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Hi, I thought this might be a fun topic. It seems to me that Border Collies tend to develop funny/strange behaviors and interests and I'm curious what other people's dogs like to do. My current male BC LOVES leaves!!! As a puppy I thought he'd outgrow his interest but he is now eight years old and still loves to dance in the leaves! He twirls and barks at them and grabs them and will piroette on his hind legs to catch the ones that are falling from the trees. My previous male BC loved to skate rocks. My previous female loved to admire herself in the mirror and was terrified of hot air balloons. My current female is an obsessive ball retriever. What does your BC enjoy doing?

I have a 5, almost 6 month old border collie female named Brooklyn. My boyfriend and I got her when she was 9 weeks old. Recently she's started having some behaviour issues such as, refusing to go on walks unless both my boyfriend and I go. Also, unless both my boyfriend and I are home she tends to not want to do anything but sleep but as soon as he/I gets home, she'll be back to her normal playful self. Today we figured out that it's not just walks that she will not go on unless it's us both, it's pretty much anything. I tried to take her to our local disc golf course which she loves; I threw the disc and she went after it once and then tried running back to the car. I've tried coaxing her with treats but that doesn't work at all. One behavior issue that she's had the whole time we've had her is when she's around my boyfriend's parents dog (an Aussiedoodle named Harmony) she will basically just harass her even when growled at. When they play outside together, we try play fetch with both Brooklyn and Harmony and Brooklyn will completely forget about the ball( which is odd because fetch is her favorite game and would play all day if we let her) and only try to chase Harmony and bite her ankles. At first I thought it may be her herding instincts but it seems a little aggressive and obsessive now. I'm truly at a loss with these issues especially with her refusing to do things unless both my boyfriend and I are there because it's making her miss out on a lot of exercise. She really is a great dog besides these things, open to suggestions and questions for more context on her personality. And then some pictures just for fun!

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.

Walks of my 3YO smooth coat usually consist of me throwing a ball with a chuckit while he scrambles ahead off leash to get the ball. We do this in a couple of different places where we can make our way around a 1-2 mile course two to three times. The really interesting thing is that, more often than not, he scrambles ahead to where he thinks the ball will end up and "hides". Hiding usually consists of peeking out from behind a bush or tree though it somethies also manifests as flatening himself to the ground like a black and white pancake. It is really quite charming and has gained him a pretty big fan club in the places where we play. My question is ... is this behavior border collie normal? Does it serve some purpose in the herding work they were bred for? BTW, that much chuckit gives me tennis elbow if I don't alternate chucking arms frequently.

Lucky is a 19 month old collie/lab mix that we adopted a year ago next week. Since we got him, we've had issues with reactivity to other dogs, attention seeking behavior and resource guarding people. We've worked a lot on the reactivity issues and we have tools and are making progress. He doesn't resource guard food or toys with people but he will with other dogs. There are specific places and situations in our house where it happens. For example, when my husband and I hug or get close to each other, Lucky will rush over and kind of squeal at us. When I am standing at my laptop in the kitchen and my husband walks into the kitchen, he will grumble and rush to get between us. When my husband is sitting in a chair in the kitchen and I approach him, Lucky will whine and get a concerned look on his face. He will nip at my clothes if I reach to pet him when he is on my husband's lap. He hates it when we both pet him at the same time. He doesn't sleep in our bed with us (that was the first issue wie struggled with with him) but he does sleep in his bed in our bedroom. We have managed to stop some of the behavior by using a spray bottle with plain water to correct him, getting him to sit when he starts the behavior and rewarding him with attention and/or treats when he stops. I felt like we were making progress, but two weeks ago we took him on a road trip and visited some friends along the way. On several occasions when people were sitting around the table or couches, when someone got up and started walking, Lucky would rush towards them making a horrible growling noise that scared whoever he was rushing at. I don't think he would ever bite anyone, but he SOUNDED really mean and scary when he did this (he's not a small dog at 75lbs). I've tried finding information on how to address resource guarding, but most of it is around toys and food. Does anyone have any leads on resources or advice on how to address resource guarding people? Thanks for any help!

It's hard to believe that Cricket is coming up on five months old! He's turning out to be, as my husband likes to say, "a good little pup". I'd say about 95% of the time we can correct his over-exuberant interest in the cats with a sharp "ah-ah" or "eyes on me" command, his mouthiness is decreasing, and he's calming down considerably. He will now have periods where he actually lies on his bed in the kitchen while I cook, or while I work at the kitchen table and we are SO happy to see that. He was a perpetual motion machine for so many weeks (we brought him home when he was 8 weeks old) that I despaired about whether he would ever learn to calmly flop around like our old dog did. One current issue we have: our closest friends have a three-year old male dog who is roughly the same size as Cricket. They love to play with each other, but Cricket just won't quit when it comes to playing. He constantly engages the other dog, pulls on his ears, leaps onto him and, as of our last visit (they were over at our house), will mount the dog! He makes himself a complete pest. The other dog won't separate himself from Cricket, and while he will growl at Cricket, his tail is still wagging while he does it. We put Cricket in his crate for about an hour and a half so we could have a peaceful dinner on the porch, but then when we let him out he was right back at the behaviors. We love to hang out with our friends, and we'd love for Cricket and their dog to also be friends who will play AND chill out together. Is there anything we should be doing, other than crate time? Will Cricket eventually calm down in this dog's presence? He has been socialized with other dogs in terms of being exposed to them, and on walks he behaves pretty well, all things considered, when he encounters another dog. Also, we correct him for mounting, but obviously this is embarrassing behavior and we don't want it to become a habit. It seems connected to his heightened excitement level when this dog is over, or when people he doesn't see often visit. He tried it on my father-in-law last weekend when he was visiting. Very awkward. My FIL just sat there and looked amusedly on while he did it, which was frustrating, but understandable, I guess. I told Cricket "ah-ah" and put the leash on Cricket straight away and took him out of the room. Do we just keep correcting and hopefully this behavior will disappear as he matures? Thanks! Oh, and here's a recent photo of our little guy: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8XMeMYzWMjxbHdpOC0td0pDMzg/view?usp=sharing

Cricket is finally 16 weeks! He had his final series of puppy shots this past Friday. I was disappointed to find that he weighed in at 13.7 pounds at 16 weeks, which seems to me to be on the small side. He's a shelter puppy, but I'd been hoping that the border collie genes would result in a larger dog to match his border collie personality Any guesses on how big he'll be? I'm hoping he'll be at least 25 lbs, but now I'm worried he might end up significantly smaller. Is it normal for there to be a growth slowdown during teething (he's in the thick of it). How much more active growth will he go through? After 8 weeks of "look at me" training and redirection, and clicker-rewarding, he FINALLY seems to be making some progress in the not-chasing-cats department. He has been rough housing with our boy cat for weeks by pouncing on him - Benny doesn't help by lying down right in front of Cricket, rolling over, and inviting play. Cricket's showing some real signs of self control and impulse control! This morning Benny was by kitchen door leading to the screened porch and I didn't notice. Cricket could have cornered him to "play", but instead he stopped, looked at Benny, looked at me, and came over to me to sit and get a treat. We're working on "down" and mouthiness. I have to say this puppy is exhausting at times, and it hasn't been all roses and sunshine. Moments like this morning though give me hope that with persistence and consistency we'll move through these puppy days and out the other side! Here he is at 16 weeks: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8XMeMYzWMjxZFpMZG1CY284S3c/view?usp=sharing His ears are normally tipped (I think they are likely to stay tipped since they haven't changed by 4 months) but they stand up when he's super-alert: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8XMeMYzWMjxSU5TTllsUXFrd2M/view?usp=sharing He looks worried because we're at the vet, waiting for his 16-week check-up.

Greetings and thanks in advance for any thoughts. We adopted Louie (formerly "Nosey") about 2.5 months ago at an adoption event. He's a BC/Lab/? mix, about 2-3 years old, very mellow, couch potato, no concept of toys or playing, extremely timid--even fearful--of people. Anyone. More so at the house, but also in the park. Goes nuts when he sees squirrels or rabbits. Not much of a barker, doesn't know from fetch or catch, LOVES other dogs. Escape artist, seems to have a high threshold for training collars and even a live wire we used on some fencing outside. We have to figure out how to contain him (he got out of the live wire) because he'll jump the fence and leave whenever he has the opportunity. Always comes home, but was brought home by police the other day and was almost hit by a car. We were looking for a smaller dog, maybe terrier mix, and explained our lifestyle: small children all the time, busy household, cat, gerbil, birds, lots of time with human's home, but not the type to jog or go for hikes. No dog like that was available and we were ready to go when we learned about Louie. We didn't know much about BCs beyond some perceptions and some misconceptions. It's been rough. Louie becomes afraid and hides whenever people come over. He warms up to children a little faster--if we go for a walk in the park immediately upon their arrival and he gets used to them outside first. Will this ever change? And is there a way to facilitate Louie not escaping all the time (or wanting to). I absolutely get that I didn't do diligence about this breed before adopting Louie. I was going based on input that he had many of the qualities we were looking for in a dog; and about 15-20 minutes together before making the decision. Louie's personality is different than other dogs we've had; and neither of us has ever really worked with a very timid/scared dog. Is this a wrong fit? Or are there things I'm not doing that I should be? (And then it's about whether I can or not). Louie is also a cuddler, and has a very Eyeore-like demeanor with such dignity. He's a sweetie, and I'd love to not feel like I'm floundering.

My family recently adopted a young Border Collie who came to us as a stray. My husband was quite nervous about taking on a new dog, especially considering we have a 1-year-old daughter who I stay home with. I assured him that I would be able to care for and properly train our new dog, Archer. So...we've had Archer now for about 3 weeks. He exhibits pretty normal puppy behavior (he's just under a year old) - chewing, has some potty training accidents, nipping, etc. I'm hoping that someone more experienced with BCs than myself can offer some advice on proper training as well as what to expect from our dog. I began some basic obedience training (heel, sit, come, stay) and I'm seeing some progress. However, if he is the least bit distracted he does not come when I call him. In fact, if he is off leash outside he will completely ignore me, which means we've had to chase him through the neighborhood a few times. I have two young nephews who get rowdy, and if they run he chases after them and nips them. I know that is pretty common behavior for BCs but how do I keep it under control? How do I teach him not to herd children or other dogs? How can I train him to come to me when I call him, even when he is distracted by other dogs or people, etc? And most importantly, what is the best way to keep him occupied so that he doesn't try to escape constantly? He no longer dashes out of the house every time the door opens but I'm worried about him getting out of the yard. I walk him at least twice a day and practice our obedience training several times a week, with lots of playing inside during the day. But I cannot trust him off-leash outside AT ALL. Will that ever change? We are getting a new house and are planning on building a 6-foot privacy fence. Could he climb that? Should we build a pen for him? Do BCs dig out from under fences? I hope someone has some advice for me. I don't want this guy to get away from us and end up getting hit by a car, and I don't want to give up on him as we have become VERY attached to each other. But I need some reassurance that he will become better behaved.