madisonalicia

***SIDENOTE*** Rogue used to have a pretty rough coat and she shed it very easily because it was so fine. When we met her sister during adoption, her sister had a much silkier, healthy looking coat. I can say that since having her, her coat looks 100x better! She does not shed nearly as much (only because it’s summer and very hot here in Kansas). But her coat itself looks very similar to her sister in that it is very soft, shiny, and healthy. I take that as a good sign of her progress as well!!!

Hello! I posted about my beautiful Merle Border Collie female, Rogue, weeks ago. I feel that it’s only right to update her progress on this forum and gather some more information/advice via comments because they helped immensely! Compared to where she was when the last post was written, Rogue has truly blossomed into a wonderful dog. She is so loving. She has stopped submissively urinating for the most part, and only does it in small quantities when she is extremely frightened (i.e. stranger comes into home and she is caught off guard). She roams off leash in our yard and does extremely well with listening and staying close. She definitely knows who her people are! She loves to burn energy. Sometimes when a man asks if they can pet her, I will make them stand where they are and not approach her. She will go up to sniff him with excitement and apprehensiveness, with her tail slightly between her legs, but will open up upon realizing that he means well and just wants to pet her! We had a friend over just the other night who happened to be male, and she ran right up to him and sat between his knees so he could pet her. We always tell our male counterparts to not go up to her, even though it can be hard because she is such a beautiful dog! She approaches many more people now instead of scurrying away. We are so proud of her progress! She likes to spend time in her kennel. We leave the door open to give her access whenever she likes. She will sometimes take a bone into her kennel and chew it in there. Sometimes she spend a bit more time than we would like her to spend in her kennel. I am home for the majority of the day, everyday. Therefore, I leave the kennel door open so she can come out if she would like. She typically comes out and roams the house freely when I am home, but tends to recede back into her safe space when my fiancé gets home from work. He has been doing his best with not approaching her, and mostly just living out his daily routines in front of her. She is comfortable with me, but sometimes I will hear some rattling and find her in her kennel, head poking out of the entrance rested on top of some toys. I leave her be. I want her to feel that she has a ‘safe space’ that’s all her own and she never has to feel scared in. But I will always keep the door open so she knows she can come out. She’s been coming out more and more each day when he is home. Hopefully in a few weeks, she will be able to approach him without as much fear! It has been a long process but she has adjusted little by little, and it is truly awesome to sometimes sit back and think about how far she has come and how far she can still go! I love my Rogue!

Hi all, My fiancé and I recently took the leap and adopted a Merle Border Collie female named Rogue. A few months before we got Rogue, her previous owners had ‘accidently’ bred her when she was less than a year. She gave birth to beautiful puppies, but the pregnancy happening at such a young age stunted her growth. She is a little bit smaller than your average adult female BC, weighing in at about 30-35 pounds. We were told she was mildly anxious but warmed up fairly quickly to new people. Of course, we fell in love! We made the two hour trip to get her and bring her home with us. From the beginning, it was very evident that she was not just fearful, she was extremely scared of just about everything but women. She adores people, but is a little weird around men. She also has a continence problem when people touch her. My boyfriend made the mistake of sternly telling her “Rogue, no” when she had put her snout in our cats litter box and was shuffling the litter around, that she peed herself on the kitchen floor and ran to hide under our bed. We have never once lay a hand on this beautiful dog, but it is becoming evident that she has serious anxiety and I am doing everything I can to help her and make her feel at ease. For the most part when I call her name she will come, hesitantly, into the living room for some snuggles and pets. She LOVES being pet. There are some times that she comes up to put her head beneath my hand so that I can pat her head, and as soon as I do her tail will wag and she will pee all over the floor. I haven’t gotten mad at her, though sometimes it can be frustrating. It is as if she knows she has done something wrong and will go running underneath our bed again. Today, I finally got her into the bath. Because she has had some continence issues since being with us, she was well overdue for a scrub. She was scared of the water but once I put shampoo on her and coaxed her good behavior throughout the bath, she seemed to not mind it so much. She has never shown any sign of aggression towards me. She is just really scared and I need to know ways I can let her know that whatever happened to her before, won’t happen at her new home. She has been eating grain-free dog food. When I pour her food into her dish, she does not come right away like our smaller maltipoo. She is very timid. Sometimes I will call her name and she will slowly come to the kitchen and I will shake the bowl to let her know it is there. It isn’t until after I leave the kitchen and turn the light off to relax on the couch, that I will see her walk slowly towards the dish and eat. I am happy she is eating at least. She makes small bounds everyday, like when we visited the dog park. I wasn’t sure how she would do with her anxiety, but she had a blast and seemed like a completely healthy dog! She played chase with the other dogs and greeted them with her tail up and wagging. She approached other dog owners at the park for a pet (mainly females), and ran around and played with the other dogs for a solid thirty minutes. She has done well in those areas, I just want her to be comfortable enough to approach us in our home whenever she feels like it. I don’t want her to be so scared when we pet her that she keels over and pees on herself. This was an extremely long post, but I feel a connection with her and I feel horrible that her previous home might have been abusive. I care about her well-being and want her to enjoy her dog life with our family so that can act just like that: a dog.