Lawgirl

Okay, here is a test.  Photo is of my red merle Bailey.  How would other people classify his coat?

To me he is a mid-length rough coat - definitely not smooth, but he is not what I think of as a long coat (which is more the show dog long coat).  He has a super fluffy butt and tail, minimal feathering and thick but not long ruff.

And just for fun, Bailey as a 20 week old puppy:

Oh, they are absolutely gorgeous!

Don't worry about being an infiltrator - I am from Australia, and we have lots of people from England and other locations in Europe and beyond.  So long as you love BCs you are welcome here!

All of my BCs so far have been rough coat, but none have been long coat, all ranging from quite short with bloomers and ruff, to very fluffy and properly mid length.

Have had two tri-colours, one red merle and two black and whites, one of which had a full white face.  Two of my dogs have had one blue, one brown eye.  Oh, and by coincidence, all have been boys.

Also, all of my dogs have had different feels to their coats, different tendencies to mat, and different amounts shed.  I can actually pick which dog I touch in the dark by the feel of his coat.

The only thing they have all had in common is that magical teflon quality of shedding dirt once it dries.

I don't think that I would want a super long coat, or a smooth - I like my mid-length rough coat dogs.  You can sink your fingers into the fur but they don't get tangled.

And I probably am a complete sucker for tri-colours and white faces, like my first two who we got two days apart.  Although white-faces kinda break my heart still, after losing Oscar last year.  I weirdly like the BCs who do not meet the classic look, who look a little unique.

But honestly, if I fell for a BC, I would not care about its looks, I would love it anyway.

I have four BCs currently, three over 50lbs, one is 46.5lbs, none of them are overweight.

I remember that one of my larger puppies was about 11kgs (24lbs) at 12 weeks, and ended up being perfect weight at 25.5kgs (56lbs), and his brother was very similar.

I quite like the bigger dogs because I don't have to lean down to pat a head when they are sitting by my leg.

On our fifth BC, we have one who will air snap so much we started calling him "Snappy Tom" (not sure if the joke translates across countries - it is the name of a catfood brand here in Australia!)

Basically, when you are patting him, and he is excited, but then you stop and start walking away, he will snap his teeth in the air in the direction of your hand (but inches away).  If you walk with him and keep a hand on his head, he does not, so we have worked out he is protesting you stopping the pats.  It genuinely is a form of communication for him.

Of course, we do tell him no snapping, and ignore him if he snaps, and he has significantly improved, to the point where he rarely does it, and he has NEVER made contact with skin.  Being a rescue dog, who came to us at over 2 years old, we expect some bad habits that we have to work to fix.

The previous four have only ever air snapped when other warnings to leave them alone have been ignored, and that has been probably on fewer occasions than rare.

Update on my above comment.  All four dogs had vet visits and weigh ins yesterday.  One was 21.1kgs (46.51lbs) and he is a healthy weight by body score but definitely smaller than my other dogs.  The next was 23kgs (50.7lbs) and the last two, who are father and son, were 26.2kgs (57.76lbs) and 26kgs (57.32lbs).  All of them got the clean bill of health from the vet, and strong approval in relation to their weight from the vet, who owns a border collie herself, and was very happy with their tuck, waist and her ability to feel ribs.

For information, the smallest dog is around 2 and a half years old.  The 23 kg dog is 6 years old.  The father and son are nearly 8 and 4 years.

I would think your dog may end up around 23-25kgs as a full adult, which was about the same size as my Oscar.  Oscar was a large dog, and in agility he jumped the highest jump height because he was tall (by one millimetre over the limit!).  This height he shared with viszlas, golden retrievers, dobermans etc.  BCs can be quite large, or very petite.

I have four boy dogs who range from 21kgs to around 25kgs, none of whom are overweight (judging by body score - can feel ribs easily, clear waist from above, good tuck from the side).  Do not worry too much about weight, judge body score!

The dog in my profile pic was tall and long - his perfect weight was 25.5kgs.

GentleLake is absolutely right, puppies have developing joints, and if you want to have a healthy dog as an adult, jumping and weaving, which put a lot of pressure on joints, are a no-no until at least 12 months old.  Having said that, it will make your agility training SO MUCH EASIER if you have trained foundation skills before the fun stuff of jumps and a-frames/scrambles etc.  Tunnels are an exception, because they are on the ground, but even they can cause injuries at high speed.

So to start everything is on ground level.  You need to start with strong obedience skills, recall and stays especially.  Also being able to work your dog on both sides of your body is a big help, because no course will be able to run with the dog always on your left, like classic obedience.

You need to be able to build some drive away from you.  Your dog has to want to power down a line of jumps or race away from you to a tunnel or weave poles, so building toy drive is helpful, and is also a great reward for your dog while training.  Tugging is another good reward game.

Teaching your dog to be able to turn in tight circles around obstacles is also a really useful foundation skill.  On an agility course, your dog will be asked to make turns around jumps, and knowing how to 'wrap' a jump can save fractions of seconds, improve jumping lines and generally make your job easier.

Teaching your dog to use its hind legs, called rear end awareness, is very important to improve general agility, and also to avoid injury.  Teaching them to put all four feet in a box, or to turn circles with front paws up on a box is a common exercise for this.

Another very useful skill is touching, which you can teach with a board on the ground.  The aim is to have your puppy walk all four feet on the board and stop with its front two feet off the board, and hind two on.  You start at slow motion with you alongside, until your puppy has reliably nailed it, and then progress to you being at the end, and then increase speed and stopping, etc.  This is to help with the contact equipment like the seesaw, a-frame/scramble and dog walk, where your dog has to put a paw in the colour at the end of the obstacle. 

All of this can and will take time to perfect, and when you nail it reliably when you are close to your dog, you work at doing it from further and further away.

But these basic skills are the among the foundations of agility training, and if you have trained these, you will find the more advanced skills SO MUCH EASIER!

Also, start thinking about attending some agility trials (when they reopen) so you can watch how people handle their dogs, read some agility articles (older articles can be found online for free) because there is a whole language to learn, and a way of looking at things that will be completely new.

Most of all, have fun with your dog!

Hi DavoPreston, and welcome to the Boards!

Firstly, congratulations on your new dog, and thank you for rescuing.

It sounds like you have several issues here.  Both of your dogs are adjusting to changed dynamics within the household, and it will take time for them to adjust.  This is the reason most rescues will give at least a two week trial period, and will accept the return of a dog at any time.  Issues do not always become apparent immediately.

Max has had your sole attention, and he is no doubt feeling a little put out at having to share.  Giving him lots of love and attention, and perhaps some one on one time while Drum is crated or confined to another room will assist him with adjusting.  But most of all time is what will allow things to settle down.

As for Drum attempting to 'hump', this is more a dominance act, as even female dogs will sometimes try to do this with new dogs.  Yes, you must intervene and stop the behaviour, and perhaps use the reaction of matter of fact, you try to hump, you go in the crate as a consequence.  This is not a punishment, so do not use an angry tone, but more an inevitability; do this and this occurs.  You can try castration, but if you are unsure about permanent castration, you can try chemical castration, which is temporary (six to twelve months) and has the benefit of near immediate cessation of hormones, while traditional castration still takes a month or more for the hormones to work themselves out of the dog's body.  I adopted a rescue dog who was over 2 years old, who had been chemically castrated for this reason.  The chemical castration has just worn off, so he is going in today at 2 and a half for a more permanent solution.

The peeing inside is more straight forward, I think.  Treat him like a puppy, take him out after eating or drinking, watch him like a hawk for any sign and reward for peeing outside.  It should not take long for him to understand, given his age.

Best of luck with both of your dogs, hopefully with some time, patience and consistency they become the best of friends!

PS we love photos here!

Thinking of you and hoping, fingers crossed, for good news!

I agree with D'Elle that the first step is a precautionary vet check.

Second possibility is that you may want to think of moving to a single feed a day, and maybe leaving some dry food out for her to graze on if she feels like it.  I have four boys who get fed once a day - it does not harm them to eat once, and a longer time between feeds may stimulate her to eat with more appetite.

Third option is to try putting something enticing on top of the food as an appetite stimulant.  Whether that is some meat, or fish, egg, broth, cheese, yoghurt, whatever might stimulate your dog to eat.  This may result in her only eating the treats on top, but you can mix it through a bit.

Fourth option is that she may have slowed in her growth and no longer have such high food requirements to fuel activity and growth.  This may be temporary or permanent.  But this may just be her regulating her own intake to her needs.

Another option is that she may just be off her food a little.  I have one dog who always starts to eat less at the start of Spring (which is around August/September here in the Southern Hemisphere).  It lasts a month or so, and then his appetite picks back up.  

And yet another option is also what D'Elle said, maybe she no longer likes the food.  So maybe try a different food (bought in small quantities, or see if you can get a trial pack to test until you can see if she will eat it) because would you want to eat the same thing every meal, day in and day out?

Sorry I don't have a definitive answer.

Randy is gorgeous! Welcome to the Boards!

Is Randy your adopted or your original dog?

Many of us here fell in love with our first BC and have ended up with multiple - my OH and I currently have four.

They are indeed a special breed, with quirks and intelligence, and we love them all the more for it!

By the way, I do not believe that stuff about too gentle a personality to handle BCs.  That sounds like dominance theory to me.  BCs are sensitive, even the headstrong ones, and will do more for love than for fear.

Another helpful tip with recall when out and about, make sure you recall, treat and then release, so she can go play for a bit longer.  That way she will not associate recall with end of fun.  I found that to be really helpful. 

I will also warn that she is at about the age of teenager-hood, where she may well seem to forget everything you have taught her, and you may need to start again from the beginning, even at home.  This is teenage rebellion and hormone interference.

I also second what Urge to Herd said about high value treats.  Find the highest value treats out there.  You can do an experiment (Are you home schooling your children at the moment? This could be made part of their science lessons!)  Get a range of treats from commercial treats, to cheese, to dehydrated meat, to sausage or cooked meat, to home made treats (like tuna biscuits) - whatever your dog has shown an interest in.  Place two treats down some distance apart, and see which she goes to first.  Record the results.  Then put two different treats down, repeat.  Once you have gone through all of the different treats, place two of the higher value treats down and keep going until you have found the top treat for your dog.

Having said all of that, with my boys, I suddenly found that some time between 12 months and 18 months, they settled down seemingly overnight, and became much more attentive and responsive.

I got the distinct impression that the dog had memorised at least portions of the routine, because I did not see the handler giving very obvious cues for different behaviours at some times.  I only watched it once, so I may have missed some more subtle clues (e.g. hands turned in vs hands turned out when held up in the air) or there may have been verbal cues you can't pick up on the video but, yes, quite different to most I have seen, very impressive!

That is gorgeous, and I may have been chopping onions at one point in the film, fair warning!

Nice to meet you too!

There is a People's Border Collie Gallery page in these Boards, where people post pictures of their dogs.  You can start a new thread with pictures of your dog.  Some people keep it going, others just post once or twice - whichever, we love photos, especially puppy pics, and it can be a good place to look back on who your dog grows.

If it is any encouragement, I have a friend who has a female border collie.  This BC was attacked by an off lead dog when she was quite young, and as a result, has been pretty submissive and has never really played with other dogs.  She has never really socialised much with other BCs. 

A while ago, in the Beforetimes, we met up for a play date with my four boys and this little girl called Navi.  We had not long adopted Buddy, who is not yet 2 and who loves to play and wrestle.  It did not take long before Buddy and Navi were play bowing, wrestling, jumping up on each other and having the time of their lives.  My friend was absolutely dumbfounded because she had never seen Navi be so playful.

I think that BCs can be breedist, in that they tend to react best to other working dogs, and BCs best of all.  I am sure it has to do with them speaking the same language.  Sometimes it just takes meeting the right dog.

It does seem that you have been looking, and looking hard, for a rescue dog.  It is probably unlikely in the current situation that you will find one now, as they are getting snapped up like hotcakes.  If you are going down the route of a puppy, knowing the sire/dam of the litter, knowing previous dogs from the same pairing etc will give you some idea of the likely type of puppy the pairing will produce.  This will only be the likely result, as the others have said, a puppy can turn out very different than it presents when you first meet.  However, a lot comes down to training, socialisation, consistency and that initial choice.  Talk over what you are looking for in your puppy with the breeders, as they will know the puppies best, and should be able to guide you to the best options in the litter.

As for training, what you have mentioned sounds good to me, and I am not sure what further resources are available in the UK.  Making sure you expose the puppy to a range of sounds, particularly, even if you cannot get out, is very important. 

Good luck, and whichever route you go, we love photos (hint, hint!)

I have never had a dog with seizures myself, but I have a very vague recollection of reading about someone on these boards whose dog started suffering seizures in old age saying that the seizure caused their dog to have low blood sugar or something as a side effect, so that the dog was desperate for some calories after each seizure.  I have some memory they would give the dog something like ice cream after a seizure and that helped their dog recover more quickly.  Maybe that explains why your dog was searching the counter tops?

Sorry I can't be more help.

To be honest, if I saw Hazel in the street, I would assume she was a full border collie, what is called an Aussie Red, or EE red border collie (if you want to go down the rabbit hole of border collie coat genetics).  In Australia, we also call them informally wheaten, golden, champagne, caramel etc depending on how dark the colour is.  She is white factored, with the white patch one her back, and the white going up under her hind legs, but all of these are known coat traits of a border collie.  The coat colour is not necessarily a sign of working bred BCs, more of the breeders who breed for colour, and therefore money.

Even the photos of her in motion do not look inconsistent with a BC to me.  Her body shape again looks fine as a BC, as does her medium length coat.  But then I am not an expert!  I just know that there is considerable variation in the breed, as they were originally bred for working ability, not looks.  Try googling the Border Collie Museum and having a look at their various pages on different coats, ears, eyes, colours etc.

I am curious as to why you assume she is not all BC, or even mostly?

Thank you for the update, and well done for looking for help!

There are others on these boards who have used medication when it has been needed, and have found it has been a huge help, so no problems here.  The important thing is that your dog is getting what she needs, and a loving family who have not quit on her is the most important thing of all.

Oh my goodness GentleLake Sunny is so beautiful!  Bless you for rescuing her and wow, what a hardship to have time home to bond with her! I know being stuck at home is serious and not fun, but she has to lift your day!

I agree with GentleLake that if Luna's behaviour/obedience has deteriorated over a few months ago, and she is eight months old, you have entered the "teenage dog" phase.  I used to joke that one day, my dog's brains fell out, and they forgot everything they had learned perfectly a week before!

As for antlers, yes, like anything tough, it is possible to break a tooth when chewing.  However, I have heard that if you soak the antler overnight, it will soften enough to be less of a danger (but will also last less long).  Another alternative may be goat horn.  I have given that to my dogs a few times, and they enjoyed it, but it did not last like antler, so it seems to be softer.

I would also second the suggestion from D'Elle about trick training inside and working her mind to wear Luna out, rather than just physical exercise, which can just create an incredible athlete who can go all day. Hide and seek or nosework are excellent ways to do this, but try to make it interactive with you, not just a puzzle toy.

BTW Luna is beautiful! I love her spots. Thank you for the photos, we love to see them here.

I live in a country city in South Australia.  We have not been officially locked down in our state, unlike some others in Australia.  My OH and I are pretty much stay at home anyway, so we are making fewer grocery shopping trips, we still take the dogs to the sports park for a run, we still go for a walk in the morning, but now our morning coffees are takeaways only, our personal trainer is sending us programs to do at home, and we take our own dog water to the park so we don't touch anything.  Our state borders are closed (we live about 20 kilometres or 12.4 miles from the border with Victoria), but there are exclusions for near border communities.  We are also trying to support local businesses by ordering takeaway once a week, especially from businesses who are offering free food to people in need.

I am a family and criminal lawyer, so my work is still going.  Our office has locked its door to the public, and our appointments are phone/video only.  For me, it is still easier to be where my physical files are, and if I work from home, I will have to let my secretary go, so keeping the office open keeps her in work. 

All in all, my life is not so very different so far.  Four cases confirmed in my town, and my state has tested more people per head of population then any other state in Australia (helped by the fact that we are not one of the larger population states).  This is still only a bit over 1,600 tests per 100,000 people.  There hasn't really been evidence of community transmission here yet. 

My 16 year old niece had an interesting take on this - she pointed out that we are all primary sources for a pivotal time in history.  She then said that she is used to being taught history, not being part of it.

I have never come across this issue (not being the sort of person to go for a run for fun ) but I do wonder if part of the reason she is reluctant for the first part of the run is because she does not want to just be running steadily by your side, but be off sniffing, and wandering around here there and everywhere?  Then after a mile or so she has got the fidgets worked out and settled into the physicality of the run.

If this is the case, can you maybe let her have a time before the run where she can wander, sniff and work her brain a bit before settling into the run?