Rachel Rodgers
I have been asked several times recently “When should I spay my border collie bitch”? This is a big question and a big decision, and there’s some very divided opinions. You may have heard different opinions from friends, family, strangers on walks, vets, trainers and behaviourists, not to mention the various and often contradictory information … Read more
One very good way of stopping your border collie barking is to use a no-attention discriminative stimulus. This can help dogs who bark and whine for attention and become very frustrated or anxious when their behaviour doesn’t result in the anticipated reward. Their anticipated reward could be being thrown a toy, being stroked, or even … Read more
Border collies are fantastic dogs, and can make great companions, but there are often very difficult behaviours to navigate from puppyhood through adolescence and on to early adulthood, often as late as 3 years old. They can become aroused by different things to other breeds, mostly focused around movement. Border collie jumping and biting behaviour … Read more
Ozzy is now 25 weeks old, or 5.5. months. I’ve seen no signs of adolescence yet and he is basically my dream dog. Is this the calm before the storm?!! Biting This has practically stopped now. He occasionally starts but is quickly stopped with an “ah ah” followed by standing still for a few seconds … Read more
Border collies and Christmas: One of the busiest times of year for me is after Christmas, and a lot of this is due to aggression incidents that happened over the Christmas period. There are many things that can cause stress and anxiety for your collie over Christmas, so it’s important to be aware of these … Read more
Border collie puppy diary – 18 weeks. Ozzy is now 18 weeks old – where has the time gone?! Puppy biting His play/frustration biting is now much improved and we’ve been working hard to settle his tummy further, as he’s had very sloppy poos for a couple of weeks now so we’ve given probiotics, wormed … Read more
Ozzy border collie puppy diary- 16 weeks! Socialisation: So for the last few days I’ve been concentrating on getting him out and about to see traffic, dogs, children and people. We’ve been to more built up areas and walked in parks so he’s experienced emergency services sirens, children screaming and playing and traffic going slowly … Read more
Daphne’s owners contacted me back in August 2022. Daphne was only 5 months old at the time, and had recently started chasing shadows. She had very quickly worsened to chasing shadows for up to 90% of the time that she was awake. She would also repetitively run up and down the garden without focusing on … Read more
ENRICHMENT ACTIVITIES: Some ideas for border collie enrichment – these activites often form a key part of behaviour plans so having lots of choice is great. If you know of any others that aren’t on here, please share them below and I’ll add them to the list: Lickimat or kong stuffed with something very high … Read more
The secret of border collie puppy toilet training is to take your puppy out whenever he needs to go to the toilet. For an 8-12 week old puppy, this will be: after waking after eating after every play session every half an hour while they are awake every time they stop doing something suddenly and … Read more