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Oh dear. I just saw this. Paws on your heart. Gibbs had a wonderful life with you. I also enjoyed hearing about Gibbs, and your posts with general advice were also appreciated. I hope you continue to contribute here. That'll do, Gibbs. <3 <3 (Those are supposed to be hearts.)

It will depend on the dog. Don’t be afraid to treat, at first, for just touching the shoulder or hip. Then start sliding down, stop, and treat. I am guessing that you might be able to slide down in bigger increments when at the top of the legs, then your dog may get nervous once below the ‘knee’. At that point, split as much as the dog needs - what I mean by splitting is to break down the action as much as necessary. If your dog can only tolerate 1/2, or even 1/4 inch, that is what you need to do. Also, you don’t have to always progress each session. I always like to throw in a session where I am just treating the dog for things they already know. I give them a break from pushing the boundaries. Hope this helps.

The crew from 5 years ago.

Agree with Journey regarding vet visit and the suggested supplement. There are also omega 3 supplements and supplements for muscle enhancement. Myos (a muscle ‘builder’) worked well for my senior dog, but not sure if it is available in the UK.

With respect to touching of paws: Have you tried touching up much higher (shoulder or hip), then s-l-o-w-l-y slide your hand down an inch or so, then treat. Using very small advances (1/2 or even 1/4 inch at a time) and treating after each advance, how far down can you go? Continue working your way down the leg with high-value treats. This approach will also take a long time (if it will even work) because of micro- splitting. when I had livestock, this method - sliding your hand down the leg before picking up the foot - worked better than just grabbing the foot. It let the animal know what was going to happen, and they could mentally prepare. Worth a try.

Cute story.

Best of luck to Riley. She sounds like a wonderful companion.

Oh no. So sorry to hear this. Sending healing mojo.

LOL. Why is it some dogs sabotage our best efforts? I have also used an 6x6 piece of linoleum/vinyl? flooring (purchased off a roll from Lowe's) underneath the xpen as a layer of protection. The xpen is arranged in a 4x4 square which leaves extra on the sides.

Sorry Gibbs. It $uck$ to get old. An option may be to put him in an X-pen at night with pee pads - if he is OK with the X-pen. I had an 18-19 YO girl that would start walking around in the middle of the night (she had a bed in my bedroom), and I would wake up and rush her outside. As she got older, she could no longer hold it and started peeing on the area rug - but only the 4x6 rug, not the wood floor. I would cover the rug with pee pads every night, and they would absorb her pee. Nothing leaked through. IIRC, it took about 8 pads to cover the rug, but only 2 pads were peed on at night.

Here is Archie. (next to my 44 lb border collie) He is 4 months, 21 lbs. He can be delightfully energetic, then is also very ready to relax on the couch. He doesn’t display the intensity I associate with purebred border collies. If there is BC in him, I keep thinking that it may be mixed with lab or pit - which are 2 popular breeds for mixes in this area. Or Archie could easily be a mix of multiple breeds and by happy circumstance, just happens to look similar to a BC. I hope whoever adopts him will send a sample to one of the breed ID services.

Thanks for the replies. I had not really realized how many dogs have white -tipped tails - although once people started listing them, I said to myself "how could I have forgotten that breed?" Also, thanks to Eileen for the info about melanin distribution. The reason I asked was because I am fostering a stray puppy (found in rural WV as an 8-9 week old) for a border collie rescue group. We also foster and adopt BC mixes. He looks close enough to a BC to be 'accepted' into the foster program, but I keep playing "Guess the Breed" in my mind. I have his pic on my phone and will try to post It, but it may be in a separate post. Feel free to take a guess. Smile.

Thanks. Can't Wait!!!

I love that story!

I have never picked a pup. I have purchased 4 from different breeders. All breeders were too far away (one was across the country) for any visit. One pup was the last in the litter, and I grabbed her after losing a (rescue) dog to cluster seizures. All I knew about her was that I liked her pedigree, and the breeder was honorable and known to produce quality dogs. For the other 3, I had "conversations' with the breeders in which I described the attributes I thought would work well for the canine activities I participated in and the breeder chose the pup. I have been pleased with all of them, but I also believe that in a well-bred litter any of the pups would be acceptable to me, and that the adult dog is a result of MY training and interactions with the pup.

The white tip on a border collie tail, AKA the shepherd’s lantern — how unique is that to the border collie breed? Have you seen it in other breeds? And how often? Thanks.

That is funny. Glad you and Gibbs are fine.

Journey— Thanks so much. Reading for tonight.

IIRC, there was a genetic study showing that the working border collies and the KC/show border collies were different breeds. If this study exists, can someone provide a link? (Hopefully it is available in the web.)

NAC?

And then the idiot sued the state. Appropriately, the lawsuit was thrown out.

Bison are no joke. And humans are dumb. Not saying that, in this case, the humans did anything to cause a rutting male to ram their car, but about 10 years ago, I spent a couple days in Custer State Park (where you can hardly turn around without seeing warnings about the park’s bison herd) and had a very informative conversation with a seasonal park employee. Not only did I witness behaviors contrary to advice, but also heard some stories about people who have to “push the envelope “. Case in point: one 20-something male decided he wanted a photo of himself next to a bison. The nearby bison were lying down so he kicked the bison in the nose to make it stand. Yes, he was hospitalized.

Poor guy. It does sound like he may have been confused and suffering.

I am glad Gibbs' system is back to normal. Just want to add a comment to the excellent advice from D'Elle -- I found my senior dogs gradually became less 'regular' and required extra attention to make sure they were doing their job. I also want to add that I truly appreciate the fact that my dogs are fairly regular - a LOT better than me so I cut them some slack. LOL. Jovi

On another note: does anyone know if the pups were given to the handlers for free in (partial?) payment for being on the show?