Allie_Geris

Hello! My husband and I just found out we are expecting our first baby! Very exciting! We can't wait! We are just a little bit nervous about bringing our new baby home (not until January) to 2 high energy border collies. They are siblings from the same litter and have ALWAYS been our 2 babies. We take them everywhere with us and they have always gotten all of our attention. Now, we know a lot will change when the new addition arrives. My biggest concern is our male - he is always the center of attention and has never been great with kids. He has a very high herding instinct and sudden movements and loud noises make him uneasy. He's always good with us but we also know how he is. I know the baby won't be running around the day we bring him/her home but he has always been a little bit nippy with kids and I don't want that to happen with ours. He is not aggressive what so ever, just a little bit skiddish and nervous. I don't want him to unintentionally hurt the baby. I feel he will either go one of two ways - he will be AWESOME with the baby and be a protector (which he has always shown that trait towards me), or he will not like the adjustment at all and he will start to act out. A while back we did foster two BC puppies and he did well with that - but totally different situation and puppies are A LOT different. Any suggestions on things we can do or things that worked for you would be very helpful! Everyone tells us that bringing our own baby home is different and they will see him/her as more of a pack member rather than some random kid coming to the house but I'm still a little nervous. I also want to add that we do agility training and play frisbee with him to get his energy out - I know some people with suggest things like that! Thanks so much in advance!

What do you mean by underlying medical conditions?

My male BC (Bogey), about 2 and a half, has started nipping at strangers very unexpectedly. It's not an aggressive bite, more just a nervous nip. We recently have moved and this is sort of when it started. He has never been great with small children, but recently it seems it's been all strangers. This is concerning to us because it seems to be very unexpected. For example, yesterday I was out walking him and my other BC (his sister) after work. A neighbor approached me and asked if my dogs were nice and I responded yes. He reached down and was petting them as he was talking to me. He even crouched down and let Bogey lick him in the face. As we are standing there talking when the guy takes his hand back from petting him, Bogey jumps on him and nipped and grabbed his shirt sleeve. His tooth got caught on it which just made the situation worse. Once I got Bogey off of him, he was chattering his teeth. Meanwhile his sister, Sophie, is just sitting there calmly letting him pet her. He stood there and talked to me for another couple of minutes and thankfully being a dog person didn't seem to mind but it's been weighing on me. Why the sudden change? One time I was walking him and a guy walked past us and didn't even acknowledge us and as soon as the guy passed us he whipped around and nipped his ankle. He is SO great with me, my fiance, my family and friends, and most of the time other dogs. What concerns me is that it's so unexpected and I never know how he is going to react to people. He seems to be protective (which isn't necessarily a bad thing) but I don't want him to be so protective that no one can come over to my house. What's so strange is sometimes he LOVES people, and then sometimes he gets like that. It's concerning because it's so inconstant and we don't know what to expect. We got him as a puppy at 8 weeks old and have him and his sister. I don't want to make him out to be this terror of a dog because he is for the most part a very well trained dog that obeys us. He is very loving and a great companion and has never showed any signs of any sort of aggression towards us. Him and his sister have had the exact same upbringing and are polar opposites. She is laid back and doesn't seem to care much about other people as long as they pet her haha! Any advice on why this may be happening, what's causing it, or how to fix it would be great! We've recently started agility training with him thinking it might help with his confidence level. I am just worried he is going to do it to the wrong person who isn't a "dog person" and having to deal with those consequences. Thanks for the help!

We have 2 BC's that are about 7 and a half months old. The male has been limping a little bit and at first we didn't think anything really of it but then it started to get worse.. Its almost like when he first wakes up it's like his leg is asleep or something? It's not all of the time just if he has been out running around and then takes a long nap? Its like he stiffens up or something... We have made an appt to have our vet look at it in a couple of days but I was wondering if anyone had a similar thing happen or know what it could be? He is so young and it's his front left leg.... Thanks for the help!

I was thinking about starting my two BC's on whistle training, but I am not sure if it is the right thing to do. I am a new BC owner and I don't plan on using them for herding. My thoughts were just to use to the whistle for recall commands and some other basic commands. I would like to get some thoughts on whether or not it would be a good idea to use whistle for these commands if I am not planning on using the dogs for herding.

Thanks for all of your help, everyone! Last night we tried separate crates but where they could still see each other (so they didn't freak out too much at first) and put toy bones in with them and they just gnawed on their bones and eventually fell asleep! It seemed to work great the first night! We will have to try the fan too! Thanks again everyone for your help!

They like to pull the blankets back and scratch the plastic bottom piece and rattle the sides... We crate them together They don't seem to bark in the crate like they did when we took them downstairs...

My two BC pups (5 1/2 months old) have recently become very bad a sleeping at night... They used to be fine and the last week or so they just keep us up all night... We usually crate them at night and they have just been making a lot of noise in there... Last night we decided to try to not crate them and sleep downstairs with them and once we turned the lights out and TV off they just started barking at every single noise... Any advice on how to help with this or if this might just be a fase? We can't figure it out! We've tried taking them to the dog park in the evening to tire them out and that still didn't work...

Our two puppies (about 5 months old) started off not allowed on the couch... We don't mind them on the bed but they can't jump that high yet so we have to pick them up.... They have recently decided that the couch is allowed. LOL... We don't mind if they are on it just lounging but we don't want them playing on it... They like to use it as a race track hahaha Any ideas on how to distinguish the two in their minds?

I am a new Border Collie owner and I wanted any advice I could get on how to get mine started in agility training. I have two and they are both a little over 5 months old. I know they are still pretty young but I wasn't sure if anyone had any advice on things we could do with them while they are younger as well as advice on how to start once they are older (finding a place to practice, finding other people in the area that do it as well, how to look up any local events we could attend just to watch, etc.) Any help would be greatly appreciated. They have been doing awesome as far as training and we have been amazed at how smart they've been but we've kind of run out of things to do with them and we don't want them to get bored. Thank you!