Chipsy

Hello D'Elle, Hooper2, MyRuna, Flora&Molly, HerePupPup, Ruth and Gibbs and ShellyF Thank-you all for the dialogue and links - it is interesting and very informative. I will definitely learn a lot from them. I have also looked online to buy a crate (D'Elle). I will need to have Quinn neutered at some point so it does make sense to prepare him for a period of time in a crate at the vet. My last dog was a collie/retriever cross and she was never crate trained and needed oral surgery after she broke her tooth on a stick - my dog Keona barely made a noise but I remember getting a phone call from the country vets whose house was up the road from the clinic saying, "can you please come get your dag - she is awake and is keeping all the other dogs awake."...lol.. its not really funny because she clearly didnt like the crate and the dogs and vet clearly thought she was disruptive...but it was so out of character for her. When I got there - she was mellow and eager to leave and quiet. That was the only time she was in a crate other than being spade - she didnt have a problem with the crate at 6 months... I think it will be interesting training him to use a crate as he is such an active dog... I have learned since I posted this that when I take him out twice a day for 2 hours each (its for rigorous running with several dogs playing chase, swimming, etc) he wakes me up early (approx 5:30 - 6 am raring to go).. Im okay with that most mornings however I would like to sleep in on week-ends. I have noticed that when I skipped the evening run, due to huge rain storm (he would have been okay out in it - me, not so much) he slept until 8 am. I tried this again just to see what would happen and the same thing happened - 7:30/8 am. It is a weird thing Herepuppup - my dog also has a sock fascination. She tries to pull them off my feet when I am putting them on. Same thing... a sock radar! Thanks ShellyF for the sheep dog command. I have written them down and will try them with him. Ruth and Gibbs - I taught Quinn to roll over also and I can tell he doesnt like it and I havent quite figured out the need for him doing it yet so stopped asking him. Thank you for the links - have checked them out (hence why it has taken me so long to reply) I agree with you Flora and Molly - an ecollar seems like a gadget to me but I cant really comment as I havent really found a need for one. I saw someone at the park who had a remote control for their dog - it shocks, beeps for it (like a pager - for it to go to his owner and vibrates.) I dont like the shock part and cant imagine having to carry a remote control with me everywhere....what if it gets broken or lost....then what do they fall back on..? I think technology has gone a little too far sometimes. Thak-you for the suggestion, I wrote them down also. Thank-you MyRuna, I downloaded the pdf. It looks really cool... and training Quinn has been so much fun (and admittingly, a little exhausting at times) Thank-you Hooper, funny I was telling my father about scent training and he suggested I train Quinn to sniff out money at the beach...lol I have also done a little research about that and it looks really interesting. They have something in my city called "funzone" large dog swimming pool, ball pit and a barn to teach scent training. I found that researching. I prefer a beach with Quinn and hes overwhlelmed with one ball let alone a pit...maybe one day, but I will look into the barn piece. Thank-you again everyone. This forum is great and everyone is so helpful and have a lot of great idea. Border collies sure are awesome

Hello Just wanted to introduce myself and my dog. I have a 7 month old puppy named Quinn who is a smooth coat collie. He is awesome and a joy to be around. I feel we are over the hard part as he is starting to settle down a bit for the most part and the learning is going smoothly for both of us. He gets on average of 4 hours of exercise a day at a leash free dog run. Its a massive road heading towards massive lake and on both sides of road are very large fields that have trails along the lake. My go to park to train as he can expel energy for half hour (playing/running and rough housing with other dogs) training for an hour/walking/long leash training mostly and half hour of reward play time at the end (usually same as first half hour). He loves dogs and people -we are grateful for that. He is great in the house for the most part. The most challenging is getting him to stay asleep at night if he hears a noise. We do not crate train him and would like to maintain that. We do see why other people crate as the cargo area in back of SUV is aptly called. "Quinn cave" - he loves it. My 80 year old retired father is able to take him when I cant so there is not really any need to at this point. Quinn has never been left alone except in car. My question is; is there any good resources with examples of commands and tricks and things to train dogs? Any good websites or instruction videos or ideas that others here have found useful teaching their dog? He of course has not perfected the ones I have started on however I am finding I am running out of things to teach him. I'm not really into tricks such as roll over, etc (although he has learned this) but more like "shake" when he gets out of water etc. At this point I am basically putting commands to actions he is already doing so he will do it when asked. I have watched videos on touch sticks and am thinking a lot about this but unsure of what to teach him. He loves his frisbee and only now just started interest in playing with tennis balls (mostly in house). Anyhow, just inquiring and looking for ideas. We aren't going to herd sheep (although I would love to see what he does around them) and we wont be doing fly ball -- possibly eventually agility at some point..not sure... so far we love to take calm walks together exploring everywhere possible. Thank you in advance and I wish you many happy years with your brilliant BC's Chipsy