Beautful border collies. (Border Collie)

Member Name: rawwrjem

Product:	Border Collie
Date:	19/06/09 (31 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: smart, gorgeous.

Disadvantages: None

Border collie?
Border collies originated from Northumberland on the Scottish/English border. As they are descended from old British droving breeds, they are excellent herders and are very agile and energetic sheepdgs. Border collies are highly intelligent and are often used for police work like bomb detection.

Exercise
These dogs have so much energy and will live to serve you and do work, they're working dogs. I wouldn't advise getting one unless you're going to spend a lot of time with him/her. I find that the border collie needs to go for two long walks everyday plus playtime and training within the home. Border collies are very good at agility and obedience and so are often seen in competitions like crufts.

Appearence
The border collie is a medium sized dog, often about 19" tall, and comes in two varieties, one with coarse hair (thick, straight, about 3 inches (7.6 cm.) long), and one with sleek hair (about 1 inch (2.5 cm.) long. You can get them in the traditional black and white colour, tri coloured, red & white, black & gray, yellow, yellow & white, sable, and all black. The ears are usually half perked meaning the top of the ears will flop down which looks lovely on the dog and even more cute on the puppies. The longer haired ones will have a mane and long hair on the body and tail. The eyes are generally dark brown, except in merles where one or more eyes may be blue.

Health problems
The border collie is prone to hip dysplasia, PRA and an eye disease common to Collies known as Collie Eye Anomaly. A lot of them are allergic to fleas and sometimes they can be prone to deafness and epilepsy.

My experiences
I had a border collie for about a year when I was about 15 years old called Dusty. She was a brilliant dog with a lovely tempremant. She had a lot of energy but did try to control herself. I've never heard of a border collie being vicious but at the same time, never say never. My dog was very god and learned extremely quickly the basic things like paper training, sit, down, give me your paw etc. . I had to sell her then and was completely heart broken but I have recently bought another border collie. My daughter found a breeder over the internet in Wales and her and her boyfriend went to Cardiff to fetch her. I paid £100 for our 8 week old puppy and we're still learning about her. She is the traditional black and white colour, long haired. I'm suprised about how quick at learning she is, she only ever wet in my house twice and now does all her business outside. She is now 12 weeks old and gets on brilliantly with my 2 year old son, they drive each other mad and they often run around playing and she chews his toys. She's very cheeky, which I remember about Dusty as well, stealing your socks as you put them on. I've also noticed that she has a thing for feet and will bite your feet when you walk. I've tried a lot to stop her doing it and she's getting better. I don't know if all border collies do this? Overall, she has been a much better breed of dog, the best I have had. She has so much energy though. She's still small yet she can walk ten minutes to the park, run around the park playing fetch for an hour and walk back and still run in the garden playing with my son. I dread to think about how much energy she'll have fully grown. She eats very well and is growing rapidly and has doubled in size in the last 4 weeks, so I don't know how big she's going to get, but if she carries on at this rate, she'll be the size of a pony! aha. She is a very loving dog and will happyily lie on your lap while you give her a fuss, and I think this is common with collies, because my previous collie was the same.

Overall summary of the breed
These are very attractive dogs and I think they are brilliant for household pets as long as they will get a lot of attention and exercise. I've seen these dogs for as little as £80 to £400 for KC registered pups. They are brilliant to train, so smart they learn really really quickly and if they do something wrong, you can't stay angry with them because they'e so beautiful in the face. I would certainly recommend this breed, I wouldn't ever have another dog. If you're getting or have a collie, I must advise that you get them into a routine of bathing and brushing as often as you can because my pup hates being brushed, and I don't mind forcing her now, but it would be a lot harder when she is bigger and older, so get them used to it now. Long haired collies need a lot of grooming daily.

Summary: lovely dogs.