Max
Little Max today - fearful of a lot of things, including strangers in his home (me) but he rocked the Look At That exercise (Leslie Leslie McDevitt’s pattern game), and so did his owner. 😃 This is a great exercise for helping give dogs that bark and lunge a new way of dealing with their triggers. It gives them a way of communicating with their owner, helps to change the dog’s emotional reaction to the trigger from negative to positive and breaks the stare and stiffen behaviour that causes the aggression to escalate.
Max has a long way to go but it’s a great start.
Betsy
Betsy’s owners have been having issues with her jumping and nipping, which was mainly due to frustration and a lack of confidence when out and about. She hasn’t had the chance to meet any other dogs yet (apart from her housemate Brad), so I took Gael to an enclosed dog field to meet her. Gael is perfect for socialising puppies - she is calm, not overly interested in the puppy and does dog things that Betsy can copy. By the end, Betsy was running up to Gael and then doing zoomies!! 😂 We kept Betsy on a long line in case she became really confident and started bugging her, but she didn’t. She was so happy! 🙂
I've just booked in this beautiful little pup for a consultation on Saturday - she's just started shadow chasing, which is quite common this time of year when the clocks change and we have the lights on for longer in the evening.
If you have a collie that has started chasing shadows, get in touch asap - the sooner you get help, the more easily the shadow chasing is resolved.
Can't wait to meet this little beauty this weekend! 😍
Pairing thunder with something fun
Preventing fear of thunder.
Today we got caught in a storm while walking. Ozzy is still young and hasn’t experienced many storms, certainly not outside where thunder is louder, and there are also pressure changes and potentially scent changes too. So I managed to catch this video of me pairing thunder with a fun treat throwing session. The noises I was making were blocking out some of the sound of the thunder while he could still experience it at a lower level. This ensures that he heard the thunder but associated it with something good. I didn’t catch it on video quite at the start, but the first sounds of thunder initiated the treat throwing, so it became the predictor of something good. 🙂
As well as loving collies, I also adore sheep.
I have 14 pet sheep and adopted Lily and Maisy as bottle lambs this year. We were just having lamb cuddles in the sun! 🌞
Flo and Ozzy playing 🙂
It’s been a tricky couple of weeks with a nasty sheep disease called bluetongue spreading across the country via midges. We have 14 pet sheep, all with their own amazing personalities, and I’d be devastated to lose any of them. But Flo and Ozzy playing always cheers me up! I never thought Flo would get on so well with another dog, but when they play like this it makes me happy! 🙂
This time 4 years ago, my wonderful Esther produced these four beautiful puppies! I can’t believe they are now 4 years old! Happy birthday Flo, Fen, Frankie & Morag. ❤️
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.
