Your collie is noticing things all the time that you’ll never see, hear or smell. Learn to watch them closely and you get two things: a window onto the world around you, and a window onto how your dog is feeling.
After more than 30 years of living with collies, I still learn something on almost every walk just by watching my gang. Collies especially are hugely expressive, endlessly observant thinkers, so they’re brilliant teachers if we pay attention.
Your collie as an early-warning system
Ozzy is usually somewhere in front of me on our walks. Through training, he’s learnt that when he spots something chaseable – deer, rabbits, hares – he looks back at me. If I notice the look, he’ll usually come back for a treat. That glance tells me straight away to pop the other dogs on leads, or make some noise to scare the animal off before they’ve clocked it.
Ozzy also comes back to me when a car is coming, and stands staring at it, so I just need to follow his gaze to see what he has seen. Matilda, our youngster, spotted a squirrel running along the hedge beside us yesterday that I hadn’t seen at all.
Noses tell you even more. On our field, I can tell where the wildlife has been each day by where Flo chooses to sniff. One day it’s under a field shelter in the sheep paddock; the next she ignores that and has her nose jammed down a hole, sniffing, listening and watching for whatever is down there.
And just today, due to a change in the way Matilda was sniffing, I was able to find a dog poo that was camouflaged in leaves – very helpful!
Today gave me a perfect example of how essential reading the dogs around you can be. Matilda slipped through a hedge on one of our usual walks and I couldn’t see her at all. I was worried she’d gone after a rabbit or a hare. But Ozzy was watching her through the hedge at his eye level, and could smell exactly where she was. By following his gaze, I knew where she’d gone and got her back far more quickly than I could have on my own.
It isn’t just dogs. When I’m out with the sheep, I know there’s someone walking a dog nearby because the whole flock turns to stare. If they’re all gazing towards the orchard behind their field, there’s a good chance a badger is in there.
There’s so much going on around us that we’d never know about without a dog to show us.
Watching how your collie is feeling
Over-excited collie play
If you have more than one dog and one is a collie, watch the play on walks. Collies – especially puppies, though some carry it on into adulthood if it’s not addressed – can get so wound up that they jump and mouth at their companion. If the other dog starts running, the collie may grab and hang on to their neck. Unsurprisingly, most dogs really don’t like this.
Today Matilda positioned herself strategically on the path ahead, waiting for Ozzy to pass so she could launch one of her puppy hanging-on attacks. Ozzy, very sensibly, didn’t want to walk past her, and hung back next to me instead. Flo is similar, and hangs back at the end of a walk, until Matilda is engaged in a scatter feed, before coming back to me.
I often hear owners say their older dog has stopped coming back when called, or lags behind on walks. Sometimes the answer is simply that a younger dog is making the walk unpleasant for them.
Reluctance can mean pain
Flo has hip dysplasia. She’s extremely food-motivated and always wants to do what I ask straight away, so when she won’t sit, I take notice. I don’t push it, because I know her hips are hurting and sitting would hurt more.
I see this with lots of the dogs I work with. They’ll happily do all sorts of tricks, but when asked to sit or lie down they hesitate and put it off for as long as they can. Owners understandably keep repeating the cue, without realising the dog may be uncomfortable.
First excitement isn’t the whole story
When Matilda first sees another dog, she wants to go over. That’s the excitement of something new appearing. But if we stay at a distance for a while, she loses interest and doesn’t want to go over at all.
If I’d let her charge over, she’d have found herself suddenly too close to a dog she didn’t really want to be near. If that dog then paid her too much attention, she could have become stressed and defensive, and potentially started a fight. Waiting and watching showed me what she really wanted.
When a foodie dog won’t eat outside
Collies are often very reward-motivated. When one isn’t, it’s worth asking why.
A dog who happily takes treats at home but refuses them outside is very likely to be stressed outside. Unless there’s something hugely exciting around, like deer or cats, it usually isn’t fussiness or an appetite problem.
Outside, that dog’s body is on high alert. Their neurochemistry is telling them a threat could appear at any moment and they need to be ready to run. That state doesn’t support eating: eating and sniffing take attention away from scanning for danger, and you can’t run fast on a full stomach.
That incredible nose
I recently went on a course about training medical assistance dogs – dogs that alert their owners to epileptic seizures, panic attacks or, for diabetics, a hypo coming on. That warning gives the person time to get somewhere safe, eat something, or take action.
The dogs do this by smell. Changes in our body, such as our heart rate, alter the chemistry of our sweat or saliva, and dogs can detect it – it’s absolutely incredible. It’s a reminder of just how much information they’re picking up every time they’re out and about.
Always ask why
Whatever your collie is doing, stop and ask yourself: why are they doing that? What have they noticed? How are they feeling? The answer will teach you about the world around you – and, more importantly, about your dog.