k9arson

I have a 7 year old Border Collie trained in Cadaver Recovery, Scent discrimination, Article Search and also use to work him in Arson Detection. I have worked Labs in these fields for 20 some years and my wife kept hounding me to try a Border Collie. I never listened to her and she went and brought Cody home after seeing a litter advertised in the paper. She knew the few things I always looked for in a work dog. Willingness to please, Medium to High Energy, and a high play drive. I only work Cody now and I wish I knew about Border Collies when I first started so many years ago. I know I should have listened to my wife way back when..................... Noise is the only problem I have with him,Thunder,gunshots, firecrackers etc. I find Border Collies are great for SR work and the best work ethics I have ever seen. We both will be retired soon and he can live the rest of his life as a "Happy Dawg". Good luck. Bruce & "Cody"

This was a good subject. I enjoyed reading about everyones dog and how to tire them out.

Wear Out???? Hasn't happened with Cody yet and he is 7 Years old and still acts like a 1 year old dog.

Thats a great name!!! I like the idea of you having a Celtic name. I have always had short names for all my dogs. And got in the habit of shorting them up more like "Gypsy" had ended up to be "Gyp". Lets us know when you get a dog and the name you decided on.

Thanks Kathy, I was afraid that the problem was just with me and Cody. I know a couple of the shepherds in the department were 'blowing" their coats but not at the rate of my Border Collie. And the 3 bloodhound handlers said they didn't notice any change in their dogs coats either. Of course both the shepherds and bloodhounds have shorter and finer hair than Cody so they probably wouldn't notice it as much. I feel the weather has to play a part in it but to how much I don't know. Thsnks for the reply. Bruce

I know every Fall our Border Collie "Cody" has started getting his winter coat and loses alot of his Summer coat. But this year he seems to be losing fur at an awful high rate. Is there anyone else in the northeast experiencing this? I guess I am trying to say he seems to be losing more hair than he has in the past. Could this be a sign of a hard winter? He is a dog that has a warm kennel in the garage with access to an outside fenced in yard, but spends the nights in the house. Was wondering also if the changing in the temperatures could be messing him up like this? I use to leave my dogs in the garage most of the time before because of doing Law Enforcement work with my dogs I always felt they worked better in the winter if we got called out in the middle of the night. They seemed better with the cooler temperatures. Once they slept in front of the wood stove they were hard to get up to go to work. Bruce

We have 2 dogs! One is a shih tzu cross we got from a rescue and she stays in the house 90% of the time. If we go some where she is crated in the garage next to an inside kennel for our 5 year old Border Collie. She is crated when we are not home because she likes to hunt down our 2 cats and terrorizes them. The Border Collie has a 4x4 kennel in the garage but has access to a open area outside roughly 50 feet by 75 feet to go out in. He usually stays in the garage all the time untill winter and when the garage goes below 40 degrees he will come in and stay in the kitchen. In the summer if we are at our cottage on Lake Ontario he lives in the cottage with us. Bruce