starry777

It's good that you're having a respite from the pain but don't be surprised if it all wells back up and knocks you down again. Ups and downs are really common during grief. Do what you gotta to push through and heal.

Does he lay on hard surfaces?

So there's probably something I could do even though I live 5 hours away? Or do rescues typically only have a use for volunteers that are more local?

Hmm, I didn't realize Border Collie adoptions around here were so competitive. Maybe this is why I never see the same dogs for long on bcrescue.net Apparently people snatch them up like hot potatoes. So now is the time to start forming relationships with the rescues, so I have an advantage against the competition, eh? How do I go about that? Obviously this includes going to their events but what can I do when they're currently not holding anything? Just email them and stuff? Just yap about why I like the breed and the things I've done with dogs? ---- I went to the Arizona BC rescue website and I quickly saw one that caught my interest, which has yet to happen with the other rescue, so maybe that means this is the rescue I should invest a lot of time into getting to know? Maybe this is the one that could hook me up when I'm ready.

Whoa! That's amazing!!

Yeah it really is useful to have a dog that understands the concept of "hold something when I tell you to."

So what have you guys taught to your dogs? Do they know their toys by name? Can they walk on two legs? What do they do? What have you taught them that you're most proud of? With my Corgi, what I'm most proud of, is teaching her to roll her self up in a blanket. It was the hardest thing I had ever taught a dog and I had to teach it in pieces. I had to separately teach her the concepts of lay down on command, hold something in her mouth on command, and roll over on command. And then it was a matter of putting them all together. And then after that I had to teach her how to initiate all the actions on her own without relying on a signal for each thing. Now she can mostly do it independent of me. A close runner up is her trick where she'll put her toy in a box. I give her the toy, point at the box, and she goes and puts it in there. This trick also took quite a bit of work. It took a lot to get her to under the concept of taking an object from a human and delivering it to a specified location--and making sure when she drops it, it actually goes in the box! I also taught her that if I throw the toy somewhere and I point to the box, to go get it and deliver it to the box rather than to me. So she can do the trick two ways Also I didn't even start on this trick until we'd done a lot of work with holding an object and retrieving it, so that also went into the foundation. She's found that she loves retrieving!! She had no natural inclination for it but after I taught it to her, she decided it was fun. So, if I do the retrieve on flat exercise like in the open level of AKC obedience, she rockets out to get the dumbbell when told to do so. She's the same with retrieving over a jump. So cute xD I love to train the eager beavers. Oh yeah!! I also love doing the drop on recall. I love leaving her in a stay and then walking far away and calling her. She comes running fast (well, fast for a corgi xD) and when I say "Down!" she hits the ground. And then I call her again and she comes the rest of the way My goal is to make it so she can run away from me and then respond to a command. It's a lot harder for her to respond to voice commands when she can't see me! (Plus voice commands are just tough for her in general.) She's used to boring holes in my head with her eyes. She needs to get used to not having to be able to see me in order to perform. It's hard to teach her though because even if I physically hold her, so she's facing away with me, she's doing everything she can to crank her head back to see me xDDD Bless her heart.

Thanks Baderpadordercollie, I read the whole thread. It was informative.

I won't be getting my first BC until probably next year but I've had a name picked out since 2003: Chestine aka Chessa for short. Of course, this only works if I get a female and it doesn't already come with a name (unless I change it) but hey, for whatever it's worth! If you're wondering why I've thought about BCs for so long without getting one, it's because I wasn't in a position to own one. I'm lucky tho that by next year I'll have plenty of money to do all the care and pay for training classes and gas and stuff. So I'm gonna have a rescue help match me with a really good one for me

Oh really? Well that's good to hear. I had thought raising a BC puppy was a crap shoot, regardless of the parents and bloodline. Because of stories I'd heard like, "I loved his parents but he grew up to be aggressive toward strangers and we can't take him anywhere!!" I don't know what those people did in raising the dog, though. Maybe they socialized it good, maybe they didn't. And yeah you bring up another good point: you have to wait until pups are a year old to do anything strenuous with them. That wait is something I'd rather avoid if I can. But then again, if this was the future, and I already had an adult Border Collie doing everything with me, then I wouldn't mind having to wait on a puppy to get physically mature enough to do the strenuous things. Because the adult BC could scratch my itch to do the more physical things and then the puppy could be a totally different project where I focus on trying to mold it into becoming a great canine citizen. Maybe I'm thinking too far ahead, but I know that any BC I get is eventually going to get too old to do agility and frisbee and stuff anymore, so I think I'd like to always have a younger dog around to do those things with and then with the older BC I could just do like nosework or some else that's gentle. Maybe I'd be a household where there would alawys be a 12ish BC, a 5ish one, and a pup. Or something like that, I don't know. But of course for now, I only want to have one BC. I wanna get good with just one before I consider adding another haha.

Well, it's fine with it taking a little while to get a dog because I was wanting to wait about a year anyway so I can finish paying off my credit cards. We refinanced our house and we're using the extra money to pay off the credit cards that couldn't go on the house (they would only do the new loan up to a certain amount). The loan paid off like 12 credit accounts and we've been using the extra money each month to pay off the rest. It's going good (my credit score is ~790 now, whoa o.0) but I was thinking I'd wait until everything is paid off to get another dog because then there will be plenty of money for vet bills and training classes and gas and just whatever. But still given this I should submit an application now to each rescue that I know of in So Cal? What do I do if in the meantime they do find a really great dog for me? Should I let it go? Or should I take it on and let it take longer to pay back the credit cards? Or is that a bad financial decision? I'm kinda leaning toward making credit cards the priority but I'm not a financial expert or anything.

Dallasbc: I'm sorry to hear that your Border Collie didn't grow up with a more compatible personality. It seems that's the big risk in raising any BC puppy. I'm assuming that if I ever raise a BC puppy at some point, I have to be prepared to rehome it should it develop into a dog that can't live successfully in my house. But maybe this means I should just always take on adults? Because what if I had to raise like 4 puppies before one turned out to be a keeper? That sounds like hell haha since BC puppies seem a lot tougher to care for and that would be a lot of puppy care. So yeah maybe I'm just gonna stick to adults. I like adult dogs better anyways. When I have a pup, I'm just eager for it to grow up! I'm eager to see its adult appearance and personality. Dallasbc & CptJack: I'm glad to hear from yet more people that I seem to have the right idea about what I need to do to take care of a BC. There's so many horror stories about how they're impossible to take care of perfectly unless you're a sheep rancher or top level agility competitor but I guess I forget that those stories are geared toward an audience that sees dogs as something that just eats, sleeps, and poops which is not me at all. To me a dog is an important source of companionship and I want one that's going to be as invested in me as I am in it.

Yep, that's right, definitely reach out rather than isolate. That's a source of energy for you. I'm prone toward debilitating depression--even when nothing is wrong--and to keep that monster at bay I have to continually push myself to interact with others in meaningful ways. If I'm isolated for a few days, my mood goes all to heck and I can't think straight, let alone be productive. Getting out of bed can take 4 hours. But if I get to have a good time with somebody, be it human or animal, it pulls me back into the light and then I'm me again--a really cheerful person that gets enthused about everything. Being busy helps me a lot too. Sometimes I feel like I have nothing to do and all day to do it in. But if I'm doing lots of activities then I don't time for being depressed. So, I look forward to being kept busy by a Border Collie. (I don't have one as of yet.)

Are the dogs I see on the rescue websites only a small percentage of the dogs needing homes? Like for example on this site, I might only see one or two dogs on there at a time: http://bcrescue.net/bcr_available_dogs.html Oh and the reason I'm thinking Trinity is not good for me is because my Corgi doesn't like dogs that get all up in her face--she'll snap at them. When we had our GSD-mix and they first met, the GSD-mix wanted to sniff her constantly for the first couple weeks and the Corgi didn't like that very much but once the GSD-mix lost interest, they were fine together. Well it seems like a dominant dog would push my Corgi's buttons and maybe cause a fight? And Clyde seems like maybe he's not a 100% Border Collie? I have nothing against him finding a home I just have my heart set on a full BC. He also seems like 10 years old or something? He's probably got arthritis or something or will have it soon, yeah? So not probably not good for me when I want something I can go out and play frisbee with or do agility or whatever, yeah? I'm trying to practice sizing up rescue dogs. I probably suck at it right now, but if anybody wants to give feedback then at least I can learn from my mistakes.

This is what I'm thinking too. I think my mom would be mainly looked at as a ball thrower and a place to bum treats. But but like for serious mental stimulation and direction in life, it'd seek that from me.

Wow, really?? I was surprised by that. And come to think of it, I did have a couple dogs that would go nuts for the hose but hated baths. I've never had a dog that liked baths.

I have never had a dog that didn't hate water. Is a love of water somewhat common in Border Collies? (I've yet to own a Border Collie, if anybody is confused.)

Yeah, I already told my mother how we might need to go through a string of foster dogs to find one that fits in our household and she said that's fine. Yeah, unless a dog is very soft-tempered it won't listen to my mom but when I come in the room it's a completely different picture. Suddenly we have an obedient little soldier. I'm home almost all the time and I'd be really involved with the dog, so hopefully that would be enough. I actually look forward to being kept busy by a Border Collie because I often feel like I have nothing to do and all day to do it in. I have a disability that makes it so I can only work from home and limits the number of hours I can work (but not my ability to care for a dog) so there is a lot of spare time. I try to occupy myself by always learning new things and I like doing that but it's stressful for more than a couple hours a day. I also need physical stuff to get up and do, stuff that feels purposeful. I like to exercise but it's soooooooo much better when I have somebody to go with me. A Border Collie would definitely be up for it. We could do all kinds of things together and I could teach it a lot.

With all the dog's I've trained in my life, they always picked up the hand signals more readily than the verbals, but could learn verbals without too much of a struggle. My Corgi however is different. It is really a lot of work to put a command on a verbal. I think it might have something to do with the fact she is more tuned into me than any dog I've had before. When we're working she's always watching me, oblivious to anything else. And mainly what she's noticing about me is my body language and not what is coming out of my mouth xD So I never bothered to teach her too many verbals. When/if I get a BC, though, I want it to know lots of verbals because I want to be able to do distance work with the dog or just otherwise have it able to do stuff when it isn't next to me, looking at me. My Corgi is mostly just good for close-range work although I can send her around a cone or out to retrieve a dumbbell or something. But as soon as she can she's looking at me again, hehe. Silly girl.

Aww, this is so sad! I'm sorry for your loss. I hope writing this helped you progress a little bit in your journey through your grief.

Yeah it seems to me BCs are the breed that is the most like me because they have to get out and move and use their brains and have regular interaction with someone whom they share a meaningful relationship or their mental state just starts going all to heck--depressed, anxious, etc. I'm like this!! And I get worse and worse until I get my needs met, then it's like I snap out of it and I'm normal again. So I can totally relate to BCs in this regard. We could help each other stay sane, haha xD And we're both very driven in life. I've spent years teaching stuff to myself like Japanese because I just so badly wanted to learn it. I am the kind of person who buys textbooks just because I desire the knowledge contained within. And I'm dedicated to studying every single day even if I'm tired, I'm stressed, and wanna do anything but!! Well, if a BC was a person, I could see them doing similar things. Also I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I do get labeled "smart" a lot and it's because I've spent so many years developing my knowledge and critical thinking, so I've accumulated quite a bit of thinking power and I'm always seeking more. I certainly don't think I'm better than anybody, though, and I certainly don't know everything. In fact, the more I know, the more I realize just how much there there that I still don't!! But if you put me in a random group of people, I tend to be at or near the top with regards to how critically I can reason about the topic of conversation, and that's similar to if you threw a BC into a random group of dogs. And I love mental challenges and I relish the thought of trying to outsmart a Border Collie. I really want to put that intelligence to work and see what I can get it to do. I want to push it to its limits. I wanna see how complex of concepts I can get across to the dog. I hear that Border Collies can reason a little bit, so it could be really fun!! And just on and on and on I find I have so much in common with Border Collies, so maybe that's why I keep coming back to them even after having studied so many other breeds. They're just got something that no other dog has. -- And on the subject of training, what happens if only one person in the household is a skilled dog trainer? I live with my mother (I'm a 33 year old adult but we've always lived together to share expenses) and the dogs we've had always trained her, not the other way around. Like they're really good at teaching her to throw toys, share bites of what she's eating, give them pets etc. and it usually wasn't too much of a problem except with them not respecting her at doors and rushing out whenever one was opened. However, after I had a baby gate system installed around the door, where she would go through the gate first and close it before opening the door to the outside, it solved the problem. But those dogs weren't BCs. Do you guys think it would be enough if I was the dogs only source of leadership in the house? --- As for going to a BC rescue to find dogs to try and train, we have two BC rescues that I know of in So Cal but they don't have a central location. They keep their dogs in foster situations. So I would have to go to a foster's house, I guess, if the rescue and foster person were ok with this. What might be easier though is to just try to become a foster home myself? If the dog ends up being totally mismatched with me I just deal with the situation until it's placed in a more suitable home and move on to trying out the next dog, yeah? -- Oh and thanks for telling me that it's good I'm questioning getting a BC. Yeah, I'm a really look-before-you-leap kind of person!

Yeah, I agree with what you're saying. I certainly don't think perfectionism is good even though I have those tendencies at times--not just as a dog owner but with many things in life. I have to keep reminding myself that it's okay to make mistakes and what really matters is if you learn from it and that you gotta pick yourself up, brush yourself off, and move on. And yeah Border Collies sound so fun yet scary at the same time haha I've trained a lot of dogs and had a lot of success with it but the most intelligent dog I've worked with is a Pembroke Welsh Corgi and I doubt it even comes close to a BC. I wonder if I'd be as good at training a BC? This is a pretty pertinent thing for me to find out now, while I'm BCless, isn't it? I guess I need to find an owner that will let me take some of their dogs for a test drive? Like let me try to teach something to them?

Perhaps it's a cycle then? When someone feels thought of as an inferior dog owner, they look for someone to tear down, as a means of feeling comparatively better and thus decreasing the intensity of their bad feelings? And then the person who they tore down looks for somebody else to down as well? And so on? If so then that's sad. I feel sorry for everybody, even the ones being sharp-tongued. Poor people.

I have not, as of yet, gotten a Border Collie but for like 15 years I've been on the outside of the BC community looking in. I'm trying to stop hanging on the fringes and get more actively involved. I'm trying to understand the dogs and their people better. I can't get that from just Youtube and books and reading old forum conversations. I have to jump in and ask questions. So, I thought I'd ask about something I've noticed. Am I correct in my impression that BC owners tend to feel a lot of pressure to be an absolutely perfect dog owner and that if they make the slightest mistake, they feel like a horrible failure? I'm not suggesting that the community actively persecutes people every time they make a mistake, but still it seems like somehow BC owners tend to end up with having this attitude toward themselves--like no matter how hard they try, they'll never be good enough for the breed. I think it might come from all the warnings out there about how you shouldn't get a BC unless you are a unicorn of a dog owner. I think maybe the subconscious message people get it, "I am not superman/superwoman, so I could never be a good enough owner and every time I make a mistake ,this is evidence." Obviously, a BC needs a special kind of owner, and you have to be willing to learn from your mistakes, but it seems like a lot of people are plenty good enough they're just self-conscious. Like I said, I've only been on the outside looking in, so I wanted to know if anybody here has felt this way or observed it in others.

Hey everybody, thanks for the responses! I read them all. A rescue BC is actually my #1 choice because the personality match between me and the dog is the most important thing to me and like you guys said, I can't know how an 8-week puppy will turn out. Plus this is Border Collies we're talking about and adjusting to living with this breed is not going to be without its difficulties so it makes sense to stack the odds of success in my favor. I hear that if I get a little bit older dog, some of the Border Collie edge is gone, so that'd probably be good for me to start with. (But when I'm savvy I wouldn't mind taking on a crazy puppy haha.) The dilemma though is that I live in Southern California and it doesn't seem like Border Collies are very common out here. Most of the dogs I see in rescue are mixes and of the purebred dogs I do see, they virtually always seem to have issues making them unsuitable for life with me, such as intense fear of strangers or wanting to bite at everything that moves. I want to have this dog out in public and not have to worry about it getting me sued, you know? I want to be able to work it off leash at the park and out in the fields around here. Does it seem like I'll have to go out of state to get a dog? How would that work? Do you fly out to a rescue and visit with all their dogs or something?