laurenandkimi

That's so true - I need to stop thinking about all the things that he could be thinking/feeling and pay attention to what he's trying to communicate to me! I moved from the spare room back to my bedroom as a test last night and he slept all the way through from 10:30 to 5am, barked once and settled straight back down when I called down for him to go back to bed, and then up at 7am - so already great progress! I really think he just didn't like being moved to the kitchen and the door being shut on him, it probably felt much more like we were 'leaving' him, whereas now he can just keep chilling on the sofa and hear us upstairs.

Thanks so much D'Elle - really appreciate your advice! I slept in the spare room yesterday night with the doors open (but gate shut) and a dim light and very low classical music on, and he was settled through the night until 6:30am, so I definitely think the dark and having the door shut might have been particularly distressing him. We're going to keep the door open at night I think, so we'll keep the cat shut upstairs with us at bedtime until we're certain they won't confront each other through the gate. I think I have been massively overthinking everything and not acknowledging that he's actually only been in our house under a week, so can't expect him to be fully chilled and settled straightaway!

Thanks all - really appreciate your advice! Had a chat through it all with my husband - he's really not keen at all on having the dog in the bedroom, so while I definitely think that's probably the easiest option we're going to try to work through it without doing that. Last night I slept down in the living room but didn't interact with Kimi and he settled down v quickly beyond a quick sniff of my head on the pillow, which makes me inclined to agree with the idea that he is genuinely worried about where we are/being left alone and not just attention seeking. We have a gate across the living room door (as well as an actual door which we're keeping shut at the moment to keep on top of cat v dog interaction), however we're quite lucky layout wise in that we have a spare bedroom just across from the living room door, so next step might be to sleep across there with the gate shut but the door open (with the cat safely shut away with my husband upstairs) and work up to moving back upstairs. My question is - how do I manoeuvre this so that I don't allow any bad habits to develop but also help him feel as secure as possible in his new home? When I move across to the spare room, do I acknowledge him at all if he cries? (e.g. say shh so he can hear I'm nearby) Thanks again all for your help so far - he's not just our first BC he's our first dog, so I'm constantly second guessing myself at the moment!

This last Saturday we rescued our new Border Collie, Kimi. Kimi's 3 and has come from a previous family home with another, older, collie and three kids. Our house on the other hand, is just me and my husband, and our cat Sam (also a rescue, also 3, but we got him 2 years ago and he was a stray before that). Kimi was good as gold the first couple of days and actually seemed to completely contradict a lot of the advice that I'd found doing research beforehand on rescue dogs - he's very friendly and has already started claiming our laps whenever we sit down on the sofa, and he seems completely chilled out on walks - he gets on well with all other dogs so far and doesn't seem bothered around crowds of people. We've separated off our kitchen and living room as 'Kimi's spot' so that the cat has the run of the rest of the house, as we didn't want him to feel too uprooted (we're working on introducing them, but at the moment they're kept completely separate). The first night, Kimi went to bed in the kitchen and slept through til about 7am no problems. The second night, he went to bed in the kitchen but must have managed to open the sliding doors and get into the living room but again, only woke us up at 7am ish. Last night, he got into the living room again and then barked through the night - from midnight onwards. I think he stopped for a couple of hours at one point, but then he was going again up until I got up at 6:30 to let him out and feed him his breakfast (I tried to time it in between barks, so that he didn't see me as coming in response to his barking). I then popped back upstairs to get dressed for the morning dog walk and he was barking again within minutes. The barks weren't non stop but they were consistent, and they ranged from a sort of normal pitch bark to more of a high pitched yip. He didn't howl at any point though. While my husband popped downstairs at midnight just to double check he didn't need to go out, we ignored him the rest of the time as I was concerned that if we responded he'd see it as encouragement/success - we didn't acknowledge the barking at all. (We are completely exhausted today though!) Some other points that may or not be relevant - we don't have curtains in our front room, but we do live in a very quiet cul de sac. He didn't destroy or chew anything other than some pawing at the door - he also didn't wee or poo inside. We haven't yet been able to find a toy that he likes to chew/cuddle, so he wouldn't really have had anything to distract himself with (we're paying a visit to Pets at home tonight to try a few more things). Exercise wise, since we got him the routine has been one 45-60 minute walk in the morning in the local park (on retractable lead) along with some en route training e.g. getting him to come and sit when he gets too far ahead/when we're coming up to a crossing. He then gets a 60-90 minute walk (around 5-6pm) including at least 20 mins off-lead running about and playing fetch/doggy ping pong. Then we do 10-20 mins of indoor training/sniffing out treats in the evening with one last 15 minute walk to let him go to the toilet before bedtime at around 10:30. Basically - I'm just looking for some advice. Does it sound like he needs more exercise/stimulation? Do we need to find him something that he likes to occupy him e.g. frozen kong/chew? Do we need to get curtains? Is it just a change in routine and we need to wait out the next few nights and not respond to the barking? I don't know if it can be SA as he doesn't seem particularly bothered to be left during the day - when my husband popped back at lunch today to double check he was snoozing on the sofa quite happily. Unfortunately, having him in the bedroom isn't an option as we don't want to take yet another space away from the cat - at least not until (if) they get used to being in the same room peacefully.