Border Collies-mad but lovable (Border Collie)

Member Name: Mabelthemini

Product:	Border Collie
Date:	15/10/08 (267 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Intelligent,lots of energy

Disadvantages: Intelligent,lots of energy!!

6 months ago our lives were taken over by a black and white bundle of fur. My other half was doing some labouring work on a farm when one night he came home and told me that 2 of the farm dogs had had puppies and the farmer (in a typical ploy to sell them ) had told him that if they didn't go they would be drowned.

Me, being a sucker but not totally drawn in by the farmers ploy, agreed to go and see them, thinking that it would be nice to go see some ickle furry things and on no account would we be getting one.

2 days later off we went and as soon as we got there i got the feeling that this wasnt a nice place,I am not going to go into details but it has been sorted as I shall tell you later. We went into the barn and there they were ,5 tiny scraps of fur in a pile,cuddled up to a baby lamb who was in the same pen. Next to them outside the pen lay a very elderly labrador with what sounded to me like a case of kennel cough.

The puppies were 3 weeks old, one promptly waddled across to me and fell asleep on my trainer, that was it , love at first sight!

On returning home me and the other half had a long discussion regarding the fate of the puppies, a call was made to the rspca who promised to look into it ,the next few days were difficult, i sent OH off to work each day with his packed lunch and food for the mother of the pups who was skin and bone,hoping that the pups wouldnt catch the kennel cough from the Lab as that would have killed them all.

We heard nothing from the rspca for 3 weeks so I phoned them again, they promised to visit . The next week we had a phone call saying the farm was being investigated and the puppies were going to be taken away,it only took one look from the OH and that was it, we decided we would rehome the little pup that had fallen asleep on my shoe.

Rosie as we named her arrived at our house after a journey in a landrover during which she threw up all over OH (weird she's never been carsick since!) The first night she slept in her crate with OH beside her on the sofa ready to take her out to the garden as soon as she whimpered. Sucker...i thought but..3 days later, she was sleeping through most of the night and during the day was going to the door to be let out for a pee!!

The second day we took her to the vets to get checked out, kennel cough was still on my mind but luckily she was fine. Life since then has been a bit of a rollercoaster,she is a lovely dog but as mad as a box of frogs! Border Collies are highly intelligent dogs which means that some training is easy, but it also means that they are very good at training you!

They need a lot of exercise, luckily we live just across from some fields with a river which means she can run around there to her hearts content, she comes back absolutely knackered ,sleeps for an hour and then is back on form again,bouncing around wanting to play.

She is brilliant in the car,we put her in a cage on the back seat so she is safe but she just sits and looks out the window, no whining or travel sickness.

She is better behaved off the lead than on it-on the lead she will pull like a train (we have cured that-see my other review on the Canny Collar!) off it she comes when she is called.

We are having a bit of a problem with her jumping up at the moment but we are working on that, seems that when we get one thing sorted she thinks of another way to annoy us!
All in all i am so glad we got her, she is a lovely dog , i'm not going to pretend it's easy owning a collie but it's worth it!

As a final note, all the puppies were rehomed along with the mother and the elderly dog with kennel cough who survived. i'm still waiting to hear what happens to the farm but i guess sadly probably nothing.

Summary: Great dogs but need training well before they train you