New member here. Please don't judge me. I'm sincere and trying.
I picked up a Border Collie pup a month ago. He was 8 weeks at the time, so now he's around 12-13. We run a large cattle operation and I thought I may could utilize him to help in the pens and with calves at times, but was going to be completely fine if he just turned out to be a farm dog. After all, we live an active lifestyle, way out on a farm, plenty of room to run and play. Surely, we can handle a Border Collie after 14 years with a laid back Golden Retriever can't we? I have kids, 10 and 8, so I picked a pup from a split breeding between work and non-work, hoping that he wouldn't turn out to be super aggressive. He is a Merle, which may or may not mean he isn't from serious working lines. Well......It doesn't appear to have turned out that way!
"Shep" is SERIOUS about herding at only 12 weeks. He herds leaves, balls, kids, my wife, and even me at times. Started out kind of cute, but now he gets very irritated if you don't turn around and starts growling and biting at the front of your legs. Not nipping, BITING! He's very vocal. Growling and barking when he's "herding," and if you scold him, he just gets even more aggressive. There is no backing down in this pup. He's had both my wife and kids in tears, cornered somewhere, growling at them. He's a big pup, 16.8 lbs a few days ago.
I'm not going to let this beat me. I'm determined to help him become a great dog and part of our family, and I understand that his instinct tells him to herd at all cost. I'm trying to find a good trainer in NC or upstate SC to work with him and channel his instincts, but until he is old enough for that, I HAVE to stop the people herding! He listens decent to me. We have a recall that I'd say is about 75% effective, and down command that he respects as long as it comes from me. He could care less what my wife or kids tell him to do. Obviously, I'll protect my family first, but I know that hitting him or anything physical is not the way to correct this. In the heat of the moment, I overreacted and shoved him off my daughter once. He didn't shy away, he came back harder. Where do I start?
We love him, he's beautiful, we respect his instinct and don't hold it against him, but we have to fix this aggression towards people. I'll try to attach a cute, innocent picture of him and my son. 90% of the time they get along perfect, but that 10% get ugly real quickly.
