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Dear Doggers,

 

Weekly, I help some novice sheepdoggers with their dogs and a couple dogs are ready to start driving (which is contra instinctual and all the dog's training up to this point). The sheep are overdogged and using a fence to make heading less appealing to the dog doesn't work (sheep run off). Usually I prefer letting the handlers work their own dogs but for this I intervened. I'd setup the dog and ask it to walk straight on to its sheep until it got a few feet ahead of me. Each dog was first reluctant then puzzled: "Shouldn't I flank? Head them? What are you asking of me?" Puzzlement was step one. Afterward, each dog would slowly take a few hesitant steps and after they gave me a small clear success, end of lesson, its handler would leash the dog and put the dog up to think about it.

 

This morning I was thinking about Peg and my reluctance to rewarding her with treats or a conditioned replacement for treats (clicker). After no more than ten one minute lessons, Peg will down a hundred feet away. She'll stay when I'm walking past her for maybe forty five seconds. During this training she has never been on a leash and her reward "Good dog" doesn't seem to matter much to her.

 

Please note: I am no pet dog trainer and make no expertise claims nor claims about dog breeds I've never trained. What I've seen with Peg's few lessons and those novice dogs learning to drive convinced me: Border Collies want to be trained.

Snip

 

Donald McCaig

 

My bold.

I am so glad to see this post!! I had come to this very conclusion this week.

 

I was quite sick for a couple of weeks with bronchitus. I still walked the pups for an hour in the mornings on the trail, but then I would lie in bed with one tucked up on each side of me as I read or slept until a child would come home and take them out again for a small walk.

 

When I got back to health I noticed a couple of things. Colt my oldest seemed dull and was sort of blowing me off as in he would down but like a St. Bernard, took him three hours to lower. Bea was just a wild thing. My family has actually told me several times she is your dog. She won't listen to us and she is aggressive to people and dogs when you're not around. To say I was disappointed is to say too little, but they were right. It showed up with Bea immediately upon walking the more populated river trail at lunch hour. Launching herself barking toward a poor woman going to eat her lunch under a shady tree. I said Bea in a shocked and indignant tone, she looked at me, I shook my head and said "chill". She stopped barking, but was still rigid. I got down, held her either side of her ruff, glared at her straight in the eyes and said absolutely none of that ever. She relaxed and ran off to join Colt and she hasn't done it since. That was well over a week ago. She is back to being vaguely interested in being told how cute she is by strangers.

 

I started an agility class two weeks ago with Colt. He is over the moon. The day after on the trails he is still happy as he runs out and then spins to look at me and then rockets back, tail going like a helicopter, grinning like a fool, as he zooms thru my legs. I make a big fuss and he runs off again to repeat four or five times. He usually does this once or twice on every walk/hike when he's been way out front just to check in with me, but this is way over the top and at the outset. Bea just watches this with a WTH look. I think she'd roll her eyes if she could. She does not require or accept big fusses about anything. Like the OP's Peg, even a "good dog" is met with a yep, yep, let's get on with it, what's next? She is very affectionate at home though. Loves to cuddle.

 

Bea is not old enough for agility and that is not what I want to do with her anyway. I think she would be all over stock work. All over the stock too, maybe, but I don't know. She has amazing impulse control and is always trying to figure out what I want her to do. This is a dog who questions a lot. She is ahead of me most times. She gets something and then a 1/2 minute later I get that she gets it kind of thing. I owned a horse like this. Best partner anyone could have. Very patient with me and he excelled at everything.

 

The illness induced haitus from training and playing together and the subsequent fallout from that has led me to a deeper level of understanding as a novice BC owner about just what mental stimulation and a job mean to a BC.

 

This revelation has led me to train in a slightly different way. I am asking more of my dogs. Engaging them in more things around the house, i.e. fetching my shoes for a walk or fetching their kongs from outside for an afternoon treat fill up. They learn the names of things very quickly. Spending more time working on impulse control exercises under distraction. Having two dogs is very convenient as they can provide the distractions for one another. I can down Colt at a distance, barely see him he is so far away and then call Bea to me from his side. She rockets to my side and then I heel her all the way to Colt and release him. We are all having fun and getting important mannerly work done!!

 

One more thing. Though I do not need treats to train I still use them off and on, especially for counter conditioning of any kind. No, the dogs don't need them, but the dogs do love them and I love that.

[Mark Billadeau]

I gave myself a treat last night (chocolate caramels) for doing something unpleasant (calling all 40 people on my dog class list). It worked like a charm.

Lisa

CLICK!

 

[DeltaBluez Tess]

Shiro, our first Border Collie, was always too busy to go potty. We lived in the city and she would wander in the backyard and take her time going potty. We traveled quite a bit so we had to teach her to go potty on command. Getty (spouse) taught her once she went potty that she got a treat.

 

Soon I began to notice she had to go potty a lot. Getty would let her out, she would potty and then get a treat.

 

I began to check her potty spot and lo and behold, no potty. She quickly figured out if she did the potty squat, she got a treat. She trained the husband quite well. We began to give her a treat, like every ten potty breaks, and soon the fake potty times went away. Most of the time we would reward her with a pat on the head.

 

 

He also taught her to get firewood when we went camping. She would haul in large branches, etc...and get treated. One time, she was bringng back nicely cut firewood. After the fourth or fifth one, we began to get curious and followed her. Turns out she went down a block to the neighboring campers, visited them for a pat and a treat, and lifted their firewood. We were appalled but they laughed it off. They thought it was the funniest thing.

 

This Border Collie would waltz in, sit and do tricks for treats, then go and lift a piece of their firewood, be gone for 10 minutes and repeat.

 

We ended up hanging out with them and gave them beer in return. Fond memories of that ole dog, Shiro. She was too clever sometimes,

 

Diane