dog problems

[janetmarie]

We have a border collie pup 14 months old. We are training him as a sheep dog and he is showing lots of promise. The problem is that he chases after wheels cars bikes you name it he chases it. he is also aggressive to other dogs and when he decides to run after things he totally ignores us even though we punish him by restraining him to his kennel. Please can anyone help, he is otherwise a lovely dog and lovely natured to our family. thanks Jan

[lankeela]

Unfortunately it is this 'prey drive' which is inbred in collies which makes them so good for the job of sheepdog!

Punishing him is not the answer. You need to revert to lead training and a reliable drop on command before you consider letting him loose where there are vehicles or other dogs.

[kita1]

How are you training him as a sheepdog?

Are you actually training him to sheep, and do you own the sheep?

I am a little puzzled as to how you stop (down) him when you are working him? Or is he deaf to your commands then as well?

Chasing everything is what collies do. I have seen a working farm dog be out 4 hours rounding up year old cows and transporting them via roads to another field - we got back to the farm and the dog immediately started rounding up the chickens in the farmyard!!!

This same dog would round up anything - if the cows were in the milking yard he would go outside the gate and circle non stop until the cows went into the milking parlour.

Some dogs are just bred to work.

[janetmarie]

Thanks for your suggestions. We are training the dog on our own sheep and he is really good at obeying commands during training. He sits when he is told etc.We train him for 15 mins every day and he responds very well. It is just the problem of stopping the chasing with cars etc he is so insistent on doing this that he ignores us. We will stop restraining him for punishment we hate to do this anyway. We have tried the reward method but he still ignores us. Oh well onwards and upwards. Thanks again.