Why are border collies considered harder than other breeds to keep ? Training

I hear people say how much hard work Border Collies are and thats why so many are in rescue

I find that BC's are a pleasure to train because they are so intelligent they pick up everything very easily ?
If my three have any faults then its down to my lack of knowledge in training them in the first place , and not a fault in the dog

so why are border collies considered harder than other breeds to keep ?

dunno, i find them a real pleasure

Border Collies have been in my life 48 years now and I don't find them hard work infact quite the opposite.


Where I think the problems lie are with types of owners, ie if your experienced enough to realise that this is a breed with a brain that has the capability of working things out and solving problems, but needs the mental stimulation plus exercise physically then your on to a winner and Border Collies will be excellent for you.

Often to many people buy them IMO thinking that they are ''one man and his dog'' and need little imput, resulting in a dog that has used its brains and become quick to pick up unwanted habits, then inexperienced owners can not resolve these bad habits, resulting in them saying ''we got rid because he/she was hard work'' or ''it became typical collie and we couldn't do anything with it''

I have had farm breed Border Collies and whilst I will agree that they can have a higher tendency to be ''workie'' they can be a pleasureable animal to have and if managed right and given the correct training they can still be kept in house.......farmers don't have manic workie dogs, they become trained.
The only thing I would say about the workie/farm breed is that they do not serve as a pet and only a pet, and for those buying them if they feel that they can keep it locked in a garden most hours of the day they will soon find they have a number of problems which they can not handle/ manage. But then this will also serve as a mistake with the ''pet'' bred Border Collie too in time.

Border Collie get bored easy and because they have such an active brain they will develope unwanted habits if not stimulated/trained correctly, I have seen and met agressive Border Collies, and the agressiviness has been mainly due to how little stimulation the dog has had, they are certainly not a couch potatoe and IMO this is often the mistake made when people buy them.

Too often people buy them with the thoughts of this is going to be great it will do agility,flyball, be obedient, do everything (like seen on TV) be clever....and they fail the dog as owners as they think the dog becomes all these things automatically simply because it is a Border Collie. The amount of times I have had a rescue and the previous owner has told me that story is untrue.

4 Years ago I worked with my sisters neighbour, they had bought a Border Collie which had turned aggressive and no-one could get near it, but then hardly surprising as it had been kept in the garden 24/7 with nothing to do and eventually went stir crazy, it took ages to gain its trust and ages even to get into the garden, but her nephew has it now and with his dedication that dog is a pleasure to be round, a completely different dog with a purpose to life.

I adore the breed, the puppy we have now only had to be shown twice how to give a paw and she has it perfect now.
A breed quick to learn, with a brain like a sponge soaking up information, keen to please, keen to develope new things, up for exercise, watching, waiting,listening and doing....they will always be a breed for me.
But will everyone be like us who have the experience;-) .....as many people are not the right ''owners'' for the breed thats the thing IMO;-) no use having a Border Collie if a person is lazy naturally and can not be bothered, my only wish would be that people did thier homework before buying one

Probably because they learn the wrong things as quickly as they learn the right things! Once they have learned something it is difficult for a collie to un learn it.

I will now put a flame retardant suit on and say that I don't rate collie intelligence----they are amazingly quick to learn but not so hot on the thinking aspect. If they get stuck somewhere they tend to try one way out only wheras a thinking dog explores other avenues.

I find that if you give a collie a routine it will be very happy, it doesn't try and expand that.

Once something is in their head it is stuck there!

Generallising of course (G)!

BTW---I have had five and still have three and have lots af agility friends with armfulls of them. Not to mention er in the caravan next door with her two.

rune

i also often hear that they require lots of exercise and training...i was chatting to a BC owner recently and explained that i do a good hours walk in the morning with my dog followed by about 20 minutes training each night coupled with more exercise. they also get another walk during the day...i was wondering if that was enough for a BC...i got a look that said 'too right'!

I actually think there is a lot of truth in what you say - judging from my experience with mine. It is routine that they are so quick to work out/pick up on.

They also have very particular "association memory" which can be difficult to work out what the cause of the issue is. For example, last summer Stumpy would quite happily walk down our road in the morning, but if you took her that way in the afternoon, she'd only get so far before she'd want to go home. In the end I realised it was because of her fear of the sound of a golf club being swung. There are never any golfers out on our morning walk, but there were sometimes some in the afternoon walk. So even when she coudn't actually hear them, she was expecting them to be there in the afternoon, but not in the morning!

I think when you get a well balanced BC, they are a joy, but ones with issues can be hard work.

I love my border collies - as long as they are mentally stimulated they are wonderful comanions imo. In fact, as they get older it seems to me that they need their mental stimulation more than their exercise (mine get both of course but the mental stimulation is what keeps them from getting bored).

I'm going to sit on the fence about the intelligence...my bc appears very bright, learns quickly and responds amazingly well - but, (my boyfriend lives on a canal boat) when my bc gets off the boat he doesn't look where he's going and has often ended up getting wet!

Like many people I suppose, I think bc's are very intelligent but perhaps lacking in common sense!;-)

lol, i try hard to have no routine, i find they settlle & accept/ wait better that way.

having never owner a full pedigree border collie I'll give you my 'stereotypical' view of them, what I have heard over time. They are hyper, need a lot of exercise, mentally and physically, but very clever, intelligent, learn quickly (?) and loyal, as well as very hairy, pretty and cuddly ;-)

Their high energy is why I wouldn't rescue one right now-and maybe why most people don't?

I've always said i'd reaaaally like to give a home to 1 one day, maybe to do working trials or something similar with, but know I couldn't give one the exercise and stimulation it might need right now. My 'Kita's' get 2 walks a day, days and holidays away, a lot of fun training around the house, and one does agility once a week - not competition level but they sleep a helluva LOT which suits us all when I'm at work (-they look glad to see me go for a bit of peace!) I don't feel I could have a BC too right now because of their high energy...fingers crossed one day....maybe when I'm a lady of leisure with more land (she dreams)

I can't say that this is the experience I have had with them. Hubby's working collies are all intelligent thinkers, but some more than others of course . They are required to work out of sight when on the Hill and need to be able to work independently of the shepherd (and therefore of the whistle and commands) and I believe that takes some brain power (and probably certain powers of reasoning too).

BCs end up in rescue because they are a working breed that need a job to do. Too many people buy a collie puppy from a farm because it is cute, reasonably cheap and with no questions asked :-( Many homes do not take into account what the dog was bred to do, and that in most instances their pet dog will hold very strong, instinctive, inherent drives. These drives need to be channelled correctly or the dog goes stir crazy and ends up with all kinds of behavioural issues borne out of the frustration of wanting to work.

They are geared up to do that job---but I don't think that equates to 'intelligence' . Gundogs too work out of sight and use the instinct which has been bred into them.

The crunch comes when you take them out of their instinctive bred in behaviour and ask them to think laterally and generalise skills they have learnt.

Herding is not a learnt skill---obeying the whistle is.

will they disobey the whisle to get the right result or do they obey regardless? Guide dogs will disobey a command to cross a road if traffic is coming---IMO a collie would obey without question.

In rescue I have known collies come in who have been quite aggressive and wanted to bite but have sat etc when told to even though they don't want to and would rather bite the handler.

I have a friend with 15 collies who reckons the easiest to train are the thickest ones!

rune

collies i dont think are great thinkers/problem solvers, they are very clever to learn & retain information (good & bad)

they want to learn & want to do. thats the difference, there are some very clever thinking/ problem solving breeds that spendtheir whole life thinking out ways not to do stuff, & their handlers have to out think them, motivate, thinkl out side the box,

colies arent like that. i like the "want"

Having the 4 now obviously I can not speak of the pup yet,

But this definately wouldn't be said of Skye, Bruce & Reah all of them would realise that there was more than one way
And Bruce is a real thinker

Skye is from working stock and she tends to be able to work alone, often I tell her to ''take them home'' (meaning the chickens ) and I don't have to go out there with her;-) so I think I'd have to give her credit there for intelligence as some days she has to seperate them from the cockerals which go in a different house.

But I think you can run a risk of programming them if you don't do things different day by day.

What types of things do you do for mental stimulation for your collies?

Work sheep ;-)

Not as much as I do for my springer (G)!

Train them in basic obedience, tricks etc. Use kongs and bones, have lots of social interactions with dogs and people both out and about and at home. Do odd bits of agility and nose work.

rune

I think their are several reasons they end up in rescue

There is a very big spread in the temprament of them - people could have collies for years but have never come across the one who has a difficult teenage phase
Which I am coming to the conclusion the smarter the collie the more difficult the teenage bit

IMO a decent working collie should be bred to ignore commands if needed - I have seen plenty of times farmers calling the dogs to do something but the dog ignoring because they can see something that the farmer hasnt - like a sheep stuck in a ditch

A collie trained to use its brain to work things out is great fun but can be hard work. With a good work ethic they can be difficult because of how quickly they build up behaviour chains - off the sofa - back on, off for a treat, back on

They can be very reactive to things and very sound sensitive. I think they are vere difficult to socalse as they get older - and very alert to 'different' or 'wrong' things

For average owners who have had easier breeds I would say problems would occur as many people dont really interact much with dogs, they walk only paying attention if the dog does wrong things, they chuck food down, they come home from work and veg infront of the TV
Collies (and other working dogs) need more than that - collies can have problems entertaining themselves and bug for stimulation all the time - eyes only for the ball on a walk, then spending the day in the garden chasing cars along the fence and the evening bringing toys for the owner to chuck

But from what I have seen its mainly teenage collies in rescue, when suddenly the cute smart puppy trys to see what happens when they dont come back when called, when they dont sit, when they start nipping joggers, fixate on shadows
I also think they can have agression issues because they often meet new dogs in the crouch - which looks agressive to other dogs
and they often like to break up dogs who are playing
This means the get attacked by other breeds who dont understand, then they learn to be agressive

I think i'd agree with Rune when she says collies arent great thinkers. Yes, they learn amazingly fast and seem to have a certain kind of intelligence but I wouldnt say it's superior to other breeds. Just yesterday Jed went round the edge of a cattle grid in order to cross it. 2 minutes later we went back across it and he stood the other side dithering about, looking at me to help him over the bars. Now to me, that showed a level of stupidity, not intelligence!

I would say Flynn has far more intelligence than my 2 collies put together. He doesnt pick things up as easily but he seems to be able to solve problems and discover different ways of achieving something. This is more than evident when i'm training him.

I also agree that collies are a stickler for routine and again, like Rune said, once something is in their head, it's stuck there. Jessie in particular is amazing when it comes to this kind of stuff. Once she discovers a rabbit hole, she never forgets it's exact location, even if we dont venture back for months. She'll take herself off, on a mission, to inspect each one.
Plus, if for example, I throw a toy in the water at a certain point, Jessie will expect the exact same thing to happen each time at that location. She'll run off ahead and standing waiting for me. Sometimes I wonder what she is doing and then remember we played a game or something there.

For mental stimulation my collies do a variety of things. Jessie does agility, Jed does obedience but will soon return to agility instead. I'm currently just starting to teach Jed some basic gundog commands like the stop whistle and the turn whistle. Sounds stupid but i'm hoping to go beating with him at some point (if I can get him over his aversion to loud bangs!) All dogs are encouraged to use their nose which they love. Jed will track any kind of game from rabbit and hare to grouse, partridge and pheasant and Jessie has a nose for rabbits, both down holes and tracking.

A dogs nose is it's primary sense organ and I love to watch them tracking stuff at full speed, their ability is amazing so i'm always keen to get a dog using it's nose to solve problems.

Well Kia is mostly BC (no idea what she's crossed with!) and she ain't the brightest button in the box! But she is brilliant when learning tricks and commands. And she will be getting to start agility soon . But she has some traits that she came to us with that we are having to work on. She chased cars/joggers/cyclists but we've managed to stop that and she ignores them now, she still has fazes of obsessively licking cupboards but those are lessening as she gets older. The one thing we can't seem to snap her out of is the fixating on shadows!!

But all these things can be worked on and 'unlearned'. It just takes time and patience/perseverance!

I have found it a real joy to own a collie and even if they can be hard work, the loyalty and affection shown is worth it!!

S xoxox