flyingcircleg

Twitch normally barks at anyone that comes up the driveway. Never thought of him as a guard dog till last deer season. I left early on a cold morning to go hunting, around 11 ish I headed home. When I got home the wife was in the shower, I was completely covered head to toe (and my face). Opened the front door, his bark turned into a growl, hackles went up and I had a pissed off dog with big teeth charging at me, yelled out his name and he stopped in his tracks and looked at me kinda funny, pulled down the face mask and got nothing but tail wags and licks. Im sure had I not said anything though Id have gotten bit. Def feel a bit safer when I have to leave the wife at home...

My vet normally asks me to come back. They took him back once without me and said he was jsut trying to get out the door and back to where I was... He is well behaved when im in there, though I normally give him his shots so the only time he goes is for rabies, chip and rattlesnake...

I trmoved the bed this past weekend and he unloaded without it...

So wanted to do a status update... Put his bed on the ground, and was a little hesitant at first but jumped down onto it. So for a few days would bring the bed in the truck, take it out for him to jump onto, over the weekend didnt bother bringing the bed with me, he was a little hesitant at first, but jumped out on his own. Done it a few times now so got this under control. Thanks for the tips!

Sounds good. I will give it a shot. Thanks.

So tried different surfaces, no difference. Even tried pulling up next to my porck which is raised, so it would only be about a whopping 18 inches down and still had the same behavior. At this point im convinced its a mental thing. Any advice on getting him over the mental hump?

I havent seen him slip loading, but anything is possible. It is a different surface, jumping down off the retainign wall is onto grass, out of the truck is generally onto a compacted crush rock driveway... Maybe I will try parking my truck on some grass and see if he jumps out....

Nope, doesn't tight rope, runs like a normal BC

Tightrope????

He paused the first time he saw stairs (I dont have any, but at a friends house). Had almost the same behavior standing at the top, but when I called him down after some whining and coxing he went down them. Now he flies up and down them with no problem...

Sorry, forgot to mention. Dont think its anything physically wrong with him due to the fact that daily he goes flying off a retaining wall thats a little higher than the distance from my truck to the ground...

So Twitch is 5 months old now. Training had been a breeze for the most part, having some tiny issues i posted up in the stockdog section, but they are probably my fault not his. Anyways, kind of an odd problem looking for some advice on. Since I got him he had gotten car sick, so would feed him something special (shredded chicken or wet food) in my truck so he would enjoy being in the truck. Got over the car sick thing, and he now doesn't mind going for rides in the truck. He will load up when commanded to, but for the life of me cant get him to unload. He wont come out of the back, or the cab of the truck. My other dogs will unload, but he will just go to the edge, and bark and cry. I have tried luring him out with a leash for a walk, food, treats, his favorite toys. Calling him, going and feeding the livestock without him, he jsut stays in the truck and barks or cries till I pick him up and take him out. I have even tried leaving the door open and going in the house, and he will stayed in their for a hour or so before I came and got him out. Last ditch effort yesterday grabbed a scrap piece of plywood (about 2ft wide) and laid it down like a ramp to see if he would walk down it, which he wouldn't, front paws went on it, then just lots of barking. Any advice would greatly be appreciated.

So Twitch is now 5 months old. Going through teething, he likes to run up to my lab and hound and nip at them (playing). I have to tell him to stop, which he does for about 30 seconds, then is back at it. It mostly happens when we go out to feed the horses and the dogs are running, he will lay down, and wait for them to start coming towards him, then pop up and nip at them. Worried this is going to turn into him running and nipping at livestock when I start him though. Any thoughts or advice on what to do about this behavior? Is this anything to do with teething and entering his teenage state? FYI, he only does this with familiar dogs. When he meets new dogs he doesnt do it, and he doesnt do it around kids either, in fact he fantastic around kids, he acts as if they have a 3 foot bubble around them. The other issue I have is with his lay down and sit commands. He responds great, and sits or lays depending on what I ask immidiately, infact, he practically throws himself down when I ask him to lay down. Here I have the problem is he runs to me to do it. We will bout out and there will be some cows in pasture, he runs on the outside of the fence and watches them, I will give the command to "sit", and instead of sitting there he runs back to me and sits down, same thing goes for laying down. Whats the best way to get him to know I want him to do it where he is?

Thats a fantastic idea. I know a friend of mine thats a LEO does that with his dutch shepard k9 unit....

I looked really close at his coat, and his hairs are are one color (so one strand is dark brown almost black, and another strand is reddish) so Im guessing hes seal... I looked at a bunch of pics on this site (http://www.bryningbordercollies.com/Border-Collie-Colours) and he definitely looks like the seal pics, in fact the pics they have of the pup look like a spitting image of Twitch.