ShellyF
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Everything posted by ShellyF
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Thank you
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Thank you @GentleLake and I didn’t take it as snarky at all i did go through this with him several months back and had him vet checked and their conclusion then was to feed him more - which I have. He’s also been wormed. I also mentioned the energy level at time of neutering and they did Blood work and heart checks and all ok. I will certainly have vet check him again but it’s weird that most people complain of weight gain after neutering - not such a dramatic weight loss - so that threw me. I can definitely feel his ribs through his thick coat but whenever I have asked the vet if he’s too thin they have said no. i’ll let You know what they conclude
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Bumping to see if anyone has any thoughts.
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What are your dogs favourite toys?
ShellyF replied to jami74's topic in General Border Collie Discussion
Hilarious! -
Our 11 month old was neutered a month ago and all went well. I read that you have to watch weight afterwards and adjust food if necessary to stop them gaining weight but we haven’t reduced his food. He did have a bout of diarrhea two weeks ago but after a one day fast and then light meals for a day (under vet guidance) he was soon back to normal. However, when we weighed him today we were surprised that his weight has plummeted. He’s back to the weight he was at nine months old! He also seems happy for an even quieter life than normal. We will of course seek vet advice but has anyone else experienced weight LOSS with their pup after neutering! He was weighed at the time of the op and was still in a steady weight incline at that time. He gets fed a good quality kibble (about 900 calories) and his training snacks are liver and cheese and home made dog biscuits. Probably another 200 calories in those. He does about an hour of exercise a day and either potters about or rests for quite a bit of the day so that calorie intake appears to be about right. TIA
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Border collie activity/stimulation levels
ShellyF replied to Serenstar's topic in General Border Collie Discussion
We have found the same in that our dog has never needed constant stimulation and as others have said this isn’t even helpful for them. Our pup is now 11 months. He has a half hour walk in the morning and 1/2 hour park or fetch or play in the afternoon. On days when he gets more he’s extra tired. He gets a couple of yard walks too and likes to watch the world go by from the window or the deck - depending on the weather. He likes to nap or ride in the car. He loves a fuss and the odd toy game. He takes himself to his crate after supper for an hour, he wants to go to bed at 9.30 and doesn’t get up until 8. But we are always around so he’s not lonely. He accepts this is the routine. It will change in the summer when the boat gets launched and he loves swimming. I am sure he will adapt. I don’t believe border collies are high energy dogs but they need to have an interesting life -
If he can walk to heel but not calmly in a harness then you could switch to a front clip harness perhaps.
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I find there’s a difference between ‘pulling’ and walking ahead in an alert manner. Merlin walks ahead of me with interest sniffing and eager to move forward but ONLY after I have given him permission to do so. If I ask him to walk by me with a ‘steady’ he knows it’s important (like i’m Trying to go downhill on ice lol)! If you give permission for them to go ahead (we use ‘go sniff’) then I can’t see the issue but it is important that you practice the walking next to you frequently to ensure they do it when you want them to. But generally life’s about getting out there and enjoying it and not all dogs want to do boring walking by the side all the time. Sniffing and investigating how they want to (once given permission to do so) makes it more interesting for them
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Really helpful thanks! We are close to wilderness and someone locally is still missing their five month old pup. He’s been missing three weeks but was spotted a few days ago. I dread being in this situation.
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Interesting! So far we have been pleased when tracking away from the house but having set up a virtual fence 50m away from the house we get a notification every time Merlin goes and looks out the window hahaha!
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Good idea re the second leash!
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Oh dear I have opened a can of worms lol! He is trained to wait at doors but when this happened I was outside and the person standing in the door wasn’t aware he was in a position to shoot out. And when I slipped and dropped the leash it happened too quickly to react. Our guy is 11 months and his recall isn’t good when he can chase pheasants - which is why we walk him in the yard on a leash. Accidents happen and we have addressed each circumstance as it has happened and trained accordingly. We are not relying on the tracker but it’s a back up for when mistakes or accidents happen so I am interested to know if anyone else uses one and to be specific - how have you got on with the technical aspects of something like TRACTIVE?
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Merlin has escaped five times now. Each time was an accident/oversight on our part - he’s either bolted past us at a door that leads to an unfenced part of the yard or i’ve Slipped on ice and dropped the leash. Each time he’s only gone into neighbouring yards and has returned fairly quickly but each time he’s gone a little further and for a little longer. I was worried I would slip and drop his leash on an icy trail and lose him in unfamiliar territory so we splashed out on Tractive. We don’t plan on letting our guard down but it’s reassuring to have a back up plan! Does anyone else use one?
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George got a nasty surprise...
ShellyF replied to Lawgirl's topic in General Border Collie Discussion
Poor thing Our little guy is always reversing himself into prickly bushes but so far no damage! -
If you take out the words like punishment and time out it may help focus on what’s going on. When they can’t behave they need a nap! We call it nap time in our house and we treat each time he goes to his crate. So when we get the ridiculous behaviour we say ‘ok little guy, you must be tired, nap time’ or in the evening we say ‘we’re going to watch tv now and you’ve had a long walk so ‘nap time’ or ‘it’s 10pm so nap time’ lol! When he was younger and irritable he would hide under the chair when I said ‘nap time’ and he’d protest while I lead him there. Usually he did a rugby tackle with two of his legs around one of mine and snapping away haha! Most of the time, now he’s 11 months, he goes willingly. It’s mainly during the evening while we have tv time or overnight. But when we have visitors and he gets over stimulated we take him there. He mildly protests and then remembers that he gets treats so usually darts in at the last minute. And if we don’t go to bed by 10pm he waits at the bedroom door (his crate is in there) so he can go in his crate. It will get better :)
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Food stealing and toy apathy
ShellyF replied to MaxBentley's topic in General Border Collie Discussion
Adopting is so rewarding Our last dog was as good as gold but if we went out she would go round the house finding things to take to her bed. We could never leave food out or she would eat it but the things that ended up in her bed were hilarious! it was hard to train her as she wouldn’t do it if we were there. So we lived with it and worked with it. When we first adopted her she didn’t want to play and followed us around like a miserable thing. Being calm and matter of fact was the key and eventually she realised we were all a calm and constant part of her life. We would play with dog toys with each other (in other words we humans played on the floor with dog toys) and after a while she decided to join in. Patience and you’ll get there -
A curious leash walking development
ShellyF replied to KevTheDog's topic in General Border Collie Discussion
Our guy did similar things and they have got less and less. Our eureka moment came when we realised that Merlin would get like this when he saw a car (which he normally lies down for) going into a drive. We told him to ‘walk on’ because we knew it wouldn’t go past us. He got confused because he didn’t know that it wouldn’t come past us. We recognised other scenarios where he would leash bite because he was confused and wanted direction and probably wanted off leash to run and sort it out by himself! We deal with it by getting him into a training mode at the very instant we see he may be confused ergo stressed. We get a treat out - not to reward him but to let him know it’s training time. If near a road we back away from a danger area encouraging his nose to follow the treat. Then do a few lie downs and sits for the reward and then proceed to cross the road with him much more focused on whatever command we then deploy. ‘let’s go’ is our upbeat one for let’s go play or find a treat or whatever so we can get him trotting along with that until we are safely over and then treat again. -
In the park we find letting our guy pick up sticks helps any frustration and he soon drops it when a more interesting sniff comes along. We let our guy enjoy success by doing little bits of nice leash walking and then telling him ‘go sniff’ in a more relaxed way. Then as he’s got older we are able to increase the time he walks close to us. Frankly i’m More concerned that we focus on what we want him to do when other dogs, people, cars go by. We do a ‘walk nicely’ eg sniff and walk without pulling me along - Rather than walking to heel, he lies down for cars (admittedly he doesn’t encounter too many) and bike and pushhairs and we do ‘walk on’ for Other people and dogs
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So sweet
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Hang on in there! Ours went from a pup who couldn’t cuddle without being a monster to gradually working up to a minute with no biting and finally at about 9 months he started happily being on the sofa next to us and just relaxing. It started with us scratching his back near the base and he realised he liked it so he stopped his nonsense. Now he loves his back rubs!
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I did a whole thread on here about the pigs - should come up if you search pigs! He’s gotten a little more confident around them now but I can still use them to ‘guard’ areas. If he’s doing that annoying thing of lying by the sofa and scratching underneath ‘pretending’ that he’s lost something I just pop a pig on duty
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Don’t despair. Ours is ten months and although he has gotten much better at settling, when he gets over tired I still send him to his crate which we now have in our bedroom so he can have quiet off duty time. When ours starts on the sofa we know he’s struggling. He has toy pigs that we use as behaviour pigs because he doesn’t like them so when he starts on the sofa we put a pig there. Sometimes he is so tired he scratches on another sofa so off to his crate he goes. Oddly, if I go and sew he sits outside the room i’m Sewing in which has a child gate up and happily naps!
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Over tired and over stimulated comes to mind!
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What are your dogs favourite toys?
ShellyF replied to jami74's topic in General Border Collie Discussion
Merlin likes Tuffy toys. He is often running around with his tuffy fish But as others have said, at ten months he plays less and has no interest in chews. He does like filled kongs. For self amusement he will now sit on the ottoman by the window and quietly watch the world go by for aaaaages!