Understanding Border Collies by Barbara Sykes

Author:Barbara Sykes [Sykes, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781847974020
Publisher: Crowood
Published: 2012-05-01T05:00:00+00:00

If you are gaining your puppy’s love and respect it will want to follow you wherever you go; after all, you are its new pack leader and its security, but pack leaders demand privacy. The devotion of the mother it has just left behind had its boundaries and there would be times when she would have chastised her brood for following her, enforcing some of her own boundary rules. It is a wonderful feeling when this little four-legged friend follows you in and out of the garden and around the house. But this is also a little four-legged ‘think machine’ and in no time at all you will find it barging along in front of you with absolutely no regard for you or your feelings. If your youngster follows you from kitchen to sitting room make it sit and wait a moment and then invite it to follow you. If it shows no wish to follow you, preferring to play with a ball or chew a bone, call it to you and make it aware that you require its attention before it can continue with its own pursuits. Compare the education of a young dog to the education of a five-year old child. For example, it is not acceptable for children to push in front of adults when going through doors, nor to change channels on television, stay out late or interrupt conversations without first seeking permission. Each family has its own rules of acceptability and these must be adhered to by youngsters until such time that the boundaries are well established and liberties may be taken without any breakdown in authority. It is not necessary or practical to make a puppy stand and wait each time it goes through a door or wishes to follow you, but it is necessary to make sure that bad manners are not being displayed and that rules are not being ignored.

Your dog should want to follow you and be with you, but it should not presume it can do so. It must get used to the idea that permission may not always be granted. It is not difficult to insist that a dog stays behind and does not follow you when you have no choice, for example when going to work or shopping. It is difficult to remember to make a dog wait for a few seconds before going in the garden, out for a walk or just entering another room, as this is optional and therefore not always adhered to. A dog asked to wait for a few seconds before being given permission by hierarchy to enter the living room will know the living room belongs to hierarchy. A dog who lives in the kitchen should have its own ‘kennel’ (bed, basket, blanket, and so on) and should occasionally be made to sit there quietly while hierarchy makes a meal, reads a paper or has a drink. The dog can have a bone or a ball and can amuse itself in its own home but must remain there until given permission to re-enter hierarchy’s home.

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