Why is it that BC's... Training

Chase pulls on lead, always has, unless we're on the way home from his walk, then he walks "nicely"

The only collies I have ever seen ONlead, are those that are pulling like mad, scrabbling sideways, as the owner tries to keep up, whereas a lady I meet most morning has 6 of them and none of them are ever onlead, and she only has one norty boy (who's an 18 month old rescue) who runs off to meet every dog it see's, but all the others are with her! Mind you, the same can be said for a well brought up gsd, they never leave your side, they're reknown for it!;-)

My BC x is a million times better off lead then on... She can walk nicely on the lead if you tell her to and expect her to listen, but if you don't expect her to listen then she wont, that's why I'm pretty much the only one who can walk her on lead nicely lol

Snap and Cassie's nearly 6. Off lead, no problem. She just doesn't like being on lead!

Two cents well said - I believe this applies to a lot of breeds. good post.

Defo a collie thing xx

Ahh, i feel better now Ripley isnt actually that bad, she has superb heelwork both on and off lead, it really makes no difference, unless the other 2 are with her and then she does tend to get get ahead of herself a little.
Actually the only proble i have with her is if she is free running and see's either someone alone or with a dog and then her recall leaves alot to be desired shall we say!!!
Though if i see people before she does, i can recall her into heel position without a lead and she wont even look over at them unless i release her as she is too tuned in to working.

Yes! I saw one lady with a collie doing exactly that scrabbling sideways thing... I thought poor woman and poor dog! It didn't look a happy time for either of them. Then all of a sudden the next time I saw them, not long after, there they were, dog running ahead off the lead, behaving perfectly and woman looking very relaxed behind. They now have another BC pup!

Oh this had me rolling with laughter wonder if her dog is related to our Brucie babe bearing in mind Pat is over 6 ft and weighs in at 26 stone, when we're out if the dogs are on leads, he'll gladly take Skye,Tessand have Reah....but when it comes to bruce, he'll say ''forget it''
I have seen Pat take bruce out on lead, and Pat comes back looking half the man he is...muttering and sighing
I'm always saying.....and when you took him off what was he like.....PAT: Oh! yes he's good then;-)

Bruce is fairly good on lead with me but it takes a few moments for him to realise....hey I am not charging up the road mate

I guess there is natural selection there too
People expect collies to be good oflead - the ones that arnt get hit by cars and dont get the chance to breed

Ben used to be fab offlead - but I would never trust him 100%, Mia is a different kettle of fish - our agility instrucor comments that she can have amazing focus, eyes locked to yours working great - then no warning she is off

I decided I need them to walk nicely on the lead, and once they are reminded they are working they are amazing on the lead
Again expectations, most collies dont walk well on the lead, they also build up behaviour chains that mean traditional methods of teaching them to walk on the lead (yanking on the lead) dont really work that well, teach them that being right by your side is the rewarding place and thats where they will be
Teach them that on the lead you need to pull pull pull to get where you want - even if you have to sometimes ignore this bugging yanking thing the owner is doing - and they will learn to pull with the same focus and energy they do everything else with

Oh Jessie will walk wonderfully on lead, it's just she need's to know that that's what we're doing, if you let her pull then she will... my aunt and uncle stopped walking her with their dog because they let them do what ever they want and sense she has husky in her it's game over if you do but if I take the lead and it's just me and not someone who just let's their dog(s) do what ever (I still don't get why they would rather have a dog that pull's every where on a flexi, where's the control? It's harder to pull them back on one of those if there's danger or something they're not supposed to be doing) she's fabulous! I just have to say "hey" and she'll be right in perfect heal! Now getting my Storm (the husky) to do that ha! we actually bought a gentle leader for her because she's killing her throat, so hopefully she can learn with that

I would never have mine offlead in built up areas no matter how well trained they were.

Jessie is brilliant as she doesnt get distracted, has no desire to say hello to other people or dogs etc, doesnt chase cats/livestock etc so i tend to leave her off lead alot, even if I put the other 2 on a lead. I could also leave her unattended somewhere and be fairly confident she'll stay put. She's the kind of dog you can have off lead and have no worries about at all, you could even forget she was there.

Jed on the other hand only wants to please himself so out of my 3 dogs, he's the biggest headache off lead. His recall is reliable in as much as I know he'll come back, but normally after me yelling at him half a dozen times (i've tried the nice, positive approach but it falls on deaf ears, only a yell gets his attention) and he has very little interest in anything other than sniffing, scent marking and chasing the odd furry.

Out of the 3 dogs, Jed is also the one who has had the most training, lol!

I sometimes think that the more you concentrate on a dog off lead the more the dog learns your keeping an eye on it were as you really want it to be the other way round. A great way to introduce a puppy/rescue dog who is new to you to off lead is let the dog off in a secure area then run away from the dog. When it catches you praise it then run off again. The dog will quickly decied your very unpredictable (or totally insane) and that he should keep an eye on you.

Adam

Not all BCs are like that! These people have done years of training to get their dogs like that.

yeah, BCdawg, that might be true, but not the case for my Jessie... little to no training required for her, she just doesn't want to be left behind so she has never went far from us, I think she ran off about 2 maybe 3 times in her 5 years and that was all with another dog that runs... so I probably just got super lucky

Ha ha, Adam I might try that