CaseyKay

Having the Brittany pup out and about is interesting. "Is she a sort of spaniel" (as she is black and white also get "is she a baby german shorthair pointer but her ears looks weird?"). If I say she is a "Brittany" people say "Brittany Spaniel, yes", so have to explain she looks a bit like a spaniel with long legs but is actually a small, French, Hunt/Point/ Retrieve breed. We did run into a lady from Belgium last weekend who said very confidentally "that is a beautiful little Epagneul Breton"

We have 4: my 3 border collies (12 years, 10 years, 2 years) and OH's Brittany pup (3 months). Plus one cat. I would like to have 2 cats as I have always had 2 and I love cats, but I had this rule that we have FOUR animals in total maximum, when the old cat died it was down to 4 for a whole year :) before we got the puppy. The older dogs are quite healthy and think we will have them both for a couple of years yet at least. When they are gone I will get that 2nd kitty.

We have four, still not sure how that happened! It was hard going from 2 to 3 as it was two seniors and adding a puppy but 3 is a good number for me. Now have the 2 BC seniors who love their daily walks and lazing around (12 year old with arthritis now does puppy walks with OH in the daytime and the Brittany pup... and 10 year old girl walks with me am and pm so we now have "pairs")and my agility/tracking BC 2.5 years old that I spend a lot of one on one time training. The Brittany pup is OH's to work and I just get to enjoy her. The 2 youngsters can create havoc when together, noisy wrestling mainly. Could NOT have 4 young dogs that would do my head in They are all girls too! I think when the seniors go we will wait until Scout and Gael are much older before adding any more young dogs, Madd was 10 and KC 8 when we got Gael. Generally the only difficult time was the 18 months we only had Madd after the 2 previous senior dogs died 6 months apart. I'm definatley not a one dog person!

In my agility class there is a boxer called "Bryan" (maybe from Family Guy, I haven't asked) and at the end of our street we have a very lovely and very large Rottie named "Harold".

Toy: CKCS Small: Working Cocker Spaniel Medium: Border Collie Large: Working Malinois Giant: Irish Wolfhound I like medium-sized herding and gundog types, probably would not in reality ever own very small or very large breeds.

She already has OH convinced after a week! :) That's okay we can have our dogs in "pairs". OH argument is "you can do agility/tracking/obedience with my Brittany but I can't take your BC hunting!". Truly versatile then :)

I grew up with border collies and OH grew up with border collies and currently have the three BC girls. We recently got OH's Brittany pup. He has wanted one for a very long time but it is really interesting having a breed quite different from your usual. In a few years when Gael who is 2.5 years and the pup are grown up and sensible and the seniors are gone I will get a BC pup again. Just so many things I love about the breed.

Maddie loves seagulls :) No other birds will do it has to be seagulls. You can make her the happiest dog on the planet by taking her to the beach. My other two BCs are both obsessed with pine cones. KC likes to pounce on them and bite them and then angrily tell them off for being so spikey and hurting her mouth. Once she has it properly subdued and chewed down she will carry it for the rest of the walk. I'm pretty sure Gael only likes them because KC finds them so fascinating but she carries them around on walks as well. I can make everyone happy by going on a walk through a pine plantation that leads onto the beach.

My BC girl pack, all named by DH: Maddie, aka Maddison, our farm at the time was on East Maddison's road. KC, named by my husband who also got spotlights for his 4wd the same day brand "KC hilites" Gael, as both her parents were scottish imports. OH's gundog puppy named by me: Scout, from the book "to kill a mockingbird", but also for scouting ahead etc, as a hunting dog does. My favourite name and reason for the name is my cat Essie. I named her Esther after my passed-away Great-Auntie Esther. When I was was doing some genealogy research several years ago I asked Mum about Esther and she said "Oh well you know she was a crazy cat lady, she had TONS of cats". Wow I thought, tons?? Like 50? So how many cats did this crazy cat lady have? THREE anyway I hope she is chuffed I named my kitty in her memory :)

The issue I have with it (I don't like the idea of highly inbred dogs either of course) is you are using an unhealthy parent dog which surely resposible breeders should not do, regardless if the resulting puppies won't be MM and thus disabled themselves. And they deliberately bred this blind/deaf dog into existance just to get certain coloured puppies.

Sadly yes, we are Mum and Dad and my husband refers to the 3 of them collectively as "the children" (eg "Good morning children, who is going out with Mum to agility today and who is staying with Dad") but I call them "the girls". We also have Grandma and a few close dog owning friends who are "Auntie". We also have a cat but the same rules don't apply to her for some reason!

1. Saluki 2. Whippet 3. Pharoah Hound 4. Azawakh 5. Scottish Deerhound Have none of these, and doubt I ever will (oh maybe a whippet). People like me whose ideal dog to live with and work with is border collies should probably just look longingly at beautiful sighthounds

Always had both cats and dogs in my own home and growing up. Have had a couple of short dogless periods in my life but never been without a cat or two. I have 3 border collies and many people seem surprised to hear I am also a cat lover. Currently just have the one kitty, Essie. Would hate to be without purring in my life Nothing like a warm lap cat in winter either. I like in your face cuddly cats so looking at getting something like a Burmese. I can understand if people don't like or don't want to live with certain animals, I can never understand why people have pets like rabbits, birds, fish...

Judging by the new pups I see at agility and coming to classes at our club the most popular colour in Border Collies is anything but black and white! Lots of ee red, choc and merles.

KC my heart dog 10 weeks old: KC recently 9 years old:

Gael as a puppy 8 weeks old: Gael recently 2 years old:

My dog (working border collie girl) broke her front leg aged 2 years, had a plate put in and removed ?? months later (can't remember it was 10 years ago) she went on to do reasonably successfully at agility aged 3 years to 7 years but at 7 years old started limping after her runs and looking uncomfortable jumping so I retired her. She is now nearly 12 and still pretty fit, no limping, she did obedience and tracking for another 2 years after retiring from agility. But since this is a dog that isn't yours already, I would say no.

My middle border collie girl/soul mate is called KC, and I am always reminding the vet nurses etc when I ring up it is "Casey...with a K...and a C..." then I would get her meds with "Kacey" on them for a while

Mine stay in small kennels when we go overseas. I actually worry about them a lot less and know they are safe. If someone was looking after them and having to walk them etc I would worry about them. They are working border collies so need a fair amount of exercise couple of times a day and don't feel it is fair to have someone else to look after them, and I would have to split them up unless someone stayed at our place and did not have their own dog. In which case I don't want dog-inexperienced people messing with my dogs! In the kennels they have each other in their own villa with grassed run they share, big paddocks for exercise and a swimming hole. I also board our one cat. The per day boarding bill is $90 for all 4 of them so needless to say we don't take hugely long holidays. If we go away within NZ it is probably for agility or tracking so they come as well

When I first met my husband he thought dogs belonged outside and that cats shouldn't sleep on the bed with the people poor fella.

Yep I agree, now I just need to get my third!! Then again, I don't want one being left out as an odd number usually means that, so maybe I need 4 ;) Lots of people say to me 3 is not a good number and they prefer to have either 2 or 4 otherwise someone is being left out. But two of mine are seniors and one is my current competition dog, so the seniors generally stay home together and I take Gael to training or shows. I think Gael rather likes being only dog at these times. Otherwise I take all 3 for walks, outings etc. Looking at getting a pup this time next year so might have 4 for a while.

My lovely girls, there is something nice about a pack of 3

3 border collie girls: 11 years, 9 years, 2 years.

I am more the other way around. I got puppy#1 and puppy#2 18 months apart (for agility and obedience). Puppy#2 turned out to have health issues (epilepsy and eye problems) and never competed, so I just competed with the first dog (in most sports though!), she retired from injury aged 8 years so one day realised I had 2 dogs aged 7 and 9 years and no one to compete with and I enjoyed competing, so got puppy#3 now 2 years old and competing in agility, has her CDX, starts tracking comps this summer. It seems such a waste to spend all day at an agility show to run one dog, 3 maybe 4 runs maximum. I don't REALLY want than 3 dogs though (or do I...) and retired-dogs #1 and #2 are still fit and bound to go on for years yet. I wish I had your problem :) So my connundrum: get another one to compete with but have 4 dogs for who knows how many years?? (I do now have a license for 4 dogs umm, just in case). Change from day to day with: "yes you should just get that puppy"! to "4 border collies, what are you crazy"?? I need a realisation!

I do agility/tracking/rally with my young BC girl Gael(just turned 2 years). She also got her CDX earlier this year. I have a retired 11 years old BC girl, she has titles in obedience/agility/tracking/rally. My middle BC girl KC (9.5 years) is a pet and a pet therapy dog but got her rally novice title this year since she came along to shows and thought might as well. When we were dairy farming up until Maddie was 5 and KC 4, I used them both for getting 1200 cows in per milking but we didn't go to school for cow herding, cows are pretty easy to move So generally I do a lot of sports but with only one dog at a time! Having 2 retired/pet dogs is nice they are no trouble just need walking and company really and I can take Gael out to shows or training and the seniors have company at home. KC also does pet therapy one afternoon every 3 weeks.