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Lines suitable for service?


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Ok olive lol, what I've seen so far have been opinions, not answers about the lines I was hopefully looking for. Or possibly that I don't agree with certain people's opinions that I should look into a different breed? Either way I've learned what I needed to here, thanks everyone for your responses.

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If you have only raised 3 pups then you are still learning. You will get better with each one.

 

Service dogs need to be the best of the best. They must have a rock solid temperament. There is a reason service dog groups need to raise lots of pups to get enough suitable candidates; a lot of them wash out. I feel that Border Collies as a breed are already quirky dogs, so buying a Border Collie pup intended to be a service dog is a major gamble.

 

My original advice still stands. Get out there and meet a lot of dogs. Find out the breeding of any dog you really like. Eventually you will notice a pattern of how they are related.

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Liz from what i've seen many of the puppy raisers know NOTHING about helping a pup though difficult times. I worked with some in the area very sad for the dogs as the puppy raisers knew so little nor did some of them care. With better guidance they could have a MUCH higher success rate witht he dogs I've seen.

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In my experience, females mature earlier than males. Something to consider.

 

Oddly enough, I can only recall ever hearing one top breeder say that he would tend to exclude late-maturing dogs from his breeding program, and that breeder was Patrick! There may be others who feel that way -- I just don't happen to have heard them say so. I don't think any good working breeder is breeding against intensity, though.

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Pam, neither one of us has seen the OP in action training a dog, so we don't know where she falls on the spectrum. She might be in the same boat as the average puppy raiser since she only has experience with a couple of pups. Maybe there is a service dog training group in her area that she can join for support.

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Service dog orgs tend to either not have experience with the type of service dog I use, or are blatantly against them (despite what the ADA says). Not to mention it is strongly preferable to owner train service dogs of this type. IMO it's the experience and what you come away with with each puppy and dog you train, not how many. I only get a puppy when I can commit all of the time I feel is needed, over 10 years that has been 3, and a lot of books, DVDs, classes and personal lessons with several professional trainers. I also ran my own holistic grooming business and successfully trained and rehabilitated many puppies and dogs of all breeds. I have met several puppy raisers in this area, and I would not want them raising a puppy for me, IMO I would be better off doing it myself, especially since I know exactly what I need and behaviors that do and do not work for me.

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I've been following this thread and what comes to mind is that you don't want to look for a breeder that is selecting and producing what you are asking for but instead look for the breeders that are producing the highest of quality natural proven stockdogs with great dispositions that you can find.

 

Then after you find that you will be looking for the best of pups that they are producing out of their litters. Our very best pups are very calm, it's almost like they have been here before and have a inate understanding of what is expected. They train up nice and easy, want to be with you and will bend over backwards to please you.

 

Every pup in a litter is not like that, I've not seen it in our litters or in anyone elses that I have seen, but you will see a special pup or two in the real good litters. Those pups will stand out, often times the breeders themselves have already laid claim to them, which makes it all the harder for someone to get lucky and buy into that ideal type of dog.

 

In most cases when we secure a pup from another breeder we do the best we can with them, work with both their strengths and weaknesses to get the most we can out of them, trying to pick the pup/dog that will be perfect for your situation with little no extra effort on your part such as having to wait for them to mature or to help them develop patience or self control is a pretty tall order. I pretty much know that when I tackle a new pup that it will only mature as fast as nature allows it, and it will not likely to have the greatest of impulse control unless I help it, that lack of impulse control is also viewed by some as intensity.

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We got our BC pup with the hope it might be a service dog as well. If not, we were prepared for it to be our pet. We ended up with a very fearful BC puppy who is very afraid of people. He is 3 months old and although we have made progress, we went from fear on a scale of 1-10 at 10 to a 7, we still have a LONG way to go and I don't know if we can ever get him to a level where he could be a service dog. He is still a baby, so we will have to see. If you have any advice on training a BC with the goal of a service dog, I would love to hear it. He loves to learn and I thought this would be his "job." My son is 17 and disabled so he would serve as a service partner for him if somehow that ever becomes possible. He may just end up to be trained to be an in-house service helper for my son since he will be going on disability at 18 and doesn't leave the house much anyway.

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3 months is not a good time to evaluate temperament as it is a common fear period age. I didn't start to work Link in public until he was about 6 months. This isn't counting light training but even then the outings were short. This is a demanding job and putting too much pressure on a young pup can ruin them. I would focus on raising a well adjusted puppy at that age, good socialization, limit fearful situations, and set the puppy up for success. It's possible the fear of people will go away or lesson to a manageable level. I've really found the BAT (Behavioral Adjustment Training) system to work well for these types of behavior problems, I used this method with a fearful shelter dog with great success. You can get books and there are many DVDs about it as well.

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  • 2 months later...

I have a six year old Border Collie service dog. At least I THINK he is a Border Collie since he does have a little bit of the Aussie look to him. His one and only problem is fear, presumably because he was not raised as a SD candidate- I got him from a shelter when he was about 2. However he is an amazing dog and if I could find another like him I would walk from Texas to Michigan to get it.

 

As amazing as my dog is, he went through a stage where he was deemed unadoptable by a shelter because he was shut down, aloof, and showed fear aggression. I have not witnessed the aggressive behavior but I have seen the aloofness- he completelyignores everyone but me- most SD ghandlers would kill for that and I obliviously walked into getting a dog like that.

My point being consider all your options. Adopting an adolescent isn't a bad idea because you gain the advantage of seeing their adult personality.

 

I'll be interested to see how things go with the Riggs puppy my partner is getting next week. We have talked about training the pup as a back-up SD in case something happens to my boy (like last week when I couldn't go out because my dog was having explosive digestive upset and I wanted to go somewhere that isn't easy for me to be!).

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