puppy instincts?

[silhouettestable]

So I've had my 2 new pups, Rain and Storm, for 3 weeks now. I've seen them both exhibit "stalking" behaviour, but by far it's more noticeable in Rain. Rain does love to chase after balls (both pups do), sometimes taking them away when Lightning drops them nearby, but she also will ignore the balls I kick or throw for him and instead start stalking him. Lightning loves to chase and catch balls, frisbees, throwing kong etc. and Rain follows him around stalking; head down, staring intently at him and slowly creeping closer. Is this any indication of a strong instinct to herd, or are most BC puppies like this? These 2 are my first purebred BC's, though I do have experience with mixes.

 

If this is in fact an indication of strong herding instinct, is there anything I should be aware of in terms of how to handle it? I don't have sheep and don't intend to train my pups to herd. Instead they'll be kept active in other ways both around the "farm" plus doing some dog sports. When they're older I plan to do some agility with them, and they'll be learning to dogsled as well, and will become part of a 4-dog team for racing.

[Samantha J]

Don't know if early stalking is anything to do with a herding instinct. I'm sure someone will offer more on that but with Holly when we first got her at 7weeks it wasn't long before she started doing a stalking type thing with us. She would sit back and stare at us and look like she was stalking us then leap at you. She didn't do it for long though and i cannot remember how she stopped. So in her case it was a puppy thing. It concerned me a bit though as she would give you a funny stare and i was new to BCs so it was strange.

 

Holly stalks her ball or a toy sometimes now but i think it's just playing. I'd be interested to see what replies you get. I don't know anything about herding at all but sometimes Holly does things that look like a working BC to me, the way she moves sometimes.

[sweet_ceana]

Watch that stalking around cars. Ceana knows if I even see her thinking about crouching down near the street she gets a quick ehh ehh. The urge to chase cars is very dangerous (enough said) I haven't ever had two puppies at the same time, but I can bet you wouldn't know how they would be on sheep until you tried. It sounds like Rain may just be a little more intense/ obessed/ focused. Make sure you start a "leave it" or "all done" command now if that is the case. My dog is pretty intense/ obessed/ focused and we started "all done" after it became a hard for her to move on to the next task (in hind we should have done it from the start). The quicker they have that command down, the easier it will be. I can't think of anything else, maybe someone else will have othe rthings to add. Oh.... I'd love to see pictures!

[silhouettestable]

I'm not actually concerned about any behaviours I've seen from the pups. I just thought I'd seek out some opinions and advice to nip any potential problems in the bud, in case either (or both) become very intense dogs. Being my first purebreds, I'm not really sure what to expect (in terms of how different they'll be than partbred BC's).

 

As for pictures, I did post some in the photo gallery. Here are the links:

p.s. Rain has the smoother coat and the white strip on her face, Storm is fluffier and only has a white muzzle and spot on his forehead.

Meet Rain and Storm

 

Buddies

[ClickMeBC]

My guess is that the stalking is puppy play - I've seen in in my IGs when they play, especially when they were pups, and I can't see getting farther away from a herding breed than an Italian Greyhound. The behavior I've ONLY seen in my Border Collie pup is the outruns on balls, clapping to the ground, laying and staring at an object for longer than I thought possible for a pup to stay in one place.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

The stalking stuff is really just prey instinct. As someone else has said, it's not unique to Border Collies, though the eye of a Border Collie may be "caught" in that way more easily in general. I have a Finnish Spitz mix who did it when we played with the frisbee and ball.

 

As to what you should watch out for, the only thing you should be vigiliant about, compared to other pups, is that if you let a behavior you don't like get by more than, say, once, you're giving the invitation to "Go right ahead!" and it takes an awful lot of work to undo such passive acceptance.

 

So note anything they do and then imagine it being done by a 40ish pound dog, probably a lot harder, faster, more intense, etc. And then decide whether you like it - and decide fast, because now is the best time you'll have to say "Yes" or "No."

 

Good luck!

[Samantha J]

As to what you should watch out for, the only thing you should be vigiliant about, compared to other pups, is that if you let a behavior you don't like get by more than, say, once, you're giving the invitation to "Go right ahead!" and it takes an awful lot of work to undo such passive acceptance.

 

So note anything they do and then imagine it being done by a 40ish pound dog, probably a lot harder, faster, more intense, etc. And then decide whether you like it - and decide fast, because now is the best time you'll have to say "Yes" or "No."

 

Good luck!

 

Good advice, i like that

[silhouettestable]

Thanks for the advice Luckily I'm home with them all the time, so I get to keep pretty close tabs on them, and there's also lots of time for play. Between playing with us, playing with each other and playing with the big dogs they sleep very well once they're down and out. And of course, a tired puppy is a good puppy