Rachel Rodgers
Once management is in place (see “Collie car chasing management and setting up for success“), training can focus on changing emotional responses to traffic and helping dogs to regulate their arousal and learn to practise new behaviours around traffic. We ALWAYS, with every training technique listed here, carry out this training at a distance from … Read more
Pain can cause a wide range of problem behaviours in dogs, and anecdotally, many dogs that I have seen for traffic reactivity behaviours have eventually been diagnosed with pain or discomfort. If a dog is in pain, then it can increase their arousal and make them more susceptible to fear, anxiety, and frustration, so trying … Read more
Lunging, barking, and spinning at passing vehicles (which is what I mean by “car chasing”) is a common issue in border collies, thought to affect 25% of individual collies (Marin et. al., 2026). The behaviour is rarely due to herding tendencies in collies, and much more likely to be related to fear, frustration, anticipation, pain, … Read more
Border collies are consistently over-represented in cases of car chasing, traffic fixation and lunging at moving vehicles (Cooper et al., 2024). Typically, the behaviour is often described as hypervigilance and fixation, followed by barking, lunging, spinning, and—if opportunity allows—chasing. This behaviour presents substantial welfare and safety risks, including injury or death of the dog, risk … Read more
As a behaviourist seeing some of the worst behaviour cases, often those who have been to trainers first who have been unable to help, many of the collies I see are eventually diagnosed as being in pain. When a dog’s behaviour is intense, inconsistent, or occurs without any external cause, we always need to consider … Read more
This muzzle training guide is for dogs that already have an aversion to the muzzle as well as dogs that are completely new to muzzle training. With dogs that are already very fearful of the muzzle, we start training with a cardboard cup, just to get them used to putting their nose inside something, then … Read more
Understanding what’s going on Entire (unneutered) male dog agression often occurs in collies and is characterised by tension, scuffles, or barking at other entire males — particularly during adolescence. This can be worrying and often misunderstood. It’s easy to assume a dog is being “dominant” or “protective,” but in reality, the reasons are far more … Read more
Did you know that…. the dog training industry is unregulated and anyone can call themselves a dog trainer or a behaviourist? Even with no training, or just because they have done a 3-day course from a dodgy organisation that tells them they are now “qualified”. When I decided to run a dog training business, … Read more
If your border collie is anxious about unfamiliar people, and barks and lunges when she meets them, the first step will be to try to limit how often she practises the barking and lunging. This is because: the more a dog practises a behaviour, the more they will continue to practise the behaviour. So helping … Read more
Vet checks for your collie! Very often in online articles or in social media groups, we are advised to get our dog “vet checked”. But often, we aren’t sure what might be wrong. Our dog might seem physically fine, but be behaving in a way that indicates they could be experiencing discomfort, so it’s difficult … Read more