Sheepscot Border Collies

20/07/2024

Message us to come and play with the puppy!

18/07/2024

Ready to be visited! Melville.

18/07/2024

This is Melville, or "Mel,"on the leash in the garden. Mel is a friendly, smart little boy with big brown eyes and a nicely balanced white blaze on his face. He is just over 10 weeks old, and he is available. If you are interested in visiting Mel, direct message us for
details!

08/07/2024

UPDATE: Whit is off to his new home!
Pictures of Whitman. He is super-outgoing and afraid of nothing! He is a tri-color and has some pink on his nose which will turn more or completely dark as he grows up.
His brother Melville, a well adjusted cute little black and white is still available...message us!

08/07/2024

Pictures of Mel...he is going on ten weeks old and looking for his forever home. He's friendly fairly calm- for a border collie, lol, and a real snuggle bunny. If you would like to visit Mel message us!

01/07/2024

A VERY LATE ENTRY for Spot the Collie has just come in from Dublin Festival - in Dublin, Ohio, USA - where Ed Roo's Luna thinks she has really smashed this. But others may think there is still a little room for improvement.

30/06/2024

30/06/2024

Chaser responding to commands to match three verbs with three nouns, thereby demonstrating combinatorial understanding and the independent meaning of verbs a...

30/06/2024

https://www.facebook.com/reel/494462106283833

29/06/2024

Two Puppies are still here! Message us for info!

22/06/2024

05/06/2024

Here are pics of our litter of 7 puppies, born May 3rd 2024.
Descriptions and call-names by individual photos. They are about 5 weeks old and can be visited toward the end of June. PM us for details!

12/04/2024

Attention all Sheepscot Border Collie owners: One of our pups, now 3 years old, has been diagnosed with Corneal Degeneration. We are reaching out to see if any of our other dogs has had this issue. None of the dogs we have kept with us has had eye problems, so this is all new to us. Thanks.

26/03/2024

One of our pups has been competing and showing and doing VERY well! This is Sweden Nisse whose owner Sarah Buckley is rightfully proud of her!

06/03/2024

Update: Oona has a new home and is now called Millie!
We are hoping for a couple of litters of puppies in the summer, so stay tuned!
We have one beautiful, smart, friendly little girl pup looking for a new home. She was a surprise singleton- only one pup in the litter and we call her Oona. She is 9 weeks old and ready for her own family! Private message us for details

26/02/2024

TODAY OUR BREED EXPERT looks at the issue of fear in Border collies and its potential fallout on their behaviour:

FEAR AND FEAR RELATED ISSUES IN THE BORDER COLLIE

It is often said that collies can be more nervous or fearful as a breed, when they may simply mount more excessive reactions to the sensation of fear than other dogs. Or read threat in certain situations or contexts where another dog might not. It is an inherent part of their generally more sensitive and reactive psychology as a breed.

Fear, too, is so frequently regarded in dogs as a more negative trait, when it is actually the most powerful survival response any animal can have. Because without both an adequate perception of threat, and reaction to it, few of our dogs' ancestors were likely to last long. However what goes wrong in our modern world is that so often our dogs' perception and response to threat is out of proportion to the stimulus causing it, which we ourselves may view as relatively harmless.

DIFFERENT ‘FEAR SETTINGS’ IN INDIVIDUAL DOGS
The best way to view your collie's more personal fear response system is much like the immune system. When it is working normally, it only reacts to real threats as and when they occur, and then calms down into a far quieter and less reactive state the rest of the time. When the immune system is working less well, however, it begins over-reacting to things that are actually quite harmless, including the body's own cells.

How strong - or over-reactive - a fear response any collie has can have some genetic root. But it can also be exacerbated by poorer socialisation when a dog was younger, or inadequate exposure to a wider number of different social and sensory experiences at a stage in the dog's life when he/she was most likely to accept them as more normal or less harmful. Any ongoing source of pain, or environmental stress, can also greatly exacerbate a dog's sense of threat, and make them more reactive to this than they might otherwise be.

BREAKING FREE OF THE ‘MENTAL PRISON’
Sometimes as owners we can collude in making our dogs' fear responses to different things ever stronger, or worse, through continuing to let them avoid what they fear. Like, say, walking down a certain street they don't like, or approaching less familiar dogs and people. In doing so, we are simply allowing our dogs to drag us, as well, into their own little mental prison of fear, rather than doing everything we can to help them break out of it.

I have dealt with so many owners and dogs in this kind of predicament, with the dog's level of sensory or social tolerance getting ever smaller by the day, simply through an ingrained pattern of avoidance when it comes to anything the dog doesn't like or finds more unnerving. When really what the dog needs is to be more progressively and continually exposed to what he fears, in a more controlled way, until the level of threat it presents in his/her mind becomes ever more diminished. Usually this will require more specialist training, in knowing when any dog is ready to make that next step forward in confidence. And there may be very, very many little steps forward like these, in the course of turning any fear in collies around.

People - understandably - may always crave far quicker and easier solutions to problems that emanate from the deepest and most primal parts of a dog's brain, when they sadly don't exist. It is also near impossible for the more highly evolved human social brain, which understands everything about its surrounding world, to put itself into the mind of an animal who has neither of these advantages, and thus has nothing more than instinct to rely on, from one moment to the next, to navigate their way through life’s daily new challenges, or potential threats.

TACKLING FEAR AT THE EARLIEST OPPORTUNITY
Collies can be wildly different in terms of what they may develop a more fearful reaction to. It could be anything from a ceiling fan or food processor to a plastic tarpaulin flapping in the wind to a set of shutters closing down on a shop as you go past. But it is never the original fear stimulus than matters, but how quickly you can act to resolve the fear about something in your dog before it becomes more drastically ingrained. You will never get a better opportunity to turn a fear response in any dog around than just after it first happened.

Fear about louder noises - like fireworks or thunder - becomes more logical once you understand that they can actually cause dogs physical pain, due to their far more acute sense of hearing. And thus if a noise is not only frightening in itself, but also causes you physical pain, then here is one of those exceptions where I feel the first priority is not immediate re-exposure to them, while trying to change the dog’s perception of them, but to give dogs some clear type of sanctuary to go to, to escape this and feel safer. Only thereafter can you then begin a more gradual desensitisation to such noises, through things like special noise DVDs and better positive distraction techniques to offset fear, so that the dog has longer to gain more confidence about them in much slower and more gradual stages.

ACCEPTING FEAR
However frustrating, inconvenient or even illogical a dog’s fear, and its physical fallout on their behaviour, might sometimes be for us as owners, the most important thing is still to accept how very real, and valid, a response it is for the dog concerned. And also accept that it might time some time, and great patience, to more fully resolve. For only your dog can decide the timescale for how quickly, or slowly, they will rebuild confidence in something that previously frightened them.

Meanwhile a far more comprehensive look at fear in Border collies, its fallout on their behaviour, and how you can train dogs to be less fearful about different things, appears in BOOK THREE (green cover) of my BORDER COLLIES: A BREED APART trilogy: BEHAVIOUR - INSIGHTS, ISSUES AND SOLUTIONS.
All text © Carol Price 2024
Carol Price collie books: In the UK from: https://performancedog.co.uk/product-category/books-and-dvds/authors/carol-price/ In the USA from: https://www.dogwise.com/ # and https://www.cleanrun.com/product/border_collies_a_breed_apart_book_1_secrets_of_the_working_mind/index.cfm In Canada from https://www.4mymerles.com/product-category/books/ In Australia from: https://gameondogs.com.au/ And in the Netherlands and Belgium from: https://mediaboek.nl/border-collies-a-breed-apart-book-1.html

24/02/2024

I THINK I’VE GOT THIS GAME WRONG

24/02/2024

really getting into the game...?
having a ball?

I THINK I’VE GOT THIS GAME WRONG

17/02/2024

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/some-dogs-are-exceptionally-gifted-and-talented?rid=064830E5959E41731BC8B38FA38636F2&cmpid=org=ngp::mc=crm-email::src=ngp::cmp=editorial::add=Compass_20240217

Canine Mozarts or Einsteins are likely rare, says a new study of gifted and talented dogs—and scientists want to know why.

15/02/2024

Follow the epic journey of dog domestication and see what science says about dogs’ love.

05/02/2024

Friends of Feral Felines MAINE.

URGENT NEED for BARN HOMES!!! GOT A BARN, GARAGE OR LARGE OUTBUILDING?
PLEASE CALL THE OFFICE - 797-3014 - M-F. 11-3. THANK YOU!

- We know it is winter but we have had many requests for help relocating feral cats. One large colony has lot their home and we can't help them or the other cats that need relocation until we have barns to move them to. So please if you know of anyone or have space in your barn, garage or other secure out building let us know!!
Do you need a working cat(s) to help with a rodent population? Do you run a feed store, warehouse or brewery and need assistance to keep the rodents away, we can help you. Not all cats are excellent mousers but even their presence will aid in the reduction of the population. Your guests will love seeing them.
We need your help in finding safe new homes for these guys please contact the office - 207-797-3014 and more information can be provided.|

31/01/2024

🤩🐾 Today is the day! A short walk till the Vegas sign and then a long day at the Luxor Theatre: tv shot and interview, last rehearsals and then the very first live show of Hurricane and me in Las Vegas! The very first of a dog performing here 🤗 Hurricane is so excited and happy, she’s so very welcome from all here and I’m so grateful to all the crew and the staff, the managers and to all the other incredible artists 🌟🙏🏻🐾 America's Got Talent America’s Got Talent Presents Superstars Live

18/01/2024

Training them on ducks is also a good way to start them herding