I’d like some advice regarding my recent family addition; a two-year-old neutered male Border Collie called Morph, who’s been living with us for seven-and-a-half weeks. I know very little of his history as he was a stray.
We discovered he was microchipped, but when we spoke to the people he was registered with they told us they had lost him four months previously, had seen him walked by someone else and he looked so happy they didn’t want him back, which sounded a bit suspicious to me.
I decided to give him a trial and he hit it off with my Border Collie bitch, Ebony. It has become evident, however, that he has received very little training or stimulation of any sort. He pretty much has every problem an under-stimulated collie could have. He chases everything (including my cats), he stalks cars and sometimes he tries to catch them, throwing himself at them. Ebony also had this problem when we first bought her and I managed to stop it, but she was younger and a lot easier to hold on to than Morph!
He also takes food from the worktops and barks constantly when he’s in the car. I’ve tried a humane collar that shoots out air when he barks. It was fantastic at first, but then he discovered that it was just as fun to bark at the air coming out of the collar. When he’s not barking he’s licking the windows or grating his teeth on them. I don’t know whether this is because car journeys are stressful for him or whether it’s because he wants to chase the cars.
When excited, Morph tends to use us as springboards. He also fixes his sight on various things (quite often light bulbs) and just stares at them and jumps straight up at them. He also chases his tail; in fact he’s chewed the end of it off.
I love him to pieces and I know that he hasn’t been with us very long, but I’m wondering if I’ve taken on a dog that’s too much and if he would be better off with someone who had more time to devote directly to him. I’m self-employed and the dogs are with me as much as is possible. They also have a three-hour (minimum) walk each day.
I know he’ll be the most fantastic dog once he’s trained. I just want what’s best for him. I’d rather rehome him sooner or later if I have to, but directly, and not via a rescue centre. Is there any advice you can give me with his multitude of problems?
Amy Britcher, by email
Hi Amy,
ReplyDeleteI'm Claire and I am owned by two border collie crosses, both rescue dogs. I have overcome quite a few of the challenges you are currently experiencing with my own dogs, or with some of the many foster dogs I have helped re-home!
I think that your awareness of his issues and your commitment to him in asking for help is a very positive step forwards. I have every confidence that you could round off those unruly edges a little and chalk up another 'happily ever after' for a dog who has obviously not had an ideal start.
The good news is that I think you already have plenty of time to devote to him, you perhaps just need to look at how you use the time to improve him.
If you look at it from his point of view for a moment:
You allow him to chase the cats
You allow him to chase and lunge at cars
You allow him to steal from worktops
You allow him to bark constantly in the car
You allow him to jump up when excited
So, in his mind he doesnt actually know you dont want him to do all this. In addition to this I wonder if you are re-inforcing (rewarding him) unintentionally for doing the behaviours by doing things such as shouting at him, fussing him, pushing him down/away, driving him to walks etc ... (all common responses to these behaviours) Have a think about this and you may be able to identify times when you are doing this with him.
The light staring and tail chasing I would say are more complex behaviours as in my view they are indicative of mental distress. As with the behaviours above, think about how you may be responding to these behaviours and whether you are re-inforcing them.
As you are doing a 3hr daily walk, you have a whole 3 hours to play with to work on this :)
As an example you could break this up into :
40 min walk for Ebony
40 min session for Morph (some suggestions - split into 4 x 8-10min sessions with short breaks)
- working on new learning (e.g. teach him to bark / shush on cue so you can make him shut up in the car!)
- re-inforce this learning in the car correctly
(at the moment he barks - you keep driving to park - his reward is a lovely huge walk) ... what you want is (he's quiet - you drive - he gets a reward of the walk) so what you need to do is stop rewarding (walk) for doing unwanted behaviour (bark).
10 min break for both dogs
40 min walk for E
40 min session for M (again broken into 10min sessions)
When you leave them alone while you work with / walk the other I would suggest preparing Kongs for them to keep busy with (not forgetting to take this food off their daily allowance).
The other main thing which affects BC's is food. Think about what you are feeding him and if it is commercial dog food it is very likely that he would benefit hugely from some improved nutrition.
I know that I have not answered everything or provided much in the way of practical advice but I hope it has given you a taster of what can be done, how you could achieve it in the time you have already allocated to the dogs and allowed you to think more positively about the situation.
Because this is such a HUGE topic to cover - For more support and advice you may like to consider joining the forum (web address below). You can be sure there are a few more crazy collie friends for Morph to be found there and reading through what has helped/is helping them may help you too.