dallasbc

Forgot to mention, I just bought the book Scaredy Dog! Understanding & Rehabilitating Your Reactive Dog by Ali Brown. Has anyone read that one before? Thoughts on it?

I love that! I'll check out your post in the abca thread. But the fact that you have no regrets, I love that. Definitely. He is frequently reactive like that if someone comes so close to us (in fairness, the lady was really close just because it was a narrow sidewalk - I could have touched her shoulder). This was just the first time in a long time he managed to actually get close to someone. Muzzling him does give me more confidence. I still don't let him near people in case he jumps on them or noses them, but at least I can rest assured if we get too close to someone without me realising he won't be able to bite them. And he is improving. i can't deny that. Just last week, we passed 3 boys about 10 years old who were walking quietly and calmly. They were probably 10 feet away from us, maybe a bit closer. Dallas wasn't bothered in the slightest. He just looked up at me and did as I asked (heel). If this had happened when we first started, he would have probably gone ballistic. I'm still not sure if this incident has affected the progress we've made, but we'll see. So far it doesn't look like it has. Yesterday I took him for a walk along a path that is quite narrow and has a low wall on one side and a fence on the other. I only use it because most people don't use it, and if they do there are exits quite frequently along the path that I can get to if we need to get away from someone. Well, yesterday when we were walking, a woman was coming up from behind us and walking quicker than we were. Rather than exit the path, I went into a little dugout they have along the path where they have benches. I was feeling ok with that since he had his muzzle on and with me in front, a wall to one side, and a bench to the other, I didn't think he'd be able to jump on the woman. In the dugout I had Dallas do a sit while we let the lady pass. She came right up behind me, and Dallas was completely fine. He maintained his sit and didn't budge. (Heavy praises for that!!!) He was neutered 3 or 4 weeks ago, so there was almost a 2 week period of no desensitisation training going on. I think that did set him back a little bit. I'm not completely pushed past the point where I feel like I can't go on training him, but I have to admit I'm getting there. I feel like there's only so much I can do. But the fact that I can see him improving keeps me going right now. Also, our behaviour therapist is just so good. She's super encouraging and makes me feel like we can do this. @Kennedy thank you so much for sharing your story!! It's so uplifting and encouraging, really! Well done to you for all the work you've done with yours and how far you've come. That's so cool! I'm not sure if we can do a small group training just because of lack of classes in our area, but I'll look into it. That sounds super beneficial! At the moment our walks are no more than an hour each, depending on what's going on outside, really. We went to the park this morning to do some training and play like we do every morning. Only one person and his dog came into the park the entire time, and it was someone Dallas knew and wasn't bothered with so we actually stayed in the park for an hour and got some great training and play in. If it had been busy (like it has been on other occasions), we would have just stayed for maybe 10 minutes then gone. There have been times where loads of dogs are at the park or loads of kids so we just don't even go in. I might adjust it though so we're doing frequent short walks throughout the day. That might help. But thanks again I'm going to try to incorporate some of what you've done into our work.

@Kennedy that's so cool! Well done to you guys on all that hard work you've done. What amazing results! I hope we can get there with Dallas. I've emailed our behaviour specialist asking about meds to help relax him. I can even get the adaptil that dumbbird7 mentioned. Is Ellie able to go off leash on hikes? We've been working super hard on recall with Dallas and I have the goal of eventually being able to let him off leash... whether or not we get to that point is another story, but I like to have hope. What sort of things did you do to get her to the point of being able to walk downtown without issues?

Thanks for all the responses everyone! I appreciate your views and input. I'm feeling better today than I was yesterday. Dallas is in a muzzle on walks now. He's not a huge fan, but he's doing really well with it (and quite frankly, he's just going to have to put up with it). You guys are right that 2 months hasn't been very long, and the behaviourist has said he's doing really well. She thinks yesterday it was too much too soon like jami74 said. I'll give him more time and put in more work with him and see where we get to. If he doesn't improve though, I think I will have to put him down, as much as it breaks my heart. At the end of the day, I've got to do what's in the best interest of myself and the people around me. Plus it'll be probably a year at least before we try to have kids, so that gives us time to see where we get to! I'll play baby sounds and stuff like that in the meantime My husband has a friend that comes to our home fairly often. At first, Dallas would bark at him and growl at him. His fur would stand up. So what we did is every time his friend came over we put him in his crate until he calmed down. It's gotten to a point where he's totally fine with my husband's friend. He even went up to him today to be pet. So I feel that he has every chance of being rehabilitated. It's just so emotionally draining sometimes, especially when things happen like yesterday or when he doesn't seem to be making progress. It makes you really doubt yourself. But I'll let you know how we get on as we continue. Thanks everyone!

Mine's doing that as well! Except his crate is in our bedroom next to our bed. When I say bedtime, he flops down and refuses to move (but is happy to go in his crate any other time of day). I never let him get away with it, though, and more or less have to physically drag him to his crate. On top of that, he always gets a tasty treat for going to bed, so it's not like he's not being rewarded for going into his crate. He's been doing this for a few weeks now, but I think we're turning a corner. It used to be that I'd have to drag him all the way into his crate. Now after a few seconds of dragging him he gets up and walks into his crate. Tonight we're going to try letting him sleep outside of his crate, though. Wish I had advice, but I really don't! Just wanted to let you know I know how you feel (and really am looking for tips, too)!

Hi, everyone! I've not been on the boards in a while just because it's been a bit busy here. I wanted to update on Dallas's fear aggression and ask an opinion. So I think around 6 months old is when Dallas started having fear aggression issues, possibly 7 or 8 months. It started with kids. He would lunge, bark, and growl at them. I didn't realise the severity of the issue until he bit my neighbour's granddaughter. That's when I contacted a behaviour specialist (wish I'd done it earlier). His fear aggression spread, though. It's gotten to a point where when we're on walks, I always cross the road when someone comes towards us. There have been moments when I couldn't get away from someone headed in our direction, so I sort of block Dallas off from them. (He has bitten me in an attempt to bite whoever is passing us before - didn't break the skin but stung like heck and left a bruise!) We started behaviour modification with our local behaviour specialist officially in July or August. She recommended we use Behaviour Adjustment Therapy by Grisha Stewart, so we've been doing that. Typically what we do is we go to the park and keep a safe distance away from kids (for both Dallas and the kids). When he notices a child, we do our cue where he touches my hands and heels next to me as we walk away. We have been journaling his progress. The behaviour specialist believes Dallas is improving. To be honest, I do, too. It's very slow progress, but he seems to be becoming more tolerant. He's learning to look at me when he sees a kid as well. I recently asked if I could incorporate stuff from Click to Calm as well. The behaviour specialist thinks that's a great idea so we've been doing that. But today I messed up. As we were going for a walk, I didn't notice a woman rounding the corner we were coming to, and Dallas bit her (same that I experienced - no break in the skin or ripping clothes but stung). The woman was understandably upset but told me to keep Dallas on a muzzle (as I should have been doing - my own fault I completely admit to it). So from now on I'm keeping him on a muzzle. The only reason I hadn't been doing that is so it would be easier to click and treat quickly. I can't even tell you how much of an idiot I feel like - and rightfully so! That was dangerous and stupid of me to do. I do muzzle him when we are in busy areas (if I even have to take him there in the first place), in places where I know he'll respond poorly (like the vet's), and in places where I'm not sure how he'll respond, but I hadn't on walks in our neighbourhood just because there aren't a lot of people and it's pretty quiet. But, like I said, that was incredibly stupid of me so he'll be muzzled from now on. The thing is, I have my doubts. I know he's responding well, but what if I can never get him out of this? Despite everything I'm doing? The incident today has really shaken me. My husband and I want to start having kids in the next couple of years. Am I being naive thinking I'll be able to keep him and have kids? I'm just feeling so down about it and so concerned. I can't rehome him. That's too irresponsible, especially with how he is in regards to strangers. I love him to bits. He's so good at home. He's such a joy to train and play with! What would you do in our situation?

Was gonna say, no idea who are you are, so secret is safe with me! I need to start up a YouTube channel as well and start recording with Dallas. Will be following yours!

One thing I did with mine to help with puppy biting is anytime he'd bite me I'd go, "Uh-uh" and offer him a toy instead. It took a bit of time, but he caught on. Not sure if that would help yours just because mine was with his litter until he was 9 weeks old so he did have that extra time with his littermates, but might be worth a go. Good luck! Your pup is super cute! With the training, do you try using his toys as motivation/reward instead of treats or food? He seems like he's always willing to play so it might help him be a bit more trainable!

Super interesting! Dallas does know "look at me" and he does a great job obeying that whenever I ask when we aren't near a trigger. I haven't been able to identify his threshold yet of when we get too close to a trigger and I lose him, but I think we're going to be doing that with the behaviour therapist soon in the next couple of weeks. Recently we've just been avoiding the triggers as much as possible to keep his stress levels down. (I need to get him comfortable with a muzzle before we move on to actually working on the behaviour - got that conquered now so we have an appointment soon to move on to the next step). I've never heard of LAT training so I'll be searching that out. I'm eager to read more about it!

@Baderpadordercollie I'm bronze too. Totally checking out the lurker groups @Shandula is talking about! I'm in the Fenzi Lumni Group as well

I like to read a lot of different dog trainers and see what methods they use. Recently I came across a dog trainer who mentioned that teaching your dog to focus on you can help minimise aggression. I have to say, it seems to make sense. I've mentioned before that Dallas has aggression issues, so I've been paying a lot more attention to his body language and his behaviour in different situations mostly so I can avoid him reaching his stress threshold and also so I can just understand him better. One thing I notice is if he's focused on something, he doesn't take any notice of his triggers. For instance, if he we are on a walk and we pass a dog and a kid,, he doesn't even notice the kid because he's so focused on greeting the dog. If he's really focused on a good smell, he doesn't notice any bicycles that pass near us. However, if he isn't focused on anything when we see a kid or a bicycle, he lunges, barks, and growls at that trigger. So, to me it makes sense. I hadn't heard any other dog trainers I've read mention this, but I might have just missed that. Has anyone else heard anything about this? Even if it's not something that applies to all dogs and seems to just work for Dallas, I do want to concentrate on him focusing on me. I'm conflicted because I like letting him sniff and just be a dog while we're on walks, but also, if focusing on me helps him to not react or be stressed by triggers, it could be really good for him. Do you guys let your dogs just be dogs or do you have your dog focus on you while you're on walks? Final question, how do you train your dog to focus on you? We do a lot of training. He knows look at me, stay, and lots of fun tricks and basic obedience. He is currently learning heel. He can hold it for probably 30 seconds before he gets distracted, so it's something we're working on to improve. Are there any techniques you use that help your dogs focus on them? Should I just focus on heel?

Aw bless, that does NOT sound good!! Definitely not something to brag about. Excited to check this out! Thanks Diane! Eeek, excited you joined too! I think the first lesson is being posted tomorrow. I'm so excited.

We are all signed up for the agility foundations class on Fenzi. Thanks everyone! Thanks for the tip on the equipment! I did at first think that CptJack meant hula hoops, but after doing a search on Amazon and eBay I realised what she meant I'll follow along these classes online and get equipment as recommended I think and just leave it at that. Hopefully the woman who does agility near us will be back at it again next year, but if not we'll do what we can with these online classes. Either way, I can't wait!

I had no idea weaves could be so difficult! The free ones are old so I might leave those and just see if I can find some newer ones. I hadn't thought of going to trials to chat with people and see how they do it. Such a good idea! I love it. I watch videos on YouTube a lot from competitions, but being there would be so much better to actually get the full experience. I'll have a look to see when the next trials are near me. I'll register for that class on Fenzi today! I thought registration had closed for some reason (just me being silly - don't know why I thought that) so I'm super happy to hear it hasn't. I'll look at DaisyPeel as well to see how it compares. Thanks guys! I love all this advice you've given me. I'm so excited to start agility with Dallas. I know he's going to love it... I know I will, too! I just love working with him. It's so much fun teaching him new tricks. Agility will be fantastic.

Thanks for the advice! Yeah, Dallas turns a year old next week. This is how beginner I am - totally just assumed weaves weren't hard on his body that is so good to know. Thanks so much! I'm definitely investing in Fenzi Academy and getting some hoops and cones. That will be great to start off with. And of course, nabbing the free weaving poles we'll work up to it when he's older. Until the woman's injury is healed, I'll be checking out Fenzi Academy and the agilitynerd blog. I love that agility is about fun and positivity for the dog. That's something I really want to do with him. As it is, we do a lot of "find the food!" and "find the ball!" which is good, but I feel like he could use something that's a bit more high energy and also uses his brains. I've been looking forward to introducing him to agility since I brought him home, really! Oh I'm so excited. Thanks again for the advice!!

I am new and was wondering about maybe books or YouTube channels that would help, but that Fenzi Academy thing would be perfect! Thanks for that suggestion! I'm well excited for that. Do you have any suggestions on equipment I should purchase just to start off with? I'm on a budget, but was thinking tunnels made for kids might be good. There was someone in my area giving away weaving poles for agility on freecycle so was thinking about grabbing those as well.

Hi, was wondering if anyone has experience teaching a little bit of agility at home with their border collie? There is only one woman in my area who does agility but she isn't doing it this year because of an injury. I don't have a large area to do agility in, but I could get a few things to start teaching Dallas myself, like weave poles and a little tunnel. Wasn't sure if this would be a good idea or bad idea? Or really a great way to go about it?

Good luck with treatment!! I hope all goes well!

Mine started doing that about the same age as well. We've taken him to a behaviour specialist and she says it's fear aggression (he does it with kids, random strangers, scooters, and bicycles). We haven't broken the habit yet, but we're working on it with the behaviour specialist. Basically the goal is to re-teach him how to respond to something when he is scared. The action I'm teaching him is to come touch my hand and then heel with me as we walk away. He knows the behaviour when there isn't a trigger, so next time we see the behaviour specialist later this month we're moving on to start teaching the behaviour in the presence of a trigger. I'm not saying yours is fear aggressive, but I am saying that the teaching him the action you want him to perform might help. Also, totally rewarding him every time he behaves as you want him to is great! When he does lunge, don't say anything, just walk away with him from the trigger. Any sort of talking to him can reinforce the behaviour because it's giving him attention. I'm not a great dog trainer when it comes to things like this (hence the behaviour specialist ), but that's the theory of it put very very simply! Might be worth getting a dog trainer in to help him overcome that behaviour.

Hi guys, I'm in the throes of adolescence just wanted to ask, when did you see your border collie's attention span return?? Dallas was really good up until probably 7 months old, maybe a month or two older. He had solid concentration. We could work on training for at least 10 minutes at a time if not a bit longer. Once he hit adolescence, as I've been told many times, his attention span decreased. A lot. Now I can only do maybe 2 minutes of training and he gets frustrated or he just doesn't focus, so I tend to just do 5 tricks with him at a time and leave it at that. The only time he's more focused is when we're out at the beach and I make him do a command before throwing the ball for him (usually come or stay). Even then it's only a few repetitions and I can tell he's mentally done. His 'come' is always pretty good when using the ball, but his 'stay' becomes shaky after a few reps so I make sure not to push him to failure.

Happy to help whenever I can! Good luck with the training! Just wanted to add about the bringing him in whenever he barks - I forgot to add that for that I keep Dallas on the lead so it's always enforced. (He can jump over our gate so until he learns not to I just keep him on his lead. Sometimes I use the long training lead to give him more freedom but most of the time he's on his regular lead.) I haven't got advice for when they are off lead. Haha. Sorry about that! I should have mentioned but totally forgot.

Sorry, I'm a bit late to the conversation but just wanted to throw in some of my thoughts! I'm a first time border collie owner, and as someone who also spent some time looking in from the outside, I thought the same that border collie owners seemed very perfectionist, possibly even really high maintenance dog owners, if that makes sense. After getting a border collie, I've realised the same as what people are saying here is that border collies just do need an above average owner in the sense that they need to be prepared to train and exercise their border collie. When I browse the shelters here, I'd have to say at least 50% of the dogs in shelters are border collies (teenage border collies to be specific). In my area, border collies are the #1 dog to have just because there are so many sheep farmers here. However, people really don't get that a border collie needs that attention that average dog owners don't anticipate to give. I'm in the UK, and you have to be prepared to walk your dog just because the yards are so tiny! There's a woman a few houses down from me who has a border collie and he is the fattest dog I have ever seen in my life. She never walks him. It's just cruel. They need an owner who is prepared to go walking, hiking, do agility, training, etc. Not all of that, but something at least! I am a perfectionist. I always have been, and I am a perfectionist dog owner. It's not because of the breed but just because of who I am! I did a lot of research before committing myself to Dallas because I just couldn't live with myself if I failed him by adopting him and then not being able to give him the home he needs. Unfortunately, he has started showing fear aggression towards children and random strangers. My husband and I plan on starting a family in the next year and I'm facing the scary and heartbreaking possibility of having to rehome him for his safety and well being as well as any kids we may have. It's killing me. We're in behaviour therapy with him right now trying to rehabilitate him the best to our ability so we don't have to do that, but I'm so scared we will have to. I feel like such a failure for that even though I know I've done everything in my ability to prevent it. (Not even kidding - he was socialised as a puppy, we do lots of training, he gets 2-3 hours of exercise daily, etc). My MIL adopted his brother who is super laid back, loves everyone, super confident, etc. She never does training sessions with him. I mean, he doesn't even know 'down'! However, I still feel like I'm not near enough a good owner because of this stark difference between the two. I've actually even cried over this, which I feel so stupid saying I just do care a lot and want to be the perfect trainer with a well-rounded, well-behaved dog. I'm like you where I really study things out. I spent/spend hours reading how to teach different tricks and things and try to then teach Dallas them. I think you would be the perfect border collie owner you care, you have the drive and want to do training, you like to be out and active, you'll be fab! I think fostering is a great idea to help you get a better idea of what it's like to be with a border collie and find the one for you. One thing I wish I did was adopt an older border collie (older as in at least a year) so I could get a better idea of his/her personality before adopting. I love Dallas, but I was so not prepared for the heartache of possibly having to rehome him because of the aggression. In regards to the training and bonding, I do all the training in our house, but my husband is the favorite I train Dallas, walk him, play with him, feed him his regular meals, etc. But. My husband is the fun one. My husband is more rambunctious and only plays with Dallas, so when my husband comes on a walk or pays attention to Dallas, instantly Dallas goes, "Oh! Dad's coming! THIS MEANS NON-STOP FUN" My husband also feeds him bits of food on the sly during dinner despite us having the rule of not feeding him from the table and then because of my MIL's personality, if Dallas and I go walking with her and her dog, Dallas listens to her and not me. He sees her as the leader (even though she only sees him once a week and it's on these walks???) She's a more dominant personality than me, though, so I can see why he does it. Just something I need to work on! He listens to me in every other circumstance. Maybe if your mom does some playing with the dog or some training it'll help her be more of a person the dog will respond to? Just a thought. If that's what you want anyway! Good luck finding your perfect border collie I know he/she is out there just waiting for you! You'll make a fabulous owner.

Oh, and adolescence was mentioned, too. It's a nightmare!!! Really and truly, it is like their brains have just vanished. Dallas hasn't necessarily forgotten any commands, but his attention span is shorter, he's testing boundaries (for a while he would look at me when I called him and then run off), and he's just a handful. He gets frustrated more easily than he used to as well. That being said, he's still a delight. I love him to bits. Puberty takes a lot of patience, so if Kilo starts regressing with anything, just hang in there. It'll pass eventually!

Just wanted to add a couple of thoughts but I think you've got lots of great advice here! My border collie hits a year old in about 2 weeks and around the same age as yours he started barking outside as well. What we would do is any time he started barking, without speaking to him or looking at him, we would just bring him inside. He is really well behaved outside now and I haven't noticed any barking from him for the past few weeks. With the eating, mine is the same. I think it's the heat to be honest. What I've started doing is just leaving his daily food out all day so he can access it whenever. I know a lot of people dont' recommend this because of various reasons, but I'd rather leave it out and he gets food in than he doesn't get anything at all (he's a bit on the skinny side - don't want him to go underweight). There were a few days in a row where whenever I'd offer him his food at mealtimes he just wouldn't eat it. After leaving it out, I've noticed that periodically in the day he'll go grab a few bits of kibble, but in the evening once it has cooled is when he typically will eat the food. He will eat little bits of treat when we're outside on walks depending on how excited he is and how hot he is. If he's too warm he has a tendency to just drop the food. If he's too excited he just doesn't even notice that I'm offering him a treat! In regards to him pulling on the lead, give it a bit more time. Dallas was a nightmare to train on the lead as well (he still can be sometimes), but he is improving. We never used a prong collar, but I did think about it heavily at some points. Just keep what you're doing with the changing direction, stopping, etc. It has taken months but Dallas is 100% better than he was at 8 months. Now he usually doesn't pull when I'm walking him, but he will still pull if my husband is with us, we're walking my MIL's dog, or if there are sheep around. He's getting there, though. For the recall, do you practice on a training lead? They're super long and it lets your dog go off and do his thing but allows you to still have control. Letting him go off, calling him, and then, if he doesn't come, reeling him in can work really well. One thing I do is I'll take Dallas to an enclosed field and do training sessions in there, including practicing recall. He is by no means perfect (the fact that it's been said he has a while to go gives me hope!), but he does fairly well. Unless he is surrounded by soccer balls, sheep, and playful dogs, he almost always comes to me. We just need to work on his weaknesses... I don't have anything to add on the other questions mentioned, but I think you have so much great advice already! I wasn't even sure if I should chip in because of that! Good luck! Kilo is a cutie!

Hi everyone, thanks so much for all of your advice and input! I spoke again with our animal behaviour specialist. I found out I had misunderstood about the cost of Dallas's treatment, and it's actually a bit cheaper than I anticipated, so yay! That is some relief. Part of his treatment also includes working alongside a trainer which is a huge relief. One of my problems was I just did not feel capable of training him by myself. I'm good training behaviours like sit, stay, come, etc but aggression? I have come to find that it is beyond me. I need a professional. Once he is happy to be in his muzzle (we're getting there), we'll be seeing the specialist again to proceed to the next step in his treatment. More or less, we're just teaching him the appropriate way to respond to people and kids when he is scared or doesn't like them. Right now we're just teaching him the action (to come to my side and touch my hand) and keeping him away from people. Once he's good with his muzzle I think the plan of action is to start teaching him to perform the coming to my side and touching my hand action in the presence of his trigger starting with the trigger far away. I think I am oversimplifying what we will be going on to do, but that's the gist of it! He's so good around us and our family. I do remember we had an issue with him snapping at our faces if we did something he didn't like or if he was a bit too excited when he was younger, but that has gone away. I'm hoping we'll see a huge turn around in his behaviour like you did with your lab, AnyaDogz. I'm so happy Boo Boo found a home she was happy in and the aggression went away! I'm trying to maintain control of my emotions as well. I never had any anxiety taking him out until he started snapping at people. I'll keep working on my own emotions, though, and make sure to stay calm and upbeat More than anything, I just really really hope we get him to a place where we can keep him and have kids. The thought of giving him up breaks my heart. However, I do know that if having kids around still stresses him out once we get to the point of having a baby, he'd be happier in another home. Not to mention it means our kid is safe! I know miracles can happen, so just hanging in there, working with Dallas as much as I can, and hoping for the best. Trying to balance between hoping an appropriate amount and getting my hopes up too much But thanks again. You guys help me to feel so much better about the situation. Don't get me wrong, I do know there's still every chance I won't be able to keep him, but hearing your advice and stories helps me feel better about it all.