thought as a puppy, but the important thing is to always work with the dog you have, not the dog you want. If your dog has grown up with the sights and sounds of the city, and is well socialised, there is no reason to think she will not be happy in the city if you satisfy her mental, physical and emotional needs, and you sound dedicated to that. I have four border collies in a suburban home with a not so big yard, and they are all happy. But most importantly, WE LOVE PUPPY PHOTOS!

It is possible that he is going through a fear period at the moment, and combined with the enforced lack of socialisation, this may have caused the problems. The only way I can think of to deal with it would be desensitisation. Take the puppy to the outside of the vet building, and praise him, treat him etc, then leave. Then go back, and take a step or two closer, rinse and repeat over and over until you get to the door. Then put your hand on the door, and praise when he does not react badly, is calm etc. Then open the door but do not go in, and praise and treat when he is calm etc. Then step inside, then two steps, then all the way, then up to the counter, or up to the weighing station and so on. You may need to break it down into far more steps than this, e.g. rewarding him for just calmly looking at the vet building. And it may take a long time, weeks even, to rebuild a positive relationship, with lots of praise and VERY HIGH VALUE treats. You need to be sure that you do not push your pup, and you watch like a hawk and take him only to the point where he starts to become uncomfortable, then praise, treat and back off. Let him lead how fast things go. I think Kikopup has some good YouTube videos on desensitisation, and you can do a search for the term on here. There have been a lot of posts about it, often about going in a car. If you do not have the time or ability to do this because of restrictions or due to the need to have a vet appointment scheduled, the other option may be to try a new vet practice. I had a dog who had some bad memories of one vet practice, where he had been very sick as a puppy, and then got desexed, and he got very nervous and upset there. We changed to a different vet and he was fine.

This may be a bit nerdy, but in my opinion the correct number of border collies to own is N+1, where N = the number you currently own! Do I own a large stuffed BC because its name was the same as one of mine? Yes Do I own BC salt and pepper shakers? Yes. Do I buy a BC calendar every year? Yes Do I have BC key ring, wall plaque, fridge magnet? Yes, yes, yes. Do I own a Footrot Flat Dog plushie and buy the comics when I can? Yes, after all I swear I owned Dog himself.

Love it!

The ultimate Border Collie cartoon/comic is and always will be, in my opinion, Footrot Flats. https://www.footrotflats.com/strip-archive?strip=4215

Sometimes even running around in confinement can be an issue. When we first got our puppy Oscar, he used to run around in our yard with his brother George. Then at around 20 weeks old, he mysteriously got sick. At first a bit of a cough and a fever, but antibiotics did not help, and a day later his hindquarters were paralysed. The vet was asking about snail bait, or rat poison, but we had nothing like that in our yard. Fortunately my OH is a keen Simpsons fan, and thought of the episode where Mr Burns is describing how all his family died from green potato poisoning. We had some potatoes growing wild in a back corner of the garden where a previous owner had had a compost heap, and Oscar used to think they were a rolling chew toy. And that was the answer; it was solanine (green potato toxin) poisoning, first case my vet had ever seen. Have you ever tried to de-potato a garden? It is not easy. We collected a big bucket from around a square metre of ground, and still missed some, so they kept sprouting up.. In the end we put a large tarpaulin over the entire area for several years to kill them off. So checking for poisonous plants is a worthwhile exercise if your dog is a chewer. Oscar had three days on IV fluids at the vet, and was paralysed for nearly a week, but recovered fully except for a sensitive gut, and went on to title in agility. Expensive exercise though.