RainDrops

That's so sad. I am a big fan of snakes. It is nice that it was able to get help. Last year we found one in a city park that had apparently become stuck in bird netting earlier in life and was terribly constricted with the netting embedded in the skin. We were able to cut it off and the snake was probably okay after the nasty wound healed up.

Well I can understand that. Vacuums are unnatural. Just like hairdryers, skateboards, rollerblades, and ducks. Dogs have to look out for us.

Awesome! As a biologist I would love to teach my dog to sniff out different animals some day. Probably safe simple things like box turtles to start though.

I have limited experience with this. I crate my 11 month old when I am not home. Crate training, to me, has been one of the most important things that I have carefully managed. I know that my dog would do unsafe things when unsupervised because she tries to do them sometimes when she is supervised. Things like get into the trash or chew cable wires. These dogs require a lot of entertainment to not get bored, and if they do get bored they are very creative and can be very unsafe. In addition, border collies form habits extremely easily. If you are not there to discourage an activity, the dog having a few hours to enjoy themselves may make it very hard to correct. I think crate training is important to the dog's ability to be safe and content in its position as your pet/worker. My family has dealt with too many dogs with separation anxiety for me to risk anything with Fern. I have worked very hard on her ability to be crated alone both while I am home and when I am away. I think the process of crate training helps the dog develop comfort by themselves that they will need. In addition, it's a good way to teach the dog to relax and have a "time out" when you need them to. I think if I had a 4.5 month old dog I would be very worried if I had not started crate training because as the dog gets into adolescence you might find very different urges start to surface. Your well behaved pup may turn into a more defiant teenager. And if you have not crate trained early, you will have to figure out something to do with the dog. And sudden crating with no prior conditioning could result in your dog freaking out and developing confinement anxiety or isolation anxiety. I think the safest route, as others have said, is to begin with crate training so that it will always be an option. That way the first time your dog tries bad dangerous things, you will likely be able to correct them because you will be there. Then you expand the freedom depending on the dog's behavior. With my dog, I have slowly expanded her freedom. At first she was not allowed out at all unless directly supervised. Now I allow her out as long as I am home, even if I'm in a room she does not have access to. In the future I will start leaving her alone for brief periods of time. But probably not for a while. I have generally heard most people say they start allowing more freedom at 1.5-2 years of age. By that time you can be more confident that they have built good habits and will not endanger themselves. I have had dogs (not mine) die in my arms from eating poisonous seeds. I have saved the life of one of our family's dogs that went into anaphylactic shock after getting into an unknown substance (you're looking at $2-5k in vet bills for something like this). In conclusion, I'd rather use gradual freedom as a form of positive reinforcement for good behavior than have to switch to crating after the dog has had its taste of freedom and failed. Also, I do use crating to "correct" behaviors as you may have seen others refer to. But I only started using it in the past couple weeks because I wanted to be absolutely positive my dog was happy in the crate. It is not a punishment. I simply act as if I believe that barking means she wants to be crated. She picked it up almost immediately, and ended a behavior she has struggled off and on with for a while. And yes, ignoring did work for a while, but the issue resurfaced with determination.

I have just been using a large number of different soft training treats, which I tend to cut in half or fourths because they are all too big. I think a variety of treats is good because it keeps them guessing. I cannot discern which is her favorite though. If I want to give her a big reward I give her multiple small treats. I use different brands (cloud star, blue buffalo, zuke's, train me, pet botanics, etc.) and just buy in bulk when things are on sale on amazon because I go through a lot of treats. When dogs are too hyped up, they may be too excited to accept any treat. But I have found that with my dog, she has gotten better and better at keeping her focus and now she is almost always focused enough to sit and accept a treat when a trigger is a reasonable distance. I have also used hot dog, which I've sliced into little pieces then microwaved (for 2 min) to turn it into jerky. This worked well, but I dislike how salty it is so I don't like to give large amounts of it. But it is a nice way to give real meat treats without worrying about them going bad so fast. A lot of people seem to have luck with cheese, but I also avoid it because of the perishability, since I take treats out on walks and such. If I need something really good, I go with a little peanut butter smeared on a spoon that she gets to lick. That's the easiest thing to distract her with.

How old is your dog and when did the behavior start? I've got another thread - I experienced something like this with my dog, and I suspected it had to do with adolescence. She used to be totally fine at the dog park and would put up with anything, but then she gained the confidence of a teenager and suddenly stopped putting up with stuff and reacting in an excessive way. I dealt with it by stopping taking her to enclosed dog parks, at least for now. I discovered that in off leash areas she is much more relaxed with other dogs. I think it has to do with the dogs not being able to escape each other in the fenced area. They cannot get away from an annoying dog, and a bored dog has nothing to do but annoy other dogs. At the off leash areas, I have to be much more careful about keeping an eye out for things that she may behave inappropriately toward, so it is more work for me, but I have found it is much better for her and we have not had any troubling behavior for a while now. About a month(ish?) after the snippy behavior started, she has gone into heat, so I do think the hormone cycling has caused behavior fluctuations. I do not know what fluctuations may occur following the heat, and I can't say what her "normal" behavior will turn out to be at this point. But I do know that fences made things worse, so I would also suggest that the fenced dog park is not best, at least for now. A lot of bigger dogs seem to have issues with small dogs. Small dogs tend to be quick to aggress, possibly because they feel threatened by larger dogs. Or it could be that your dog feels dominant due to size, and is more willing to throw her weight around with an opponent she knows she can overpower. To me, I feel that I can't expect my dog to completely ignore rude or aggressive behavior from another dog (especially stuff like mounting), but I also feel that there are appropriate and inappropriate reactions. I agree with others that I would not risk putting a dog in a situation where it is likely to cause harm to another animal. If this is a chronic problem, or if you truly feel that injury is likely, then I would heed the advice in these responses about finding a behaviorist.

Haha I love it!

Fern was fascinated with her tail at that age, and would chase it and catch it like a toy. I haven't seen her do it in a while, so I think she aged out of it. But I wouldn't have been surprised if she also tried to chomp on it like a toy. Hopefully it'll grow back in correctly.

Here are some photos from the past 3-4 months of the little rascal. Sorry, not sure why this one won't show upright. Trying her best not to fit on the bed

It's a constant struggle to keep Fern busy. She finds antlers boring most of the time. She loves bully sticks. I also let her have the porkskin chews because they seem to be a safe, 100% digestible rawhide alternative, and they last a similar time to the bully sticks. She has himalayan chews and sometimes likes them but also gets bored. I buy bully sticks in bulk, 50 at a time, online for around $80. So it's like $1.60 a piece. I haven't been able to find a better cost efficiency when it comes to entertaining her. She usually gets a frozen stuffed kong and a bully stick when left in her crate.

Thank you, this is a good reasoning for why I should teach her both of them. I will keep at it and see how it goes. She seems to be changing a whole lot lately, and hopefully her confidence is improving.

I will try to keep you updated on my progress with Fern (see that thread). We did go to the park yesterday without incident, though most of the dogs there were her regular playmates. I am currently looking at how my behavior might be influencing hers, and seeing if a modification on my part will influence her possessiveness. I have been reading the book Click to Calm (recommended on here in some other threads) and I have been trying to start using these methods to encourage calm behavior in response to exciting stimuli. From reading the book, it does sound like the methods could be very useful to your dog, as it is intended specifically for dealing with dog reactive/aggressive dogs.

If you think she's a sport prospect, I would check to see if you can contact rescues that deal specifically with performance dogs. Given her fear issues, she will have the best chance of finding a good home if she can work with an experienced trainer who can help with the fear issues before she goes to a final home. There's an "adoptable performance dogs" group on facebook that might be able to point you in the right direction or hook you up with somebody who has the experience to work with her.

I've read a lot of these discussions in the past, which led me to think 18 months would be a better time to do it. If I stick to this plan, is there a good chance she will chill out again after going through these hormonal mood swings? I'm only concerned with what will allow her to live a happy healthy life in the long run.

I am wondering if she may be coming into season, given how sudden it is. I was going to wait until ~18 months to spay her, but if she has an early heat it may make more sense to do it earlier. I don't mind if she isn't super fond of other dogs, I'm just not cool with her picking fights with any dog that approaches me due to possessiveness. I know she doesn't care for rude behavior and that's totally understandable as long as she's using appropriate behavior to indicate that, as she has always done before now. If I am going to spay her earlier than intended, does it make sense to do it sooner or to wait until she settles down again after a heat? I'm also wondering if this bout of reactiveness is just due to me leaving her with a sitter for a week. The first night I got back, she seemed very out of sorts and was super submissive. I wouldn't be super surprised if it made her more possessive of me, though I'd hate if she made a permanent change.

Thank you. I have heard this as well, but at her current point she is very enthusiastic about playing with other dogs. She is good at following my commands, and will leave play if I ask her, but she would generally prefer to play with other dogs than play with me. Even today she was still wanting to play with the other dogs more, just would come in and react if one of the "ignorable" dogs came near me or did something even slightly annoying to her. Her level of reaction just went from nothing to extreme in a day, making me strongly suspect hormonal changes. But I don't know how to navigate it. If she preferred to play with me rather than other dogs, I wouldn't mind, but she has found such huge enjoyment in playing every day that it is very confusing. She has seemed to enjoy meeting every new dog, and tended to react very appropriately until now. If she was reacting appropriately to convey a desire to not interact with dogs, I would understand that, but she just seems to be going straight to a knee jerk aggressive response, even to dogs she knows very well that are not acting dominant or pushy.

Over the past two days, Fern has suddenly altered her behavior dramatically and I'm not sure how to best communicate to her that it is not appropriate. In the past she has been wonderful with other dogs, and we go to a fenced park at the same time every day to meet up with one of her best friends who has a good temperament match. She mainly will just play with one of these "best friend" dogs and will generally ignore other dogs. She has been generally very good about reading other dogs, and only plays with dogs that have a similar play style to her. Yesterday, there were few dogs around, but a large, pushy, dominant female dog came in and jumped up on me and friend dog's owner. She's seen this dog many times, and has never reacted much. This time, she ran under our bench and started baring teeth & normal threat display. Pushy dog didn't back off, so she jumped her and they got snarly for 5 seconds or so before we separated them. I interpreted this as her being possessive/defensive of me, and I stood up and walked away from her whenever the pushy dog would come near. No more bad interaction occurred. Today, I came at the same time so she could play with her best friend. But her response to every dog was different today. If dogs got near me she would bare teeth and air snap at them. I responded with "leave it" and if she didn't immediately knock it off I had her chill out and enforced some obedience commands before I let her go. But it wasn't only possessiveness of me. If she was playing with a playmate and another dog came by to "police" them by barking or something, she would run up to them and air snap. Basically anything she could possibly interpret as a challenge, however minor, she's reacting aggressively. This change is really dramatic for her. She is 10 months, so I am wondering if this is a temporary change due to hormones. It's like she has some newfound confidence and wants to enforce all her desires. I did leave her with a sitter for a week recently, but the first day I was back she was fine with other dogs, and showed no unusual aggressive behavior. I'm really hoping it won't continue, and not sure the best way to discourage the behavior. If this is a temporary hormonal phase, is it best to take a break from all dog-dog socialization so she can't reinforce this behavior? Alternatively, I can think of a few options I could try to teach her that the behavior does not get rewards. Option A: leave the park as soon as she shows signs of challenging other dogs, only returning after chill out period. Option B: use a clicker to reward all non-challenging interactions (but I am wary of treating because I don't know if this will make her feel more possessive due to food). Option C: continue verbal leave it commands and brief time out if she does not comply. I could also try going to the park at calmer times with few dogs in case over excitement is making the situation worse. If anybody has experienced something similar to this, I would appreciate suggestions on what I should be doing. Thank you in advance.

Thank you for the advice! That's great to hear CIO works so well. It's funny... I've actually been doing CIO, calling it that, but didn't realize it was a separate thing from LAT. That's exactly what we've started doing with parked trucks and stuff, and she seems to be doing well. If she isn't able to advance on her own towards scary object we leave the scene. Moving things like skateboards and scooters make her want to bark/lunge/chase, and our protocol for those is as soon as she sees one, I click multiple times, and she gets treats for looking at me while it passes. It already seems to be helping, as she has reduced barking and lunging. For strangers it's weird, because she really truly loves to meet people, which I assume based off her body language of googly eyes and wiggly butt, but I can tell she's a little nervous about the actual people. She will try to lean out toward people on our walk if they make eye contact, so she definitely wants to meet strangers. But sometimes if people make a funny movement she's not expecting, she'll get startled and start barking at them. I'm hoping this will fade over time, so I'm just trying to reinforce all her positive interactions.

Thank you I appreciate your time. I was pretty annoyed she was calling my dog shy and neurotic, because the first time she met her, Fern was very friendly and happy with her. It was only after Fern observed her for a while that she got anxious. I think border collies seem to be very sensitive to behavior of other animals (which makes sense for a dog that specializes in manipulating animals) and it isn't surprising that it results in a tendency to be overly analytical of human behavior. I think Fern draws conclusions way too quickly, resulting in some very difficult results. I am very concerned about working on desensitizing her to triggers she is nervous of, and am just trying to do this through encouraging positive stranger meetings, and using a clicker to work her up to checking out things that give her the willies (like trucks) in a sort of LAT style. I do think she is going through a fear period, but she's also getting more confident in her abilities and tries to scare things away rather than running away herself. But it's so hard to go to an obedience class and be working on two things at once. So I feel very good about this decision.

Does he have specific toys designated for tug? My dog likes to tug, but I discourage playing tug with most of her toys or random objects. She has two tug toys, and she knows that if I'm holding one of those, she's welcome to tug on it. Maybe if he has more of a structured use of toys, he will learn the difference between something he can tug and something he gets no reward for. If you try to do this, I would suggest never letting him have a tug toy on his own. Keep it away where he can't reach it unless you decide to take it out. I just taught drop by making it a game, with a cycle of tug, drop, leave it (when I lay the tug toy on the ground) and get it (when I grab it and wiggle it for her to grab). I don't know about drop with random objects though, because we haven't had that problem.

Just wanted to say he is super cute! And the rule of thumb I usually see on here is that they're about 1/2 their weight at 4 months. So maybe around 40 lbs?

Thank you for the advice! I think I need to be more proactive about ending situations that cause anxiety like that. I think I've been too eager to let her "get used" to things, and I need to listen to what she's saying with her body language more. Fern also has issues with certain dogs that don't know how to play politely or don't understand dog body language, and I think I find it tricky trying to decide if letting them experience it will help the situation, because sometimes they learn to get along after some communication. Other times they don't, and I remove Fern after it's clear that she's not benefiting from the situation. But when that happens I tend to beat myself up about not pulling her sooner, because I hate her having negative experiences. But it's hard to tell which sort of situation it is at the beginning.

That sounds like the sort of trainer Fern would like! She is visibly more nervous around big men, though she usually is overly submissive to them rather than defensive. I think she picks up on commanding voice the same way as she does size. Usually she is most comfortable with women, but the female trainer we've had tends to take charge in a very "masculine" way. Fern's favorite people are small females who talk in a high pitched excited voice, though the more excited people are the more likely she is to forget her manners!

Thank you that makes me feel better about the decision. I will try to find a different trainer that will suit Fern better. I find myself often unsure about whether it's better to avoid things Fern is nervous of, or if exposure will help her get over her fears. I know one of the trainers there specializes in border collies, and I think I will try to find a way to speak to her and see if she teaches group classes. I am glad you agree that she is not neurotic. Fern is from working parents, and though she does seem to have some minor fear issues, I don't think she's acting unreasonably from her point of view. I feel like I just need to figure out what that point of view is so that I can meet her there appropriately and not put her over threshold. It is so hard to convince her something is not scary once she has decided to give it a bad label.

I've been taking my dog Fern (10 mo) to obedience classes to make sure that I'm not missing things she should be learning. She has been great at learning all of the exercises, but I've been having issues while she's actually in classes. Her very first class, she was great until one of the other dogs barked a bit and then she had the bright idea that barking might be a way to cure her boredom. I worked with her on keeping her focus on me, and brought along a tug toy to keep her entertained when she got bored. That seemed to be helping, and I talked to one of the trainers who suggested she should be in a level 2 class because the level 1 was too boring and she needed something more challenging. So I've been taking her to level 2 now, and she does seem to be less bored. But we've run into another problem. Although she initially liked the two trainers who teach the level 2 class, she has become increasingly fearful of them. I believe she fears them because they talk in a very commanding, loud voice because they are speaking to a big room. They use positive reinforcement, but have a very no-nonsense, stern tone of voice. I think Fern is alarmed by this. And so she wants to bark at them to alert me to the threat. I have worked on redirecting her attention to me, constantly treating her for attention on me, redirecting when she wants to bark at them. After the last class, I spoke with one of the trainers. When he was no longer yelling and he acted like a normal person, she was no longer afraid of him. But if he made too much eye contact, she became alarmed again. He said I just need to continue socialization with her and she will get over it. The other trainer I have so far liked, but she did make a comment that annoyed me, that "border collies are just neurotic" to explain the barking. I don't think my dog is just neurotic. I think she's going through a period where she's very sensitive to potential threats. I understand that in a group setting, they can't make everything cater to a particular dog that is sensitive. But I am frustrated by the trainer that thinks I just have a shy neurotic border collie. I am terrified I will do something with good intentions that just results in me screwing up my dog. So I'm trying to decide what to do. If I take her back to that class, her fear of the two trainers may just increase with repeated exposure to the stimulus that she finds concerning. I could take her and continue to work on her focus on me. Alternatively, I could try to find a different trainer and see if I can find somebody who doesn't alarm her. They have 3 sessions for that class, and I think the other sessions have different instructors. Maybe she'd do better with somebody different. I think she needs somebody who has that positive upbeat attitude to training rather than a stern commander. The trainer she doesn't like has a vizsla, and maybe she just doesn't work as well with soft dogs.