BC compared to other dogs?

[sea4th]

I've always had smart dogs of various breeds. The border collies are the only ones that I don't even like to use the word "train". For me, it's been a matter of showing them, more than training them.

 

One of my puppy buyers, who has since become a good friend of mine, talks about her border collie girl, Gracie. This woman has multiple dogs, smart breeds. She was trying to teach her Belgian one time to choose the hand with the treat. After a while, he understood he was supposed to tap one of her fists with his paw, but he never "got" that the reason to do this was to find the hand with the treat/reward.

 

Gracie watched this entire training session with great interest. When the Belgian walked away, she sat in front of her owner and proceeded to do what the Belgian couldn't. My friend, who thought it might be a fluke, has tried it again on other occasions. That little dog is never wrong.

 

Just had to share.

[Dixie_Girl]

Vicki, I was intrigued with your story, so I decided to try it. Not the same way, I started with Jackson right away. 2 TIMES! That was it and he had it down! But after the 10th time, he was looking for his toy. He is not food driven at all! LOL So cool! Impressed the heck out of my grandsons!

[fooshuman]

This occured to me today! Every BC i've met is a unique individual. They may look the same, but no 2 are alike! How many froo froo's can say that?

[painted_ponies]

"Incidentally, of the 79 breeds ranked for intelligence, the following are the most intellectually challenged (politically correct terminology):

 

76 Chow Chow"

 

And a very good thing that this is so. I lived with and handled chows for about a decade and a half, and I had one smart one. We even competed in obedience. That fellow could figure out how to get out of anything, including a wire crate.

 

Unfortunately, he also had the stereotypical chow disposition. When a dog's main desire in life is to kill something, intelligence is not necessarily a desirable trait! :eek:

 

I haven't met many BCs so far, but I think they must be a diverse group. Violet doesn't shed (at least not compared to the other indoor critters) nor is she hyper in the least. A little OCD, and very athletic, but not hyper!

 

Lance - how nice of you to remember my first post! In some ways it does seem like just yesterday, and then again, I can't imagine what life was like without Violet.

[sandra s.]

Kessie doesn't have the stereotypical BC brains (sometimes I can hardly believe some of the stories I read here! She's not half as smart of some of the other dogs represented here ), but she has a lot more "mental energy" than her canine friends.

We went to university in vain today (prof didn't show), so we took a walk through the city center instead. LOTS of people, cars roaring by, speakers, music, people running, yelling, all the smells...you get the picture. I've taken her there before, but it's never been as crowded as today.

What amazes me is that with all the stress and the new impressions, she does not shut down after a while! After walking around the city for over an hour, she's still curious, checking things out, instead of slinking along after me and dragging her feet. Is that typical for BCs? (I don't know any other BC well enough to compare).

Oh, and I did buy her a big snack of course!

[sea4th]

Once I began training border collies---we're talking manners, some obedience etc., it almost immediately occurred to me that the methods I used on other dogs didn't necessarily apply to border collies. It perturbed me that obedience instructors insisted on food rewards. I knew my dogs. Food wasn't necessary for them and got into some disagreements with instructors whose only way is the food way. But while I think it has it's place, using food is far overdone. I do use it with pups though.

 

The reward for my border collies was getting the job done and done correctly, and I'd better hold up my end of the deal as well.

 

So this is where I began to think almost in another language, getting the dog to understand what I'm asking of him. It required a lot more skill on my part than just shoving food in their mouth. I think this is the key. I try to do this with the mt. dogs as well and it does work to a certain extent.

 

When I first got Pete, years ago, we were still working for our novice obedience title. We were no where ready for the higher levels, or so I thought. We were asked to be part of the obedience demo - the novice portion - for our obedience club for at a fair. We did fine. The open level dog, a golden, hadn't shown up. Now I watched this dog, the golden, in training down at the club. The dog worked for food. Period. I doubt that the golden knew why it was doing what it was doing, except that it got food when it did it. We waited, waited, the crowd gathering to watch the open obedience demo. The person in charge asked me if Pete & I would do it. I told her we've never done open. She said not to worry. The people in attendance wouldn't know a good job from a bad job.

 

To make a long story less long, Pete not only completed the demo, but had we been judged, he would have gotten a score in the high '190's. The only thing he did was try to throw the dumb bell back at me, so I could throw it again. Some body language from me encouraged him not to, to sit in front and finish.

 

I know someone who worked her rough collie on sheep, and I went with her one time to work our dogs. I took Tam along. Tam has had some formal training on him. The person, being a complete control freak, could not get it into her head that sometimes the way to "get it" is to work with an experienced, trained dog. She agreed to go in with Tam. I told her to watch him. He would let her know where she had to be. So, they are by the gate, ready to go in. She tells him to sit while she's opening it. Tam glares at her, but complies. She tells him STAY! and pops a treat into his mouth. Pttooey. He spit it out right back at her and looked at her as though she were a stone looney. She didn't get it. Even after working him, she still didn't get it. Some people just don't deserve border collies.

 

Yep, they are a whole 'nother ballgame.

[Aliki]

Originally posted by BustopherJones:

These rankings are taken from a book called "The Intelligence of Dogs" by Stanley Coren.

 

Brightest Dogs

Understanding of New Commands: Less than 5 repetitions.

Obey First Command: 95% of the time or better.

1 Border Collie

2 Poodle

3 German Shepherd

I've had many dogs growing up (Silky Terriers, Bishon Frises and mixes), but like many mentioned, none that I could claim I wholly owned and raised.

 

But now that I'm mildly grown up, we have a 7-year old German Shepherd and a 2-year old Border Collie. I notice a *vast* difference in their desire to learn.

 

It's not that German Shepherd is stupid-- he just didn't care to learn new tricks past the age of 2. Whatever he knows now, he has known for the past 5 years. The Border Collie, on the other hand, is eager to discover new jobs, new tricks, new lessons. We're constantly surprised that he picks up concepts and ideas so much quicker than our German Shepherd.

[Lunar]

We have a German Shepherd now, and I admit - it was a shock to realize that all the training I'd done with Oreo, really NONE of it applied to Zeeke. Not just different breed, TOTALLY different personality. Nothing like a smart dog to make you feel dumb.

 

Vicki - LOL at the image of the dog spitting out the treat in disgust. I can't imagine any BC wanting treats while herding. My Oreo, on the other hand, she was only "mostly" BC, and she only works for treats. *sigh* She's very eager to please if you have them, and she learns very quickly, but she's a bloody sloth if you don't have a cookie on you.

 

The Shepherd we have - he does everything with ENTHUSIASM. He doesn't need treats, a toy or or promise of play is plenty. But he really has to have incentive of some sort, or he does what he wants to do.

 

I think it would be so neat to work with a true BC.

[border_collie_crazy]

lol Happy spits out treats too, I thought it was hilarious when I was playing with the treat and train with Happy, the treat and train is a machine, which operates on the basis of clicker training, but you can be in a differnt room, and reward your dog without being in the same room, so you can do distance work. now the machines "click" is a beep, which comes from a speaker on the back of the machine, when you make the machine beep, it spits a treat into the dish on the front, works great from training Misty stuff... Happy however is not really treat motivated..she will do anything for whatever she considers her "job" however. now, I was palying around with the treat and train with her, and I was completly stumped, because everytime, I tried rewarding her, by making the machine beep, and spit out a treat, Happy completly bipassed the cookies in the dish walked to the BACK of the machine with her ears perked forward and concintrating on the back of the machine, I finally foger out that, it was not hat she did not know where the treats were, she just wanted to know where the sound came from lol

[Beth G]

Reminds me of my border when I play games or music on my laptop. He walks around and around it trying to figure out where the music is coming from! It reallys is hilarious!!

These guys are concerned with things other dogs aren't and I love to watch them work through mental excercises!!