
This week, I received a call from an individual asking me to help him with a situation where his dog, a border collie, was no longer coming when called.
I want to add this bit of info about myself before I share the issues this person is having with his border collie: I’m no where near a border collie expert, but it’s a breed that I do have an interest in. The knowledge that I have of the breed is simply my own learning of the breed and my daily hands on experience(s) of 4 years, combined with a weekly, rigorous training/exercise that is involved to ensure they don’t become bored, frustrated and feel the need to take you over. I also have 20+ years of dog training experience with a variety of breeds.
As I have mentioned above, the issue he is having with the dog is lack of recall. The dog has developed an obsession with cats and shuts down towards his owner when the dog sees a cat. I know from my dog training courses and personal experiences that behaviors like this are developed early on in puppyhood and possibly encouraged. This dog is 1.5 years old - far from a puppy. The dangers I shared with him involved is the potential the dog could be injured, since the dog leaves for minutes to hours at a time. This is not okay! My next question was is he neutered, and the answer was “No.” There are studies where male dog temperaments were not as affected by having been neutered, but there was some decrease in their desire to run off. However, this isn’t even the problem as to why the dog doesn’t want to return to his owner.
The problem for the dog is what happens when he does return....
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