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Hi, This is my first post on the forum (on any forum to be honest) as I feel the need to share and hopefully receive guidance on the problems I am facing at home with our 6 month old border collie. Starting with the background. Our puppy is a male pure bred border collie (5 generations) whose father is a working sheepdog and mother is an agility dog, trained by a Reputable trainer in Devon, South West England, UK, which is where we live. We are a family of two adults and 2 young children (9 & 5) who he is excellent with. We brought him home at 8 weeks and kept him in the house for all of the next 5 weeks until he had his second vaccination at 13 weeks and then lockdown happened which meant no puppy training classes and no opportunity to take him everywhere so he could get used to all the sights and sounds he needs to be comfortable with. When we did start to take him out all sorts of things started to go wrong. He was aggressive towards any body and everybody, wanted to chase anything (bicycles, cars, joggers) and wouldn't listen to any command to come back to us or to stop what he was doing. In the time at home we worked on basic commands using treats, particularly recall and he seemed to be pretty good at this in the garden, but once out in the park it doesn't matter what treats you have its not enough of a distraction to people playing with balls, other dogs, anything moving as per above. By our own admission we have got this wrong and the lack of socialisation has led to a very nervous and anxious dog. We know we have some real work to do to rebuild his confidence and my question is where and how do we start? We have been keeping him at home much more and some days he doesn't get to go out for any long walk and his only exercise is running around the garden and when we are playing games with him, fetch, tug, basic agility stuff like jumping onto chairs. We have also introduced scatter feeding for his lunch so he has to go and find food hidden in various places in the garden and we like to give him bones and chews that mean he has periods of calm. Trying to make him more calm would be really helpful, so anything we can do here I think will help, but I also understand he is a 6 month old puppy who just wants to play so trying to be realistic here as to what to expect at this age. He is at his happiest playing with other dogs and a few minor squabbles aside (where he has been put in his place by older, wiser and calmer dogs) he loves herding or playing fetch or just chasing other dogs and when we meet dogs he knows it suddenly becomes a joy to have him outside as you can see the fun he is having and in this situation he is engaged enough to not be distracted by other people, cyclists, etc. That said, the other day he was playing fetch off the lead with a stick (no one else around) until suddenly a women jogging came round the corner and he was off and ran towards her and even jumped up at her twice making her very scared. So now we are too scared to take him out because off lead he can't be trusted and on lead he pulls like crazy and its no fun. It feels like we are caught between providing the required physical stimulation border collies needs and preserving his obviously fragile confidence by keeping him at home and not putting him in situations where he will make the wrong decision. He is getting better with people he knows, but any strangers are met with a lot of aggression.... heckles up, barking, lunging, enough that would make me slightly nervous if I came across a dog like this. What is the best way to build his confidence whereby he does not feel threatened in these situations? Many thanks Bruce

Hi, Django is now 10 months old and his recall is aroung 90% (still working on this with a long line) except at the local dog park where he has a few regular friends. The problem I'm having at the moment is we will be playing ball together (he is off leash at this point) when there are not many people about and he will be fixated on playing with me. I have trained him well on the whistle to go left/right/down etc as well as verbal commands so he "works" for it but if just one other person is throwing a ball for their dog he will just forget about me (even if I'm about to throw his ball) and just run over and join in their game. I have tried going over and showing him I have his ball to throw for him but he doesn't care, even if the other dog "tells him off" he will still run aroung waiting for the other person to throw their dogs ball. I have even tried having multiple balls and balls on ropes to try and make it "more fun" to play with his actual human. I'd like to know if anyone else has had this issue at dog parks? and what they did to resolve it?, he is excellent on hikes etc but it is a little depressing when your beloved dog ignores you in preference for a stranger. When this first started happening I attempted to call him back to me but stopped when he didn't come the first couple of times so I didn't reinforce negative recall and the most annoying thing is even though people can clearly see you are trying to get your dogs attention they will CONTINUE TO THROW THE BALL! distracting them further and encouraging the behaviour. When a random dog tries to join our game (very rarely) and I can hear the owner calling them I stop play and tell the dog to "go on" and point to the owner until they get the idea and return. I mentioned his friends at the park, when they are about I put the ball away and encourage him to play with them which he does and the problem isn't an issue. I welcome your input, thanks.

Hi, I live in the UK. I have just got home from walking my 4 1/2 month old border collie puppy. She normally has good recall but will suddenly chase after people in the park barking aggressively a just totally ignores me. It seems to be men walking on their own. I have tried taking tasty treats to encourage her to come back to me, squeaky toys to distract her and playing with her to discourage her from doing this. Today was the worst, she was very happily playing with 2 other border collies and then suddenly set off after a man who was just walking, she barked very aggressively and jumped up at him. When I eventually got her back I carried her over to the man to apologize. I keep her on the lead for much of our walk due to this behaviour. Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Hello all, First, I would like to thank everyone for their contributions to this site. I've lurked for a long time, learned how to find a pup, and solved just about every puppy issue I could think of from reading these forums. Second, my dog is Pivo--a 19 month old male who is living large in the city that care forgot (New Orleans). He is from working parents, and is pretty much a wonderful ideal pet for our family. He is actually pretty laid back in personality, very sweet and loving and has learned lots of things in terms of house manners, city manners and safety, and silly dog tricks that are just fun. Our only "issue" (and it's not a terrible one per se just getting more annoying and worsening) is walks. Initially, Pivo pulled on the leash. An easy-walk harness and a loose leash command solved that mostly (the loose leash command isn't super strong and the harness solved our problem and I didn't press the issue, i.e. Mistake #1). He also, as a little puppy jumped at certain points in the walk (the same points oddly). A firm "Let's walk" command and maturity solved that issue. Now, the walk: Our walk is about 4 miles (sometimes as much as 6) in the Garden District in New Orleans, so a touristy area with lots of people, distractions, traffic and such--especially right now as we are entering the high season. We have always walked this route (before Pivo), and while I never assumed that simply "walking" Pivo would be enough mental stimulation for him, he seems to really enjoy seeing all the different "sights" and smells of the city. Plus, it's great exercise for all of us. Around a year old, we noticed Pivo crouching and lunging at joggers, but ONLY when they were coming toward us (coming with us was fine). He also got agitated at bikes on the sidewalk (like his owners for what it's worth). Then, bikes on the street, then mopeds and the most hated of all: skateboards. Mostly, it occurred when people were coming at us, but it's now extended beyond that. He also now hears the streetcar on St. Charles Ave. and gets agitated. He anticipates certain streetcorners as well and lies down in advance of bikes, joggers. Now, I realize this is NOT new Border Collie behavior, and I've read lots of forum posts on herding instinct/prey drive. So, in the last several months to a year, we have tried lots of things. 1. Putting him in a sit/stay, which sometimes works. Give lots of treats when it does. Problem is that something that is a really BIG trigger, I feel like he'll actually make the mental decision of what is more "worth" it. 2.The "Look at that Game"--Pivo is really food motivated, which is helpful. But, I had trouble finding a target "look" that was either a trigger but not TOO much of a trigger to train the command. I thought I had found one in the vacuum cleaner, but it's slow going. Not to mention, LAT only works when I have treats (he knows when I have them, too!). If I don't then he makes the decision that it's not worth listening. I should note he has a good recall and good self control. I got him to drop a found piece of funnel cake at 6 months old! 3. The "let's walk" command kind of works with treats, but again, with this and the LAT game, I feel like I'm "bribing" him constantly. It doesn't feel like positive reinforcement. Also, I feel like he's running the cost-benefit analysis in his head. A lower trigger means he'll take the treat (jogger). A higher one, forget it (skateboard, moped). Here's the real kicker in ALL of this: He ONLY (more or less) chases on the walk. If these things pass in front of our house, we get no response. We often stop at a bar during our walks (the longer one's) and when Pivo's in "bar" mode (we live in New Orleans, so, yes, our BC has a "bar" mode), he doesn't lunge either. We often praise him then as well and he looks at us like "What's the big deal?" Is it possible that he sees the walk as "work"? I realize we've made some mistakes here, and I thought this was improving (it wasn't--it was just winter and there were no tourists). This isn't a huge issue as when my husband accidentally let go of the leash on a busy street with triggers, he stopped and looked at us immediately. And, he doesn't chase cars (thank goodness). But, I am open to any suggestions--minus a prick collar. I am sure I would do something wrong there. Thank you in advance, and I apologize for this being so long! WaveProfesora