For awhile(at least 5 years) I researched breeds and breeders he/I was interested in and kind of came up empty for anything close. Becides most being insanely expensive. I’ve done the cheap puppy and having to get them all their shots and fixed route so know that’s considerably expensive too.
After a few weeks checking our humane society we picked out this girl.
I feeling more prepared for puppy stage even though I’ve owned and trained my previous dogs well enough. Also I’ve learned researching working dogs. Similar breeds have always been on my list because I love sport dog activities and other creative tricks.
I don’t know if she’ll be super great because she’s only a couple months old now and just finishing our first day together. But no accidents in the house so least that’s going well. Crate training is going better than previous tries, but still sucks for sure when she whines after trying to do things right in getting her settled first.
She does like to turn from playing properly with toys to trying to nip my hands and arms(attacked my shoe once) and I have battle wounds already so the next few days will be interesting.
Probably will review tips on stopping that though redirecting, firm “no” and trying to avoid things that make it worse for now. She especially likes to jump up on my son and get in his face so that makes me nervous too.
If anyone else has this breed or has done shelter dogs has any tips they’d definitely be appreciated!
First night past 3am… think I am regretting trying this big time. I’ve not been able to sleep. She has needed to go each time, but only wants go outside on the grass. I hoped to also train pads so I wouldn’t always have to go down 3 flights of stairs. She might finally be settled and I am afraid to try to sleep now. Maybe tomorrow with a schedule and feeding times it’ll be better… if not I might admit defeat and I really thought I could do this.
Dunno if it’s just the dog, living situation(being in 3rd floor apartment vs having my own yard) I swear this is the hardest time I’ve had.
I have a male Border Collin.
He is a complicated dog due to his great intelligence, sometimes that works against you because he learns patterns of behavior very quickly for better and worse…the first months were difficult: he bit the ankles of the whole family (it is his instinct to shepherd dog) and it seemed that he would never be a calm dog, always running and biting everything…now he is 3 years old and he is a very calm and affectionate dog but he has certain obsessions and manias that we have not been able to correct despite trying a lot: he chases the wheels of any vehicle including bicycles and that’s why I don’t take him loose for a walk, I only let him loose when I’m in the field… and he never defecates inside the house, he always does it outside. My advice is that you read a lot and learn about how to do it. Educate them so that they do not get frustrated and pick up bad habits.I have 2 friends who also have this type of dog and one of them has it in an apartment, it is a female and is super calm, and does not chase the wheels of cars but the other dog has the same problem as mine and is dedicated to chase cars on the road and the paths and it is something that can be dangerous…they carry it in their DNA, they tend to “herd” anything, even pigeons, chickens, etc…
I have a large backyard where he can run and eat to his heart’s content. Do not leave him alone for many hours or he may become stressed and start licking his paws obsessively. These dogs need to be with their “shepherd” always by their side or for as long as possible. Possibly, it is not a dog to be left alone or it will develop psychological problems.
My advice is to be patient and use a positive reward method to educate him (with snack-type rewards).
I remember that the first year was especially hard, he bit a lot, it seemed like he never got tired or sat still and it was somewhat exasperating… I came to call him a “demon dog” but that is normal for puppies, then as they mature they relax and behave like good obedient dogs if they have been educated fairly well:)Read a lot about this breed, I have had about 8 dogs throughout my life and this breed is by far the one that needs the most attention. Watch videos on how to educate them correctly and know how to channel their intelligence so that they do not become depressed or frustrated and arm yourself of patience.
If you have any questions send me a private message.
I definitely had a moment of too much just trying to do it right by the book on some things I had learned. But kinda realizing I was trying to match this dogs behavior with a calm breed So maybe a moment to grieve not going with something easier. (Aka I seemed to keep getting easier pets, Leopard gecko, cats, fish. I was considering a Pac man frog.)
Plus as you mentioned being alone isn’t good for them so she’s definitely got time to recover from shelter life(no history on her so who knows how long she’s been away from her mom/siblings). I have lots of time to dedicate to this since I am a Caregiver/Stay at home mom.
Smart dogs. They will figure out the bathroom schedule.
The NEED exercise. Pups / dogs act up when they don’t get their energy out. It’s
A big commitment to get outside with them and let them run/play. Potty breaks are not enough.
You absolutely need to give it more than one day before you start the mentality of admit defeat, puppies are like kids they need time to learn and unwind and adapt to changes please practice patience with this dog because if you give them up that quickly it will 100000% leave an emotional scar on that dog
My oldest (border collie mix?)didn’t really chill out till he was 5 or 6 and at 10 he still has a high amount of energy most times; relentlessly fetching.
Middle child healer mix is so chill. I got lucky.
The youngest (Should have border collie in her too) is almost 3, so we are still in that young pup phase.
I would expect to deal with what you experienced last night for the next couple months. At least she likes to potty outside, but they don’t know what pads are yet and won’t use them till shown or forced (can’t hold it anymore).
Couple puppy rules I’ve stuck with:
1hr bladder holding per month of age
10 min walk per month of age.
Don’t overplay or run them long distances until they’re 1 or 2 years old.
Follow dog trainers on social media and pay attention. Look into AK9 Boise. Training collars are great but just positive use the beep/vibration (don’t shock unless necessary) if you can.
Stick with the crate if you’re crate training, they will test you by crying endlessly but everyone I know who’s done it says it was worth it. I couldn’t hold out and also don’t wanna crate. Set up in my house all the time.
Socialize them as much as possible once you have all the shots complete.
It’s been crazy hot here as you know. I don’t take mine out in the sun if it’s above 85. A lot of good swimming spots along the river that I can share with you.
A lot of our parks are dog parks at certain hours.
I am going to hope at this point the first night will be one of the hardest. After being basically up all night(worse than having a newborn). Definitely most of my regrets are puppy demands sinking in vs her doing much bad other than the play nipping which I kind of should have known would happen considering her breed. She’s a good dog and I am lucky for the bit I am dealing with as far as training needs.
She’s acting more like I would a expect for a puppy and napping a ton today so least it’s not just me tired after last night. Time to hydrate and get some energy drink in me today.
I was joking that basically this dog is my personal trainer/I am doing the stair master all day. She was spayed recently so I’ve been carrying her up and down stairs. I have physical issues as part of my disability so being super sore was/is no fun on top of no sleep. But I definitely need the motivation to get out and get more exercise.
Though could do without the 3am run in the sprinklers. But better than being out in the hot. She’s definitely going to love water.
Going to trust the process and try to keep at it. My son liked all hyper active breeds and most were way more vocal than she has been. She knows her needs pretty well so that’s really the only reason she was not able to settle at times. I am letting her sleep on the floor where she wants for now. I can’t have her barking and whining all the time and disturbing neighbors, luckily they’ve never complained about my loud kid and we don’t have a next door neighbor until they finish the remodeling from the last moving out.
Chihuahua border mix we have. Tons of energy and definitely have to keep him stimulated to keep him out of trouble. Wouldn’t trade the little devil for the world though
Oh my. First of all, my wife and I have vowed to never again get a puppy (“Puppies are the worst.”) So you have our sympathies.
We have had several border collies or border collie mixes. As everyone has said, they can be a handful but they are usually very smart (sometimes too smart). Also, as you said, they are “working” dogs and it is really helpful if they have a “job” to do in the household that keeps them occupied at least part of the time.
All of ours have been rescues and have had their own issues and quirks. Our first had learned to unlock and open doors, which was a… challenge given her severe separation anxiety.
The difference a bit of sleep/rest can make. Getting her down was a challenging because she didn’t want to be in the crate. Gave it a couple tries waiting for her to be mostly settled outside it first. But she seems most comfortable on the floor. We did get a nice mat bed to work on being the chill zone with access to her chews and some toys during the day, narrowed down at night. Have to tether her so I know she’s not able to get to unsafe areas, so not like it’s much different.
I am still working on making the crate more positive and training her going in and out at meal times. She took a good couple hour nap before bed in it so it’s not like she can’t get it down soon. I need it to keep her safe when I have stuff to do.
No new battle wounds, just sore arms from carrying her and needing to pull her away from things on leash. She’ll go for a test bite, especially when she’s really into a toy, but seems to be trying to be more gentle/in play than her probably overwhelmed nervous nips the first day.
We had to board our pet dog Dolcie for five days during the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl. We didn’t have electricity to keep the house cool and Dolcie is at least 16 years old.
When we picked her up at the end of her stay, she was very anxious and uneasy. Nothing like usual. She is used to being around her people and taken care of closely.
After a day or so, she returned to her normal loveable self. The trauma of being away, especially with storms passing through is very hard on her.
Give your new fur baby time. She is well worth the effort!
I highly recommend watching Cesar Millan’s tv shows. Not every episode will apply to you, but his guidance for other people has helped our family be a better place for our dogs. You’ll have more of a challenge giving her the necessary exercise in a 3rd-floor apartment, but mental challenges (training and puzzles) will help almost as much as physical exercise. Border Collies are working dogs, so they need a job. You should start training the dog to do ‘tricks’ right away. I’d recommend cheap hotdogs as a training treat at first, cut up in very small pieces. I’d also recommend getting a clicker trainer. The idea with these, is that you first train the dog with the treats to do a few basic tricks: sit, lay, stay. Then after the dog is doing this on command for a treat, you can start clicking right before you give the dog the treat. And like Pavlov’s dog, the dog will start associating the click with the treat, and after a while, the click gives the dog a dopamine hit as much as actually getting a treat (because you don’t actually want to give your dog a whole bunch of treats every single day in addition to the regular dog food).
I wish I could remember how long it took for our puppies to sleep through the night. But honestly, you really want a dog that doesn’t pee in the house. It feels bad now, but it sounds like she’s already house-trained, which is a HUGE bonus!
I don’t know about this breed not liking crates, but we have crate-trained 4 dogs total (our first two died a few years ago, and we got two new dogs shortly after the pandemic) and all four of them love being in the crate. Our friends got a poodle-austrailian shepherd mix, and he loves being in the crate too, so I think she will eventually get accustomed to the crate. You should try making the crate a dark, small place without visual stimulation (cave-like). Personally, I prefer to have the dogs in a different space, so I’d recommend trying the bathroom (assuming y’all don’t usually use the bathroom much during the night) if you don’t have a small room separate from where people move around. Just a corner with a blanket over the outward-facing sides of the crate will probably help. We had a closet at our last house that was perfect for keeping a crate. At our new house, we’ve covered up the crate with blankets when we first moved in and one of our dogs had a hard time settling down.
I was intimidated the way most people have described border collies. Not that she hasn’t shown some wild tendencies at all(like attacking our couch when having a hyper moment). While apartment life may not work for some she even more so wouldn’t have been a good dog to just put in a big backyard and then ignored once kids go back to school next month.
I always thought the shelter rules on older kids preferred was kind of ridiculous but she could really hurt smaller kids even being a small cute puppy. I have supervise close with my son who is almost 9. She mostly sweetly greats people, and at first I was mostly worried she would nip/mouth when excited out of no where. But now that correction and redirection are figured out it’s not as much of a fear. Unless they were to ask when she’s actively playing or first fully awake for the morning and hasn’t had time to play enough.
She is one of the most easily motivated dogs and training is going so well. My list commands/behavior she is working on or has already improved is impressive. I know they are important to eventually get commands for but rewarding just natural calm times where she will settle in a sit or lay down.
She probably has a bit of separation anxiety, but it’s not horrible so I don’t want it to be worse by forcing the crate too much too soon. She sleeps fine in it a couple times a day so I can get stuff done. It’s not in a main area(but close to where we hang out) and it is covered with a blanket. Night it’s quiet and lonely.
Moved her to next to the bed in a space last night just a bit bigger than the crate which her mat bed almost fills, so anytime she got off her bed I took her out and that worked well. She was quiet all night and can go 2-4 hours between potty trips day and night time depending on how long she sleeps in a row. So we’re doing good considering her age. I won’t expect her to actually sleep all night until about 6 months, but she definitely will be pretty close to being able to soon.
With a few days of working on nipping she’s now starting affectionately licking a bit. She laid down to sleep next to me and in my lap/holding her for the first time. So it’s just all new to her and she needs a lot of help figuring out how to act.
Think of training commands like sit, down, stay, roll over not for demonstration to others, but as a way of building report and a leader relationship with the dog, and also as a way of expending mental energy. Making decisions takes energy (for people) and training for dogs is similar. The reason I suggest the clicker is so you don’t have to have high value treats for training for years.
My wife had a different breed (before we got married), but this dog was similar in terms of energy level, and she would take the dog out for a run in the morning and a walk in the afternoon to a place she could let her off leash, and she would still go bonkers when left alone and chew up clothing unless she was crated while my wife was away.
As far as puppy biting goes, one of our newer dogs (~3yrs) was really terrible about biting with those very sharp puppy teeth, and I eventually put a pair of gloves on so it wouldn’t hurt so much when she bit me. Then I would sit down with her and give her petting/scratching attention with until she put her mouth on one of my hands, and then I would go non-responsive until she settled down, and stopped putting her mouth on my hands. Then as soon as I noticed she stopped mouthing, I would give her attention again. I think this took a few weeks for her to respect this boundary pretty much all the time. Now, she will only put her mouth on me when I intentionally wind her up and ‘wrestle’ (which is not something you can do with every dog, especially rescues). If your dog is super needy and desires attention/scratching all the time, you can use this to train some things, like not jumping up on people when she wants attention. I did this similar to the biting training; I try to only give the dogs attention when they’re calm, especially not petting or talking when she’s wound up and jumping on people.
I think training a dog to jump on command can help them avoid it in other situations (but I’m not 100% sure).
I’ve had time to further research breed/similar breeds and get a good amount of the basic commands down. I am starting to believe the “mellow” side I sensed from her is more so the border collie. She’s probably also got some Australian Shepard and I think surprisingly looks a lot like a flat coat retriever(but hopefully smaller) which makes sense being a breed with border collie as a main mix in there.
We upgraded from a small carrier(she maxed the height and is nearing the weight max) to her hopefully long term/until grown “Intermediate” size crate using a divider for now so she isn’t tempted to have an accident. Much more comfortable for her to sleep. She can make it from the time I put her to bed(maybe one additional walk before we are officially to bed as well) until early morning now. Works well throughout the day so she can nap and be out of trouble.
She’s already frisbee obsessed and she’s also able to return it fairly consistently. So definitely going to look into the local group that does all the sports stuff. Though I think they have you wait until near 2 years old to start. Would be awesome if we’re competing in about 3 years total.
One element I hadn’t counted on by probably best for her socialization is all the people and other kids and quite a few dogs since we live in a fairly populated apartment complex. I was mainly thinking about working her into our family. I am not comfortable with her interacting a ton yet because of shots needed and she is still mouthy and will test EVERYONE with how she greats them. She definitely loves all people so will need to work on a release command once we’re a bit better with manners. Mainly needs a calm approach where the default everyone seems to have is scream excitedly “Puppy Puppy!” at her.
For now training calm from a distance I know she can see them well and practicing focusing on me.
Really only has a voice when other dogs are super vocal close to her or if she’s playing with a toy she gets a little kinda growly/talking kind of vocal so been a great apartment dog for that.
With the weather cooling down my next step is to start walking to near by parks. My kid has a wagon that usually hauls him and his stuff. But he might could share the space with her/it’d work as a crate/play pen as needed to keep her out trouble since she picks up anything that fits in her mouth outside
So maybe a moment to grieve not going with something easier. (Aka I seemed to keep getting easier pets, Leopard gecko, cats, fish. I was considering a Pac man frog.)
