The New Kid

[tx_cowgirl]

Although I haven't really been wanting to take new "students" lately, I decided to take on an 8-month-old Border Collie for a coworker's mother. Misty is a short-coated tricolor, about average size for a female Border Collie. She had been through several previous trainers who had been unsuccessful in even teaching her sit. Well, I do have a soft spot for the Border Collies, and the woman was in and out of the hospital and didn't have time to work with her. At first the plan was to go to her and train, but that option soon eliminated itself when the woman took a turn for the worse and was sent to a doctor out of state. I readily agreed to take in the pup, and her first night was last night.

So...the boys and Mudflap aren't quite sure what to make of the new kid. She's kind of timid to other dogs but very sweet. She's incredibly easily distracted, but my oh my is she SMART! I'm very pleased with her. My first session with her(before she came to my house) we worked on sit and coming to her name, as requested by the owners. The come was the most important due to her attention span. In about 2 tries she would come to me without fail or hesitation. In a few minutes she mastered the sit.
Today, we checked on her sit and coming, which hadn't changed a bit. We worked on down, and in a matter of a minute or two she would lay down without any luring. We worked on stay as well, which took a few tries longer but also went equally well. For my own curiosity, I brought Rusty into the session. No changes--she was still wonderful! In mid-play she would return to me flawlessly and complete her sequence of commands with no problems.

As for her former trainers...I guess someone just wasn't used to a distracted Border Collie. :dogwub:

 

[storm22]

great to hear you could take her on, im surprised that others couldnt train her she sound like a very good dog, just low attention span as you said, that only takes time to sort out, if shes happy she'll pay attention, were these other trainers just fellow dog owners/trainers or profesionals?

 

[tx_cowgirl]

1 professional, one I suppose you could call a "semi-pro"(lol) who trained their Aussie, and the others I have no idea. I have found her downfall...lol. She has a bad habit of dog herding, which is causing problems but can easily be fixed. Her leash training is going a bit slower than the basic obedience commands, but still doing well.

Yesterday, however, went marvelous. I decided to test her out when I took Mud to a local park for distraction work. It was an unusally busy day, but she still did great! Her basic commands were flawless. She walked well, until joggers passed, but by the end she was doing okay. Mudflap had a blast. We went through all of her tricks, plus jumped some benches and found some kind of weird table-like thing to play on. Lol! It was about 2 feet across, 3-4 feet high, and 8-10 feet long. I had Mud run down it, do tricks on it, and all kinds of things. She really enjoyed herself. ^^ Misty, on the other hand, is certainly not a jumper. If she was mine we would have worked on that, but she's not and they have no interest in pursuing agility. Too bad.