KaliFreya

I've noticed that about facial expressions too! Sometimes when we play frisbee, I can get too focues on throwing it right and her catching it that I forget to show how proud I am of her You know, I praise, I give a treat, but I can sometimes be like those overachieving moms who are very sucess oriented, ofter missing the fun in between. It is incredible how much these animals can teach you about yourself. I've never thought of myself like that before.

Thank you very much for your input, guys! I love the fact that you are honest, so thank you for that too I think everyone desereves the truth. I've been thinking a lot about stuff you said over these two days. I let Freya do her own thing mostly in our walks this two days, and we just practiced a lot of recall for now. Yesterday evening she couldn't wait to get the ball though, if she could, she would have gotten them both at the same time. We do have some focus issues, some probably stress related due to being overwhelmed, some maybe just short attention span and wanting to do something else at that particular moment. We will work on it. I think for now it would be best to take a basic obedience class. Just something easier for her and me to help us bond even more. And the dog dancing class begins in a month, that's shouldn't be stressful since she knows a lot of tricks already and is used to working with me in that way. Agility won't go anywhere. I love the idea of depositing good experiences in a bank of a relationship. I'm a strictly positive reinforcement traning person so that works for me and my dogs. Like I replied to Cpt Jack, we will focus on doing more simple stuff for now, trying to master her recall and basic obedience. Occasionally, she will ask for the ball, frisbee, tug.. and when she does, I will work from there. That's when her focus is at it's best, and I have to use that. But I plan to make shorter, extremely fun play sessions also in hope to make her want it even more.

Thank you for the quick reply! I admitted in my original post, and will again - you are right about the pressure thing. I can't cut off that easily how I "feel". But I sure don't show it that easily either. And I'm not the perfectionist type in a sens that a little slow is too slow for me. The thing is, and I'm aware of it, dogs are sooo sensitive to our finest emotions, and they pick them up easily. So it's also a LOT of work on myself. That's life, right? You dream one thing, you get another, and it's all about how much you appreciate it. You can end up miserable, or you can end up feeling blessed. I mean who knows, maybe I couldn't handle a different dog at this point, but it's easier to get caught up in fantasies. Just few days ago I met with a lady with two beautiful female bcs, they are so motivated and willing to work that it makes your heart hurt when you see them run - not because my dog is something less, but because they are so amazing when they are free in every sense of the word, no emotional brakes, no stress related stuff. I would like for Freya to be like that some day, to be able to enjoy training and play. Don't get me wrong, 99 percent of the time we have fun and she is doing great. It's just days like this throw us back a little, and I want to find a way to avoid it and alter my methods. As for agility class, I know why I mentioned being pronounced a failure - we don't have many options, we have one dog sports club here, and in agility especially you get culled quickly as being perspective or not so much. I would really love it if there was a purely recreationaly club somewhere around here. I mean, you can still participate recreationally, but the club's goal is to find talents for the national representation. I think that really needs to change, as people are being turned off by this kind of pressure. People who just want to work and have fun with their dogs.

I wasn't sure how to name this thread, but I think this sums it up pretty well. So we rescued Freya from a backyard breeder 7 months ago. She didn't show any sings of trauma except shyness and she is so easily stressed out to the point she will freeze and totally forget what she was doing, or just go away. So I know keeping her safe and keeping it fun is the key. Easier said than done. At first I thought she didn't have a high prey drive, since she would ignore the ball rolling before her eyes. Over the course of time she started showing signs of eagrness to chase balls and frisbee, so eventually she became really good at fetch and frisbee. We also do a lot of tricks. I basically taught her to play with lots of food rewards and praise. She is generally food obsessed, so it makes it easier to train but I would also love for her to find some self rewarding in the play process, not just doing it for the food. I believe she does love to play, but not necessarily fethc. If she would have it her way, she would take a stick and bite it until it's dust or chew an old tennis ball after a few runs. And she definitely misses playtime in those days when we have to skip playing for a day or two and just go for regular walks. But the problems we are facing are focus issues. If a dog passes by, or some smell in the grass gets her attention, there she goes. Some days seem to be especially bad, like yesterday evening and this morning. She was so out of the game that I had to give up doing anything constructive and just let her do her thing. And it's hard to glue her out of it once she wanders off. I've read most of the similar topics here on bc boards and I can say for sure now this is more stress related than anything else. The trouble is, the moment she senses I'm slightly displeased with her performance, she loses a bit of her confidence. If it's a good day for her, she will do tricks, frisbee, run, play, come, whatever I need. I try really, really hard to cover when I'm not satisfied, but you know how hard it can be. Especially when we are doing stuff she really knows and generally loves. Like frisbee. This morning she was soooo slow in running after it, like she couldn't or really didn't want to. So, I'm thinking I'm either putting too much pressure on her (she's a grown up dog, 2 years and 2 months, and she spent a better half of her life locked up in that horrible conditions we pulled her out from) or, like some people suggested, she is low prey drive, bad focus kind of dog. People who've made that statement are high competitive agility people. I would really love to engage her in agility and/or frisbee training soon, and we will start our first dog dancing training in about a month. Is it time for us to go training or do we still have too much homework to do by ourselves? I'm sort of scared she will be pronounced a failure at our agility club if we start right away, but at the same time, I hope that training might boost her confidence. She is really smart and very agile, but her willingness to work worries me, not her abilities. And also, her recall is really bad sometimes, I would really love to improve that. I have a question on food motivation also - so, she is, like I said, extremely food motivated, but if the food is away for more than two or three throws of ball/frisbee, she gives up the game or slows down considerably. I would love for her to become more toy oriented, as this would be helpful for agilty training. From what I know, they only allow toy rewards (fetch/tug) at our club. I'm planning on ordering Control Unleashed book and dvds, but until that arrives (which will take some time), I'm really desperate for advice. I'm so glad we rescued her, but you know, I expected that drivey, ball crazy border collie (which would suit my personality great, since I'm go go go and a workaholic lol), and I got a sensitive little flower that needs to be cared for and trained with great subtlety, and I sometimes fear I failed her. I don't have to tell how bad I feel when she is all stressed out, and I just wanted to make it fun for both of us. Should I just focus on play and fun, and not "work" or "training" at this point? And how long should our training sessions last? I would love to incorporate both work and "go be a dog" in our daily routine, since I think she finds sniffing and doing just doggy stuff very rewarding. Thanks in advance, people and sorry for the long post. Just for fun, here's a photo of Freya chewing an old tennis ball.

I would actually recommend you go and buy oil for human consumption, not the pet store one. No need to pay more for the same, if not worse, thing. And by fish oil, I mean the pure Oleum jecoris (cod fish liver oil) with enough EPA in it.

+1 for fish oil! Couldn't recommend it more. I bought mine in a pharmacy for human consumption. It did wonders for dandruff with Kali, and it helped Freya regain her coat after having puppies at the puppy mill she was bred in. Her coat came back five times more shiny and smooth then it was before she lost it.

Absolutely, but also one more thing I noticed - many sport breeders tend to call their dogs "working dogs", because to them working means doing something structured like training for SAR or agility, not necessarily herding - as opposed to show line breeders. And also, term "working dog" gets affiliated with dogs from working parents or grandparents (not always ISDS reg.), even though their particular offspring isn't involved in herding.

Before coming to these boards I wasn't even aware that many of the lines I thought were working lines were actually sport collie lines, so I'm very interested in seeing how this topic will develop among people who have experience with both, especially those who do agility and are pro working lines only.

Huge congratulations, your puppy is really beautiful and so are his littermates from what I can see. And I wish all the best to the people who rescued her mum and let her have her babies like it's supposed to happen, not somewhere in a dog pound in god knows what conditions. I know how you feel about these miracles that happen when we suddenly get our dream dogs.. That's how I got my dream border collie, from a rescue, after we've already decided to get a puppy, chose a breeder, etc I didn't regret it, she's a perfect dog and a perfect border collie, especially for a first time bc owner and trainer. She's already thaught me so much. So, congrats once again, hope you share a beautiful life with Loki (love the name, btw, can you tell I love norse mythology )

I am very sorry for your loss. I've read the whole thread just now, I haven't been here for a while, and now come to this... You did all you could. RIP Buddy, beautiful boy.

Just wanted to put a huge signature here. Amen to that. Positive reinforcement has done wonders for me and my dogs. One more thing I incorporated in the process of teaching her how fun it is to play, I would demand that when we play, we play. You bring the ball or catch a frisbee, I give you the best food I can get. That worked for her since she would gladly "work" for food. Freya is also a snooper and can go on for hours just snooping around. So to reward her even more for a (at first shorter) play session, I would let her go sniff for a while, then after 10 minutes or so call her to come play for another session. The point is, you know your dog best, and you have to figure out what will do the trick.

I've had to teach my dog to play. She was seriously not interested in any kind of play except with other dogs. And to answer mr. McCaig's question - because play is important to me and I wanted to share that with my dog, it's one of the reasons I rescued a bc, I expected a very active and play oriented dog. Of course, if it turned out that she really didn't want to and had zero fun playing with me in spite all the efforts, I would eventually have given up, I would't want to push it beyond limits. So my plan was this - gradually introduce her to play, reward heavily with food (she's food obsessed) and hope that one day she will find some self - reward in the process. I started with really fun introduction to toys, at first with nose touch, paw touch, and reward afterwards. Gradually I rewarded only when she would pick it up. Then we moved to building "hold it". Then I started throwing balls and toys around the house and reward every interest to go for it. Eventually she would slowly go, pick it up. It took some time to teach her to bring it all the way back. Luckily most border collies are great at generalizing, so it wasn't a big deal to teach her all the stuff she knows in the house to apply to the outside world. BUT, it has to be super fun and you have to be generally positive and enthusiastic about it. If the dog senses any frustration, it stops being fun and you can't build anything from it. Like I said, having a food obsessed dog helps. A few months later, I can say we spend a good deal of our walks doing fetch and frisbee, and she's doing it like a pro too There are really mellow and toy disinterested dogs out there. I believe you can't teach every dog to enjoy play, some are just not into it. But you won't know until you really try to, many of them were just never properly introduced to it.

I've had this problem with my two when Freya just arrived (Kali being the resident dog), when I would do tricks, obedience and frisbee/fetch with them. The other couldn't wait for her turn. A good "go to your mat" and "settle" helped a lot. I'd work with the one I'm teaching and occasionally toss a treat to the one waiting. After a while they learned their turn will come (or won't) and all is well now, they know not to interfere. But that's easy stuff I guess, I've never had dogs do real farm work or such where their whole souls and bodies wanted to be right there with the sheep.

I'd like to add one more question to that - would a dog that once worked sheep and gave it's full heart and soul to that ever be a "normal" pet? Maybe it would be kinder for these dogs to adopt them to homes where they wouldn't have to look at sheep and not be able to work, and be just pets with some type of pet work like sports, tricks and such. Or would it cause just the opposite, more heartache?

Maybe this tutorial could help. I'm dealing with barking at the door with my smaller bc mix, Kali, who is extremely vocal in general. I've made the mistake of allowing it to become a habit, and now I need to deal with it the best I can. We are working on staying calm when somebody passes by our door, and will gradually habituate her to people knocking/ringing. I'm afraid this is one of those things that really take some time and patience, and sometimes to them barking is more rewarding than getting that treat, so I have to be creative with rewards I give, to always keep her interested in earning it.