26/08/2024
I’ll be working with this lovely boy soon.
He’s a collie cross ???? Can anyone guess?
The BorderCollie Consultant
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- The BorderCollie Consultant
Border collie specialist behaviourist practising kind, positive behaviour modification & training. Working with collies of all ages with behaviour problems.
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Working via video call or in person in Lincs, Leics, Rutland, Cambs, Notts & West Norfolk. https://form.jotform.com/213343120138038
22/08/2024
New blog post - I’m seeing so many collies whose problem behaviours are caused or exacerbated by pain or discomfort. Read the stories of five collies who were in significant pain but showed very few physical symptoms.
Is your border collie in pain? Not all collies in pain will show physical symptoms such as limping, often the only symptoms are behavioural.
21/08/2024
Three girls all curled up behind my chair. ❤️
17/08/2024
Collie HQ.
Catching up on reports from this week. 🙂
16/08/2024
Anyone have a home and a heart to offer one of these cuties? ❤️
15/08/2024
Picking up your new puppy!
Just a quick one - I've seen a couple of dogs recently who were with their breeder (both farm breeders) until they were over 12 weeks old. This is fine with really good breeders who do a lot of socialisation with their pups, but it REALLY isn't ideal if the breeder doesn't socialise the puppies (which is very common with farm bred collies).
Puppies need as much socialistion as possible before they are 12 weeks old (see this article for more about what socialisation should look like:https://collieconsultant.co.uk/2023/10/23/border-collie-puppy-socialisation/). Anything they experience within this time period, providing they don't find it frightening, is much less likely to cause anxiety later in life.
At around 12 weeks old, the period that is thought to be ideal for socialisation ends, so trying to socialise them to the same extent as you would a puppy under 12 weeks is much more risky and less beneficial over the longer term as socialising them when they are under 12 weeks.
So when picking up a puppy, ask the breeder what socialisation they have been doing with their puppies (at the bare minimum they will ideally have been taking them out in the car and having lots of different people of all ages to visit the pups). If you are concerned that the breeder isn’t giving the puppy enough safe experiences of different people and the outside world (carried of course) try and pick up your puppy before 12 weeks to avoid lasting fear issues that can sometimes develop.
13/08/2024
The very handsome Niko came down from Selby in Yorkshire for an in-person consultation today. He’s very anxious and scared of most people and traffic, and also very prone to frustration. He did so well today considering it was very hot and he had such a long journey. We’ll be working on changing hos emotional reaction to his triggers and achieving a calming “off switch”. 🙂
10/08/2024
The dogs and I took a long walk along the 40 foot drain this afternoon. We walked to new places we’ve never been before which is always interesting. 🙂
Every so often we all stop and settle and the dogs just lie down for a few minutes. This helps to get them used to lying down together calmly in case we meet anyone (which is rare out here!).
07/08/2024
This is Millie and today I drove over to Hucknall to meet her at her home. Millie is a rescue and is very anxious about strangers and unfamiliar dogs, and is especially anxious about visitors - barking and lunging.
We started off walking in a nearby field - I walked and Millie and her owners caught me up. This ensures that there are no head-on greetings which dogs find more difficult.
We then walked together back to Millie’s home. Her owners kept her outside while I sat down, then we laid out a shuffle mat (free work or forage boxes are even better) and her owners had chicken treats to hand.
When she came in, after only a couple of woofs, Millie was able to be calm and quiet for the first time ever with an unfamiliar visitor. Every time she looked at me her owner rewarded her with a treat. Millie and her owners did SO WELL!
We put her back outside before I stood up to leave, and for the first time Millie experienced a stranger visit without high stress and anxiety.
This is a great protocol for helping anxious dogs to cope with visitors. 🙂
05/08/2024
Mr Needy. ❤️ Always has to be close by watching our faces. And breathing hot air on us! 😂
05/08/2024
And earlier today, a follow up with Mowgli and his lovely owner. Mowgli is a cousin of my Ozzy, and he's a gorgeous boy, but has an issue with flies! ❤
05/08/2024
Back to work today and a zoom call with Shrike and his owners! Shrike is a collie x deerhound x greyhound and he was very interested in the proceedings!! I was doing kissy noises to get his attention!! 😂
No wonder he's looking at the crazy woman in disgust!! 😆
04/08/2024
I think Oz enjoyed his day at Revesby Country Fair today! He had lots of really positive encounters with other dogs which was really helpful as he’s going through a bit of a fear period and had decided any dogs bigger than him are a bit scary. Especially black labs for some reason! But by the end of the day he was greeting them really nicely instead of taking a wide route around them. 🙂
Thank you to the very kind man on the What The Dog Wants stand who was really kind to him and gave him lots of treats. ❤️
02/08/2024
It was the girls’ turn for a beach evening today. We took Gael, Esther and Flo to make up for taking only Ozzy earlier in the week. They were so well-behaved, and we had a lovely walk on a really quiet beach. 🏖️
01/08/2024
Ozzy and the white garden chairs which were a huge scary issue that caused a very loud meltdown when he saw them out of the window at 2am this morning. 🙄😂
One of the many joys of dog adolescence!!
31/07/2024
Today Connie and her owners came over from Leicester to meet me at The Stilton Dog Field (amazing place!!). Connie has been struggling with sound sensitivity, and anxiety about traffic and other dogs. We always meet in the field for an hour and then go out into a quiet area of Stilton to work on traffic and other dogs.
Her owners have been keeping her away from close contact with any of her triggers (to prevent her from practising the barking/lunging behaviour). And they’ve been taking her to places where she can experience traffic and other dogs at a distance at which she feels safe. We’ve been using the Look At That pattern game and the 123 game (from Leslie McDivett’d Control Unleashex) and Connie’s owner is fantastic at using these techniques to teach Connie new ways of behaving when she encounters her triggers.
Sound sensitivity is often linked to pain or discomfort so that’s something we’re considering as well.
It’s not going to be quick, but the improvement in Connie every time we meet up is really lovely to see. 😍
31/07/2024
I had a couple of days off and we took Ozzy to the beach for the first time yesterday evening.
He wasn’t keen on the sea although he followed me in as he doesn’t like leaving me.
I think he found it all a little overwhelming and very tiring. It was nice to come home knowing he had a lot of confidence boosting interactions and no negative experiences. This is so important with collies of his age (around 12 months).
We don’t take him with Gael and Flo anywhere where there are people at the moment as they have a tendency to occasionally alarm bark at people and I don’t want him to pick that up. So much of having a multi dog household involves doing a lot of work with the dogs individually to stop them all picking up each other’s bad habits!! But it’s worth it in the long run. 🙂
26/07/2024
I love this photo of Pepper and I on a zoom call! 😂 Pepper is doing so well and has made huge improvements after coming to me fearful of her garden, being anxious about going outside and toileting in the home. But she is still experiencing spikes in arousal around doors (common in collies) and feeding, where she can't cope with her emotions and will jump and grab the owners. We're working on this and she's slowly improving. 🙂
25/07/2024
Great post and graphics!
My Esther is being investigated for pain after she has suddenly become fearful of gunshots. 😩
23/07/2024
Ozzy and the lambs. He knows I’m heading over to them to give them fuss, so he gets there first in an attempt to get me to fuss him instead! 😂
23/07/2024
Ozzy and the lambs. He knows I’m heading over to them to give them fuss, so he gets there in an attempt to get me to fuss him instead! 😂
22/07/2024
Ozzy enjoying his birthday walk. I can’t believe he’s already a year old!!
21/07/2024
Does your collie bark and lunge at the vacuum cleaner?
If so, in this video, using Behavioural Adjustment Training (BAT) by Grisha Stewart, you can see how to help use your dog's natural body language to help them to deal with triggers without having to use treats. I'm not against using trreats - I use them for just abuot everything but it's good to have other options! This training uses what the dog wants - distance from the trigger (in this instance a vacuum cleaner) as the reinforcement. Very interesting!
In this video, Grisha Stewart, originator of BAT (Behaviour Adjustment Training) shows us the technique in action. BAT is a positive training method which ca...
20/07/2024
This would be my Esther!
Flo would have them running all over everywhere so she can keep working them.
She gets bored when they stop. 😂
20/07/2024
What are abnormal repetitive behaviours?
They are defined as behaviours that are “constant, repetitive, and serve no obvious purpose”.
Collies can be prone to repetitive behaviours, with shadow/light fixating/chasing the most common. I’ve also seen collies fixate and focus/chase water and moving sand on the beach. Other abnormal repetitive behaviours include spinning, tail chasing, licking surfaces or body parts, digging or scratching at hard surfaces, pacing and fly snapping. Fly snapping syndrome is a repetitive behaviour in which the dog snaps at the air as though they are snapping at invisible flies.
The video shows some of the different repetitive behaviours that collies can develop. The collies in the video are all dogs that I have worked with apart from one who is a friend’s dog.
Please contact a behaviourist for help if your collie does any of these behaviours as they are very often linked to pain.
Read more about treatment options here: https://collieconsultant.co.uk/2024/07/19/treatment-for-border-collie-repetitive-behaviour/
19/07/2024
Repetitive behaviour - do you have a collie that chases shadows, spins, fly snaps or paces? 13 top tips for reducing your collie's compulsive behaviours.
Border collie repetitive behaviour including shadow chasing, spinning, fly snapping, repetitive licking - find out how to treat it.
19/07/2024
Flo wagging her tail in her sleep. I wonder what she’s dreaming of?!
18/07/2024
I’m seeing this gorgeous boy for an online consultation later today. He’s 50% border collie, 25% deerhound and 25% greyhound. What a gorgeous mix!! 😍
17/07/2024
Do you have questions you would like to ask a collie specialist, or just want some quick advice about how to help your collie in certain contexts?
If so, then I’m offering a few hour long video call slots for a charge of £60 in which you can ask me anything! If you then go on to take up one of my training or behaviour packages, I can knock the £60 off the package price.
I think sometimes it’s good just to know that you’re doing the right thing for your dog or, if not, finding out what else you could try.
We won’t be able to go into depth about any of the emotions behind your dog’s behaviour, which I would do in one of my 2-3 hour consultations, but we can do as much as we can in that one hour.
The slots will be in the first couple of weeks of August and will go quickly so let me know if you’d like to book! 🙂
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Videos
Abnormal repetitive behaviours in collies
What are abnormal repetitive behaviours? They are defined as behaviours that are “constant, repetitive, and serve no obvious purpose”. Collies can be prone to repetitive behaviours, with shadow/light fixating/chasing the most common. I’ve also seen collies fixate and focus/chase water and moving sand on the beach. Other abnormal repetitive behaviours include spinning, tail chasing, licking surfaces or body parts, digging or scratching at hard surfaces, pacing and fly snapping. Fly snapping syndrome is a repetitive behaviour in which the dog snaps at the air as though they are snapping at invisible flies. The video shows some of the different repetitive behaviours that collies can develop. The collies in the video are all dogs that I have worked with apart from one who is a friend’s dog. Please contact a behaviourist for help if your collie does any of these behaviours as they are very often linked to pain. Read more about treatment options here: https://collieconsultant.co.uk/2024/07/19/treatment-for-border-collie-repetitive-behaviour/
Flo
Flo wagging her tail in her sleep. I wonder what she’s dreaming of?!
Just watching
Ozzy is nearly a year old now, but it’s still so important to keep ensuring that adolescent dogs up to 2 years old get plenty of socialisation. That doesn’t mean actually meeting every dog and person. It means sitting quietly where people are a little way away (so that nothing scares them such as shouting screaming teenagers and kids) and where other dogs are ON LEAD. And just letting him watch and do nothing. This is one of the most valuable things you can do with your dog. It’s something I’ve been guilty of neglecting recently so we’re back to it today. 🙂
Another collie diagnosed with pain after needing help for behaviour problems. ☹️
Another collie diagnosed with pain. ☹️ This is Couper, who first came to me because of his fixation on moving sand, either blowing in the wind or that is kicked up as he runs on it. It’s a form of abnormal repetitive behaviour and he was completely unable to focus on anything else - this was a mild version in the video as the sand was wet - he’s much worse when it is dry. The sand fixation started when he was doing agility training in a horse arena, possibly because jumping was hurting him, but obviously he couldn’t tell us. He is also very sound sensitive and very scared of traffic. His owners occasionally noticed a strange “bunny-hopping” gait, and I suspected pain again, but X-rays showed nothing abnormal. Luckily his vet kept investigating and sent him to a pain management clinic where they found that his back was very painful - they are still looking into a diagnosis. He’s now on pain medication and hopefully will soon be on the mend. 🤞🤞🤞 Recent estimates from behaviourists are that over 75% of dogs with severe behaviour problems have some sort of pain or discomfort that is contributing to the condition. It’s so important to understand this and to help your behaviourist (and your dog) by following up health concerns with your dog’s vet.
Pablo
I met online with Pablo’s owners today. A couple of months ago she couldn’t cope with cooking sounds (and a range of other household noises) and would pace and circle the room, barking and whining as in this video. This would continue for huge parts of the day. In the video in comments below she is so much better due to her owners hard work. 🙂
Flies in the sunlight - just one example of movement collies can become drawn towards.
Fly snapping is a repetitive/compulsive behaviour that some collies suffer from. It can start with jumping up to snap at actual flies but then can morph into snapping at the air even though nothing is there. And when you see flies in the sunlight like this, you can see why some border collies, being drawn to movement, may notice them and start to become obsessed. If you see your collie starting to do this, it’s best to limit their exposure to areas where flies are obvious or lit up in the evening light like this. It can also happen with dust showing up in sunlight in the house, and raindrops in torchlight.
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Using our version of Leslie McDevitt’s Look At That (LAT) game to help Ozzy to feel ok about dogs barking as we walked past a house. 🙂
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This is Poppy who previously behaved very aggressively (barking and lunging) to every person and dog that she saw on walks, even from a long distance away. Here she is practising being rewarded for looking at me and the stuffie dog I have next to me, and coping really well! Every time she looks at me she is rewarded with a treat. I don’t usually advise playing with a toy while doing this training, but it’s really helping Poppy to cope in this context. And her owner is doing really well. ❤️ Always remember that sniffing is GREAT for worried dogs - if they want to sniff, let them - it lowers arousal and is a natural mechanism if they are worried. It buys them time to think about and monitor whatever they are worried about.
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My wonderful little Esther’s way of getting over fences. I don’t let my dogs go into sheep fields unless I ask them (although Ozzy has his own ideas - the sheep and I are training him otherwise!!) So Esther is trained to do this so I can easily lift her over. Its also a great idea to teach your dog to go this if you regularly go walking and come to a non-dog-friendly stile or gate,
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This is Connie, a beautiful young collie that I’m seeing for barking and lunging at other dogs and traffic, as well as quite intense frustration bursts when out and about. She also struggles to settle, is fearful of noises and digs/scratches in certain areas of the house. As in so many of my cases, I suspect that pain is an issue and she’s going onto a pain trial to see if there is any improvement. If there is, we know she will need further medical investigations. But for now, her lovely owner sent me this video. Such a cutie! 😍
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I love helping collies but it’s been great helping Maisy the dachshund and her owners with her anxiety about strangers, other dogs and her strong attachment to her owner. This was the first time Maisy had met me and I’d only been there a few minutes. We put out a forage box for her to investigate which instantly put her at ease. Sniffing, licking and eating lowers arousal and she had lots of different types of treats in the box to find. Usually she would bark at strangers in the house for a long time, but we only had 2 or 3 minutes of barking, and then she was busy investigating! Her owners are doing brilliantly at implementing the training and we’re seeing lots of improvement already. 🙂
How should you handle your young dog being spooked for the first few times by a loud bang from a bird scarer ( or any other noise)? Make the noise become a predictor of something good, such as treats or a game. This is soooo important and could affect their reaction over the long term.
I love this interaction between Ozzy and Frank (one of our lambs) today. Both trying to play, but in their own way, and trying to work out what each other was trying to communicate. So lovely. ❤️ And then Mum stepped in to stop things getting out of hand! 😂 Ozzy has very little sheep instinct - he just likes sheep in the way he likes other dogs and people, although he’s learned to stay away from protective mums! 🙂 (Dogs sniffing the ground can often mean that they're a bit uncertain and trying to buy time to assess the situation).
How to prevent a young collie from practising jumping and biting behaviour
Ozzy is prone to jumping and biting behaviour related to frustration and over-excitement. By nipping it in the bud as shown in this video, we can prevent it from becoming a well-practised habit. More detail in this article: https://collieconsultant.co.uk/2024/02/28/border-collie-jumping-and-biting/
This is Pip, whose owners came over to see me back in January, to get advice about Pip's shadow chasing. They have beeen monitoring her progress and giving her an "intensity score each day based on how severe the shadow chasing was that day. Pip's owners have been wonderful, sticking carefully to the training and behaviuor plan, and you can see from the red dotted trend line on the graph that Pip has been improving really quickly! One day last week she even had one day where she didn't spin at all!! Brilliant progress!
Bottle lambs!
As well as my collies I have 21 pet sheep, who are just like dogs - friendly and all have their own individual personalities. This time last year I also looked after three bottle lambs, Saffy, Edina and Patsy, orphans who needed feeding from another farm. This video popped up on my phone from this day last year! ❤️
Lizzie ❤️
Just to show that I don’t only treat collies, this is Lizzie. She used to bark and lunge at every dog she saw, mainly due to frustration. Today we met and walked round a small local town, and saw lots of dogs, but Lizzie only wuffed quietly once and ignored most of them. What a star!!! ❤️
Oh dear…
If anyone has been watching Dogs Behaving Very Badly this evening, please take no notice of the advice given.. Border collies do NOT think hose pipes are snakes!! 😂😂😂 It’s the movement of the water that causes fixation and over arousal. This guy is not well respected by behaviourists and trainers!! Collies become fixated qnd over aroused by anything that moves quickly, such as flowing water, particularly if the jet of water is moving from side to side as well as flowing - two lots of movement!! It’s the same with vehicles: the wheels are moving as well as the vehicle as a whole, and when it’s wet the water on the road moves and the car reflections in the puddles move too - 4 lots of movement!!
Saffy, Edina and Patsy!
This time last year we had three gorgeous lambs living inside the house with us! Little orphan Saffy rescued from a farm who didn’t want her. She was very poorly and took a lot of nursing through it all. And her companions Edina and Patsy!! Saffy was easier to housetrain than a puppy. She was amazing!! Now all living as much loved pets with a friend. ❤️
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