Border Collies! Where and why? Discussions

It is isn't it. I think he is of the opinion that there are very few decent working merles. You certainly don't see them very often working on farms (up here at least) or on the trials field.

Funny Rooks mum, Jess came from Ashleigh's brother she was bred on a frm just south of Glasgow , unfortunately thats all the info i can give you at the mo

Here is another person that as always loved the Border Collie all my life, Im suprise that my first words were not Border collie
My first dog was a border collie cross blue heeler, after him I got my first pedigree from a reg breeder, I still have her now, she is now 13 years old, I also have an 9 year old border collie from a reg breeder, and I breed them, I just love this breed so much. in 2009 I got a breeding bitch from another reg breeder who does showing and obedince, and next week I get another bc whitch will be my stud dog!!!!
The border colllie is worlds most Intelligent dog breed, and sometimes too much for there own good
I show and do obedience trialing with mine

Thankyou, I think he's stunning but I am a little biased! He was incredibly easy to train and running him is really exciting, he can be brilliant or awful. If I was looking for another pup I would go straight to Laura again. Love the pics of your guys too, stunning dogs.

I didn't actually go looking for a Border Collie when I got Boomer, I actually wanted a GSD, but my ex's sister was expecting and said she wouldn't visit with the baby if we had a GSD?!!! I was looking for a young rescue that I could do agility with and saw an advert for a 6 month old BC, he was really nervous when I went to see him and I couldn't leave him there, he would have been pts at the end of the week! He did a bit of agility, but preferred obedience.
Boomer now 15.5 years old.


Then I was looking for another BC, a puppy this time to do agility with, I didn't know there was a difference between working and show lines, so got a show line puppy. He did breed showing as a puppy. He's done agility, slow but steady, he won me out of Elementary, was in 3 Starters finals. He's competed in a couple of HTM freestyle competitions. He's a registered Pets As Therapy dog. And he's just taken up flyball at 12.5 years old, after 3 training sessions he did his first comp last weekend and was a good boy.
Bertie


Next I wanted a working bred, ISDS registered pup, so found an advert on Working Sheepdog News website. Teagan was bred by Borderstorm on here. She won me out of Starters agility by beating the 2nd placed dog by 3 seconds.
Teagan now 9.5 years old


I'd seen a blue/white and I really liked the colour, so when my friend told me of a litter born from agility lines with a blue/white girl I had to have her. She has the most amazing temperament, she's a registered Pets As Therapy dog. She has come 2nd twice at grade 3 agility, but so far the win has illluded her, she was in the DINAS grade 3 final 2009 and she's qualified for the KC Novice Cup agility at Crufts this year. She gave me my lovely Star last April. She started flyball last year and had 2 starters comps this year, at the 1st won her team won the division.
Skye, 5 years old.


I bred my 1st litter last year and kept the lilac girl. I've admired Ghost for a while, so wanted to use a Ghost son, I had hoped to use jfk's Kyp, but she had him castrated! I used Breac. Star has quite a bit of eye and is easily distracted, so I've been working on alot of attention exercises, this week I took her in the indoor school where we train agility, not to do agility, just to sit and watch me while other dogs were working, I'm in no rush to start agility with her, I think it's going to take her a while!
Star, nearly 10 months old (with her mum).

Born into Border Collies.
When I was born my parents had Gyp a working Border Collie, bred from my grans dogs. She was a lovely bitch with super working qualities.
My own Border Collie was bought me at 10 as a pup from a market I used to have her at my grans farm everyday Im sure she had lived before in a previous life;-) she was nearly 18 when I had to have her PTS
Then we took on Susie a working stock bitch which my uncle had her in the end as a worker for his sheep, as much as it broke my heart I could see she was happiest working everyday, she lived till she was 18
Since they have come either as rescues via word of mouth, except Skye who we made a conscious decision to buy....then it all went bellyup when we found it was a puppyfarm but I've never regretted having her.;-) she's defo working dog and wouldn't do as souly a pet, Im sure she would go stir crazy if she had nothing to herd

Im looking here now though and all I can see is 4 Border Collies crashed out on the sofa

Borders are my type of dog, they go everywhere with me we travel miles and they are up for anything;-)

The eldest one I have had was Meg who god love her stayed with me till she was 23yrs

Gorgeous dogs everyone! I really like this thread.

I am not currently a Border collie owner. I have a BC mix (with retriever, we believe). I never thought I'd ever own a BC or a BC mix. My family had, for a short time (about 6 months) a young BC (I was only about 6 or 7 at this time). She had been given to my Aunt, who didn't want a dog and definitely didn't want a BC, and she had tied her up to a dog house for a month. Ignored her. Gave her food and water and that was about it. Needless to say Bandit (then Oreo) was a mess.

My mother took her away from that but my family wasn't much better of a match for an unsocialized, neurotic BC. After 6 months of craziness and my parents going through some pretty rough times with her, she was given to a friend who lived in the country and wanted a dog. Bandit lived out her life herding goats and racing around many acres of land. It was the perfect life for her.

So between that and stupidly reading Jon Katz's books, I thought I would never ever get a BC. And when I adopted a "lab/chow" mix who turned out to be "BC/retriever" complete with herding instincts and a lot of the BC traits, I started to rethink it.

Then I did some more research, met some BCs, read a lot more on the dogs and talked to owners about what their lives are like with their BCs. And now I've decided that they're the breed for me. My next dog (hopefully in another year or two!) will be a BC from a rescue.

I'm currently involved in agility and would like to do that with my dogs. But I'm also into the idea of flyball, dock dogs, frisbee, or anything else the dog might find to be a lot of fun. I'm 35, have a partner who's a bit older than me, we're a childless couple, and so we devote our lives to our dog(s). Dahlia gets a lot of exercise and would get more if she wanted it. And she gets a lot of attention as well.

Here are my collie dogs Alfie, the very fluffy one is from a show breeder, he's registered with the KC, not that it's ever done anything! Haha. He loves agility, we did a bit of obedience but he didn't enjoy it as much. We're on an agility display team, which I'm really proud of as a lot of people don't believe KC registered dogs are good for anything.

The smaller dog is my little Jess, she's 14 and some form of collie cross. She's an RSPCA dog, we got her when she was 6, and she's such a sweet dog.

I love border collies, I love their empathy, they just seem to understand your emotions. If someone is sad, Alfie will nibble their feet as it makes them laugh, he only does this when they are upset.

I got my first BC (or WSD) in 2009. I had (and still do ) have GSD's, I started competing in agility and did very well with sadie (for a shep anyway).
After i lost yoda (gsd) very young i decided i just could face another shepherd and as i am very competitive it was quite a natural decision to find a collie.

Ripley came from a working farm, and the wife competed her mum lightly in agility, i also saw her work sheep which was fantastic.
She goes back to some decent isds lines on her sires side but dam was unreg.
I heard about them through a friend of a friend.


It was one of the best decisions i ever made I absolutely love the breed now and will never ever be without one.

Maverick (Mighty Mav (ISDS 30764 ) came in 2010 and is almost 10 months old now, he is isds lines through and through. (i cant link it but he is searchable on anadune)
Again, it was a friend that told me about this litter and it was love at first site.


I compete in agility with ripley and mav has just started his agility training

Thanks for telling us about your collies, it sounds as though you get a lot of pleasure out of them

Thanks.

Your dogs are all lovely, esp like Teagan Boomer looks fantastic for his age, and what a great age!

I love the bit in bold - that is soooo true And Meg ... wow! 23 years - what a special girl x

After a not so good start, it sounds like Bandit had the best home It is great you have decided the BC breed is for you and that you are already started planning what to do to keep your dog happy and stimulated

Aww your dogs are lovely. Sorry to hear that some people think that KC reg collies are not good at anything :? You should be very proud to have the obvious bond with Alfie to be able to perform at such a level at agility

I have no doubt Bandit had a wonderful life. My mother was still in contact with the woman for the first couple years (she was a coworker, but then left for another job) and she kept talking about how awesome Bandit was and what great fun she had herding her goats. She lost contact with the woman eventually but I have no doubt Bandit lived a very fulfilling life. I'm glad my mother rescued her from my Aunt, but it was too bad my folks had no clue what to do with her. Had I been older (high school age) I would have been able to do so much more with her. I loved doing things with the dog we eventually got, but she never wanted to do more than trot around the neighborhood. I can't imagine what my life would have been like in high school if I could have had a Bandit in my life!

And yep...I think what I do with my life, the exercise I get, the amount of time I spend working with my current dog (who is very BC in personality, but with a touch more mellowness), and the things I want to do with a dog in the future would be very conducive to having a BC. And if I still live in this area, I know which rescue I'm going to go through even.

Lovely collies What lines does Maverick go back to? What is it about collies you now prefer to the shepherds (if you do "prefer" iyswim?).

I have always found my collies to be much "easier" dogs than the GSDs - in that, they are much less guardy and reactive, and easier to socialise and to take just about anywhere. I love GSDs and BCs equally though, and both will always have a place with me.

I was laughing with Skilaki (who used to be on here) a while ago when we went for a walk with our respective GSDs and my collies - talking about the differences between the breeds. Whenever we saw other people/dogs etc in the distance we both called our shepherds back to us (they are both pretty well trained) but I could leave my collies loose, as I knew they would just ignore other people and other dogs - whereas Yogi and Bel would be more interested in checking out the people/dogs and whether they were any sort of threat

I have a BC who is 15. She was a rescue from a local kennels (14 yrs ago). I didn't choose a Collie, I was desperate for a dog and my dad said it was a Border Collie or nothing, so we got a Border Collie.
I did fall in love with a gorgeous Collie at the local Dogs Trust (who I now know was show bred, he was a huge fluffy black and white dog with floppy ears ) but they wouldn't let us have him as we were first time owners.
Went to the other kennels and saw a small skinny orange thing with a Collie face jumping at us, so we took her for a walk and she kept rolling on her back for a belly rub, she came home after her week in kennels was up.
She was very thin and ill but soon came round.
She is/was dog aggressive on a lead but when she is off lead she is fine, she isn't keen on other bitches,small dogs or small blonde haired boys.
We tried agility but she didn't take to it, she has always been food motivated and done pretty much everything I have asked her to do but wasn't really a 'trick' type of girl, she just did as she was told had a treat and went on her merry way.
She will chase sheep and we have to be careful with her around livestock, although she has always been fine around my horses and she has accompanied me on rides with the horses, she spent most of her youth at the horse fields running around the fields and obsessively hunting rabbits/rats.
She is a lovely girl but I decided I wouldn't have another Border Collie, although now I have the Dally and the Springer she is the only one who does as she is told and has any concentration whilst training.

Mavs g sire is J woods sweep (england team member) and further back is int sup ch wisp (who also produced ob ch gesveisha falcoln flyer)
Dam's side goes back to J wilsons int sup ch spot.

And ive just realised he is slightly related to tassles siren

I just love the collies as they are so versatile, they go so well with gsds, i love the quirky things they do and how (ripley especially) will do something as many times as you ask until we get it right! and i also love how they allow me to be competitive!
I actually find the collies more work than the gsd as although sadie is guardy she is also very clingy so wont really go far. whereas ripley is over friendly (esp for a collie) to people and dogs and wants a fuss of of every person she see's.
Mav is not as friendly as ripley but still goes for a nosy to people(and barks ) he is not hugely confident and wont approach people when alone, but this is being worked on...he barks a big loud bark then runs back to my feet...definately getting better as he gets older though.

I couldnt say i prefer one to the other, and i will probably never be without at least one of each breed, i just love them for different reasons...and the fact they go so well together

My neighbours have a rescue one, which is adorable. She was only one when they got her. They are good doggy guardians - she is walked constantly on and off, all day and he takes her to work with him. I'm not a fan of working dogs as pets as I grew up in the country (my late uncle was a talented poacher and always had a working retriever - it was engrained in us it was a working dog, not a pet and TBH they never seemed very good pets compared to our bullies!)

But my neighbour's dog has made me see that some of these can be fine as pets - if they are constantly exercised and given things to occupy their minds.

All sounds very well planned and thought out Good luck and I hope you have your new family member before too long.