Dear Dr. Abbie: We just adopted a beautiful Border Collie. She is so smart, but she has been tearing up our house when we are at work. We love her, but we can’t keep buying a new couch every week. Sign us, Wit’s end
Dear Wit’s end: You have entered a whole new realm by aligning your life with that of a Border Collie’s. Hopefully, your new dog’s behavior does not include accidents in the house while you are gone, because that may signal another problem – separation anxiety. Congratulations, you have adopted one of the smartest, but to anthropomorphize, most ADD dogs available.
Border Collie’s are the most intelligent dogs out there, but there is a price for this. They need so much mental and physical stimulation just to keep them entertained. They are bred to run all day, interrupted only by a brief dip in the water trough for a drink.
Just like the person with ADD needs to have five things going on at once just to feel awake, and although to most people it seems like they are totally disorganized and usually only get a few of the things they start finished, Border Collies are capable of taking in extraordinary amounts of info at once. But when something engages that ADD mind, the ADD person can concentrate for hours, while ignoring all the other things they really are supposed to do like pay bills and pick the kids up from school on time. A Border Collie can take its seemingly endless fountain of energy and focus it into moving a big bunch of sheep from one place to another, following the hand signals and whistles of a distant master. Watching them is a thing of true beauty. But when bored, they can really get into chewing up an entire couch in a matter of hours. It’s all about channeling the energy to something positive. The dog will be calm, briefly, IF he’s exhausted from running ten miles or herding sheep all day.
Border Collies are also fantastic at less practical, but really fun sports like Flyball, agility and obedience. You might as well just join one of those marathon training groups where you meet on the weekends for a long run and then run a few times during the week as well. Heck, you might want to rent the dog out to the running club, so he can do a long run with a new person every night of the week! The point is that this dog will change your life. You will become more fit, learn to love the sunrise, sunset and most other times of day as well. Because you will be outside running with your dog at those times. You will learn to see the beauty of sheep! Who knew?
There is a farm in Vacaville that will give your dog a herding aptitude test to see if he has potential to be a herding dog. The website is herding4ewe.com.
If your new friend has separation anxiety, read next week’s column for more info on that. Write to me at deardocabbie@altimiravet.com.
I’d love to hear from you. – Dr. Abbie
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