CaseyKay

I never bonded with my oldest girl Maddie (border collie) now 10 years old. She was always very aloof and independant. I did consider rehoming her in the first year, because some of the time I actively disliked her. I started competing with her in obedience and she was pretty good. We have always been like collegues, we work together very well. When she was 18 months I was so lonely for a dog, I got my next border collie KC and I just adored her from day one and still do, she is my heart. I also now have Gael, 14 months border collie who I am besotted with and also training for agility and tracking. Both KC and Gael love to be with me and are both happy cuddly dogs. Right now both are at my feet snoozing. I don't know where Maddie is. Maddie has done well in obedience, agility, tracking, farm work and lately Rally-O. She has been a very good tracking dog in particular. If we are at home and inside, she is outside by herself, she rarely comes inside unless told to. She isn't any trouble. She is very well behaved, extremely obedient and has no bad habits. If she did have annoying destructive habits maybe I would have rehomed her early on, but yeah, she is just kind of "there". What I really don't get is of my 3 current dogs she is the one that everyone else just seems to love. I know now to avoid that kind of independant puppy. I said she spends most of her time alone outside, well yesterday I decided to do some gardening and KC and Gael and my 2 cats were hanging out with me. Realised I hadn't seen Maddie for a while and she had actually gone INside and was sleeping down the far end of the house :D After all this time I still felt rejected. Do I think people should keep dogs they don't bond with? No. There may be another home for them that is perfect.

I grew up on a large sheep farm and we had a ton of dogs. I had two of my own in my teens, a border collie and a NZ Huntaway. They all worked the sheep and cattle and only lived at the house when they were small puppies or they retired. After I finished uni and starting work I married my husband who was then a dairy farm manager, decided I would get a puppy and spent 6 months researching breeds. I mainly wanted a companion but when I made a list (I am a very organised person) of what I wanted my dog to be like, it seemed obvious the border collie was for me. Since we figured it would also be useful if the pup could bring in the 800 cows as well we looked for and found a working lines girl from a huge sheep station. I also thought I would like to go to dog training classes as well but knew nothing about dog sports. I know now what sort of puppy NOT to get, Maddie was extremely full on, very distractable etc. She *hated* being touched or patted let alone cuddled. I took her to puppy school at 10 weeks old. She monstered the other puppies and screamed if I tried to restrain her, bit me if I tried to make her do anything. I never had any fun with her and it was very sad because I had been dogless for several years by then and had been so excited about getting a pup In fact I didn't like her much at all, and decided she would be working dog on the farm with my husband and I would try again with a different puppy. She was only 4 months old. In the meantime while looking for a more suitable companion puppy, I thought I would take her to the local dog club to do domestic class. Again she was awful, I was so embarrassed. I cried on the way home after the first lesson. I could put up with a lot of things except the hideous, almost constant screaming noise she made, always as far as she could get from me on her lead, front legs off the ground and flailing. People gave me evil looks and made rude comments. But I started to find at home she LIKED doing stuff and I started to teach her heaps of things and HEY I wasn't so bad after all, maybe she *would* pay attention to me. But not at class. They had a graduation test where an unfamiliar instructor took you well away from the other dogs. Maddie was a star, so attentive, so good. Nothing to scream at so may as well pay attention to Owner. The lady nodded and said "Very nice! You will go straight into beginning competitive obedience class". Huh? The wild puppy is now ten years old. She worked for 5 years bringing the cows in twice a day before we got out of farming. She has titles in obedience, agility, tracking and lately rally obedience. She has her Canine Good Citizen award. She is the easiest dog to own, so well behaved, so obedient. Can do anything with her, except she still hates physical affection. After all these years we still aren't "friends", that pup I got to be my friend is now 8 and a half years old, a very cute showlines BC, the angelic KC. I adored her unconditionally from day one, but I learnt a lot more from Maddie. If I had my sweet, quiet, easy girl first I doubt I would ever have gotten into dog sports. Now have Gael puppy aged 14 months, bit the bullet and got a working lines BC again, plan for her to do all the things that Maddie has done. Most people think Gael is pretty full on but after Maddie anything would seem easy to me. Unlike Maddie, Gael is very attentive, and can train her anywhere and she only looks to me. She is the cuddliest puppy EVER. So I have my dream puppy ten years on, loves to work and very high drive but my best mate as well.

In my own breed of Border Collies I much prefer the girls and I don't think I would have a boy again. Currently we have three girls, before those had two boys. Most other breeds though I prefer boys. When my old girl goes I will either get another girl BC or a boy of a different breed. Even our two cats are girls. OH is the only boy

A Pyrenean Shepherd puppy was recently introduced into NZ from Sweden by an agility handler. It is pretty cute!

We always have both cats and dogs. Eighteen months ago we had 3 older pets and life was quiet and sedate: 17 year old female cat and two older border collie girls. March 2009 we got a kitten Essie. November 2009 we got a border collie puppy Gael. By then the kitten was a bit bigger and dog savvy. Our two older BC are scared of cats due to previous grumpy older cat and gave this kitten a wide berth although she tried to be friendly. Older cat ignored her like she ignores everyone including us. Border collie puppy knew the breeders cat and our kitten and puppy hit it off straight away, and a year on Essie and Gael are still the best of buddies, play everyday, chase each other around like crazy things at night and then curl up together to sleep. It is very very cute, we have always had both species but these two are the first that do more than ignore each other. The older 3 just look on at the crazy younger two. Essie sometimes forgets the older dogs don't appreciate kitty paws around the neck and friendly headbutts. Everyone co-exists, no fights, just "leave me alone" hissing from older cat if anyone gets too close. We won't be adding any more pets until a couple of the older ones are no longer with us. I always had a self-imposed limit of 4 animals in total, not sure what happened there! In your case since you already have a cat (has he met dogs before? lived with other cats?) I would maybe get the puppy first? Just be careful Puppy doesn't get whacked. You could probably look at it from the point of view: what do you think will upset your current cat the least.

My full on BC puppy was spayed couple of months ago at 12 months. Because our oldest girl is a chronic stitch puller outer this was my main concern with the pup! First few days she was in her crate if unsupervised (at night) and other than that she had either me or my husband with her. For ten days she stayed on the property, the vet said okay to do "short onlead walks" but really, why bother? I kept her separate from the other dogs as they play a lot. She is always pretty quiet in the house so she didn't get too bored or annoying. She was never interested in her stitches so I didn't have to cone head her. It was in other words much easier than I had imagined!

My well socialised young BC girl went through this about 8 months and it lasted a month or so (can't quite remember but she came on heat right after), we called it the "woo-woos". She had been a very easy puppy up to then, she is now 12 months and well back into happy confident puppy: "everyone is JUST SO NICE and I loves them". We got woo-woo with people and woo-woo with strange dogs and a pile of wood covered by a tarp caused woo-woo meltdown time on one memorable walk. I have another 2 older BC girls and neither of them did this!

We live in NZ. My 2 older BC girls have CGC. Maddie has Gold level, she was a competitive obedience dog when she did it, so not too hard for her. KC has Bronze level. Silver we attempted once but it has an out of sight stay and she wasn't having a bar of that no matter how much we practiced, she follwoed me as soon as I went out of sight. KC is a therapy dog and visits a rest home one afternoon every 3 weeks. She is perfect at it, a very sweet and gentle natured girl who loves people and pats. She is rock steady with shaky hands and they all adore her and I really get a lot out of it too. Their previous therapy dog was a lab and he was not interested in the guys, just in hoovering the carpet and they had to give the guys treats to get his attention (yes he was certified). KC would probably live there if I let her. Warm, quiet and someone to pat you all day long! Also lots of the guys used to be farmers and they tell me stories about their own collies. My youngest BC girl Gael is only just 12 months so I can put her through it from now. I doubt she would pass on being walked around on lead by a friendly stranger as she is very obsessed with me and rarely behaves for anyone else!

I like to have 2 or 3 dogs. My 2 boys died within 6 months of each other aged 17 and 13 and that was really hard. I had a "dog break" and got Maddie 2 years after they died. I had never had a singleton dog before (grew up on a sheepfarm with a big pack of dogs) and found her really hard going and despite not wanted to get 2 close in age, got KC 18 months later. Now Maddie is 10 and KC is 8 and we have just got a puppy. We compete in dog sports and ideally I will wait to get another puppy until Gael is 4 years old as I think that is a good gap, unless by some tragedy we end up losing both the older two. With 2 very settled, very well-behaved older sisters Gael has been a breeze to raise. I would never get a puppy until the older dog/s were trained the way I wanted them and we had no issues. That way the older dog can help the puppy learn the rules while not teaching it any bad habits!

My middle girl KC, a border collie, was blind in one eye from when she was a small puppy. She is now 8 years old. She does startle quite easily and she has never been good with dogs she doesn't know approaching as she can lose sight of them easily. I also have to be careful if I take her out where there are lots of dogs because they can easily run into her and she won't notice until it is too late. When we got her we had an 18 months old BC as well. She became quite reliant on the older dog. Dogs that get to know her seem to figure out there is a problem and they are careful with her, it is very interesting to see. On walks she likes to keep me on her good side (she doesn't tend to go far from me) and so I have to watch out that she doesn't walk into stuff!

Yes my oldest girl is very independant, serious and aloof. She drives me crazy but we work very well together, we just aren't friends. My younger two are very friendly, loyal and super cuddly, that is the type of personality that suits me.

My 3 BC girls are all small, (around 14-16kg), they are all extremely handler focussed, don't care about other dogs, other people etc. Bond very closely to their primary cargiver/handler. My 7 year old niece loves to train my dogs and they listen to her (she does a great imitation of her Auntie!). In fact she reckons since I have 3 dogs and she has none it would be only fair to give one to her...None of the girls are barky, at home they are all quiet/chilled out even 12 months puppy. I got my first BC, a 3 year old rescue boy, when I was 13 and we adored each other You sometimes see a little bit older BCs looking for homes, maybe didn't cut it as show dogs etc. You wouldn't have to go through crazy puppyhood and she can start agility training almost straight away which is another bonus.

I have three border collie girls and I did not pick any of them. The older two I did meet the day I got them (picked them up) so I guess if I really didn't like them I coudl have said no (well the middle girl I would have said no as she was a bit shy but took Husband with me and he said soooo cute yesyes) but my youngest Gael came on a plane to me I figure the breeder knows the pups far better than I would, I just tell them what i am looking for and that I want a girl. Well with Gael I did say I wanted a black tri girl with classical markings and got Gael who is blue/white and non-traditional markings and perfect for me in every way...

I grew up on a large sheep farm with a large pack of working sheepdogs but I always wanted a GSD and then when I read Sheila Hockens books about her choc lab guide dog Emma I was going to have one of them too, they were both going to be boys. Now I have 3 female Border collies as pets/sports dogs even though I aalways thought of them as "working dogs" not something you would have as a companion. Can't imagine having another breed.

I impressed a couple walking on the beach by telling them their Pharoah Hounds were beautiful. I'm pretty good with dog breeds, when I was a kid I had a "dog-spotting" book you could tick the breeds off. But I got it wrong a couple of weeks ago, THOUGHT I saw a black and tan finnish lapphund...don't know how many if any are in NZ, I've certainly never seen one before. And I said "oh wow is that a Finnish Lapphund" and she was offended and said it was a "SIBORD" (a siberian husky cross border collie). Oops.

Our middle border collie girl comes from a registered breeder that I found out later on is pretty much a puppy farm. Actually i can't say I didn't know something was up when I went to look at the puppy. They had the puppy at the house all bathed and fluffy and no sign of the parents. They did go get Mum from a shed elsewhere on the property (they drove there) when I asked and she was dirty and terribly shy and the puppy was also shy (and unfortunately mega cute). I would have walked away except soft-hearted husband and even worse my Mum had come along to look at puppies and in the end I was overruled. Puppy is 8 years old now, was from day one and still is the light of my life, BUT also has several health issues including epilepsy and she is almost blind now from retinal disease. She has always been very timid in new situations despite being well socialised. I told the breeders she had what the vet called "Idiopathic epilepsy", ie possibly hereditary, and they still repeated her mating 6 months later. She is somewhat inbred but I don't know if that has caused the problems. I love her of course, I adore her, but she has broken my heart several times. She has also cost me a fortune in vet bills.

I have "click your way to rally obedience" and I would recommend it, it groups the signs together into moves you would teach. I don't think you would need to clicker train to use it. My dogs and I have competed in agility, obedience and tracking and I now have my retired girl and my 10 months pup doing rally, we all love it

Gael my 10 months border collie puppy loves to do forward rolls. She puts her head on the ground and rolls over like a little kid. She does it a lot when playing with other dogs, my two are used to it now but you watch dogs playing with her for the first time and you can see them thinking:

Thank you very much for that response Angelsun and yes in both cases it was just the once and they came back to attention straight away. Both rounds ended up on qualifying marks. Everytime I watch rally I think wow that must be hard to judge! So much going on even at one station sometimes haha. I don't train any of my 3 dogs on a lead so that is something I find hard and not just me, you see leads over noses, under legs etc. There is a lot of room for handler error I think, it is NOT a very very easy sport like some obedience handlers think it is. So I am happy my oldest dog is onto Advanced so there will less of those stupid handler errors. Once Puppy gets out of Novice I might try that with 8 years old quite shy middle dog, the hardest one to train who was never suitable for obedience (scary judge following, scary dogs beside her in the stays etc) or agility (too many barking dogs around the ring and judges popping up unexpectantly) or tracking ("I know where you are Mum I don't care if that person is lost"). She has her CGC. In rally I think it is more just you and the dog and I never have a clue where the judge is. I think it is great it is held here in New Zealand at shows for other disciplines, I have also been to one at a joint ag/ob show and the next one is at an agility trial. Gives lots of people the opportunity to see what it is and watch the happy dogs working.

Hey Angelsun, I have a rally O question for you. What do you consider to be a "loud command" (with a 3 point penalty)? I have been docked twice for this lately. First time in the "down and walk around" my older BC girl spotted some seagulls doing a low swoop and froze halfway up and stared at them. I said her name and she didn't respond so I said "LEAVE IT" loudly. So I got docked for that which is fine, I understand that. The next time my puppy was distracted by people in the weave twice and I said her name in a normal voice and then her name louder, but not angrily or harshly and got docked for that. Which is also fine, that is up to the judge on the day but I'm just wondering where you would draw the line on "loud command" so I know roughly for next time We discussed this at club and came to the conclusion any sort of voice raised louder than normal speaking voice? Would you agree in general? Or is this an open to interpretation by the judge type rule? In my 9 months BC puppy first official Novice rally she got 98 and third place of 25 dogs and even beat my "good dog" (umm, due to the seagull incident) so I was very very pleased with her she is usually a happy and attentive worker and rally is perfect for her. Next one in two weeks and first official advanced in my province in 2 months for my old girl. It is going to become an NZKC title soon I think. Yay! Lots of obedience shows are now holding rally in conjunction which is great.

Swoons....that is one seriously cute puppy. I could not have a puppy so cute, it would get away with far too much, destroying stuff and creating mayhem while I sat there and went: "Gosh. You are REAAAALLLLLLLY cute. Nawwwwww".

I work days 9am to 5pm, husbands works evenings 3pm to 11pm, so our 3 border collies have human company most of the time. I walk them for an hour before work and after work on nights we don't have training. Husband takes them out and about with him on errands and on a walk or playtime in the day time. Although probably quite anti-social it is a great situation for the dogs.

"Little puppy" time goes by so fast, with my oldest girl Maddie she was the first puppy I raised myself as an adult and it seemed I spent more time worrying about her, whether I was messing her up, and if she was on track with puppy milestones etc, than I did just ENJOYING HER. Also she was an only puppy, I think that makes it harder. Aside from the fact she was extremely destructive: diggy, bitey etc and found me about as interesting as well, nothing. If I tried to restrain her from doing destructive things she screamed the place down and tried to bite me. I have always wondered if I would have enjoyed her a lot more if I had some grown up doggy "help". She hit about 10 months old and suddenly turned into the most obedient, "geeky" dog you could imagine. She is still very independant if she isn't doing some kind of "work", she always looks horrified if I try and cuddle her. KC I got when Maddie was still a puppy really so they spent most of the day playing and KC was a very quiet and sweet-natured easy puppy anyway. Maddie and KC have done a lot of the hard work with Gael. I was amazed how tolerant they were of puppy hi-jinks, but definately letting her know when she was biting too hard etc. As she has gotten older and bigger they have taught her more and more of the rules. Gael is an angel, from working line breeding and very active when out and about and very focussed and bright when being trained, but probably the biggest snuggly-wuggly cuddler I have ever come across in BCs. Very endearing...I like cuddles too so we are well suited

My border collie Gael is 9 months old so heading out of puppy hood. It amazes me this is an age when lots of puppies are given away. All my hard work with her is paying off but she is still quite puppy like, cute and playful! Actually for a BC puppy she has always been very good, her breeders did an awesome job with her. She was toilet trained when I got her at 9 weeks, would run to the door so we let her out. At 9 months she is a beautiful girl, no chewing no jumping, take her off lead and she keeps an eye on me and comes back when called. I have her first Rally O competition in 2 weeks time. My husband thinks she has been such an easy puppy becuse we have our beautifully behaved, very obedient 2 older BC girls ages 8 and 10 who have helped bring her up. I have learnt how to raise a puppy from these two! I have never enjoyed a puppy so much as I have this girl. 10 weeks: 9 months:

I am so going to go on a Kaikoura road trip in August now...might have to track down mysterious local "some guy". Kaikoura only has a small population