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How to Train Your Border Collie

Border Collies are descendants of Landrance Collies, and are mainly raised for guarding cattle. Over the years, Border Collies have been regarded as a very smart and independent breed. Their responsibilities also include serving as a guard dog. They grow up to 21 inches, which makes them medium-sized dogs. Although they are trained to work on farms, they can also be kept as pets and trained to perform household chores. However, it is important to keep them mentally occupied and ensure that they get adequate physical exercise, since they are hard-working dogs.

House Training a Border Collie

You can train your Border Collie to perform household activities and field work. If you have a couple of Border Collie puppies, then you will have to efficiently discipline each little pup through well-planned training sessions. Discipline will strengthen the bond between you and your Border Collie, and will make your dog more obedient. So, following are the different techniques of training a Border Collie that you should study and implement.

Teaching the Basics

If you have just brought a Border Collie pup home, then allow it to get well acquainted with its new home, the environment it will be dwelling in, and its new family. Start inducing a bit of discipline in the little pup by picking up small commands such as “Go Potty”, “No”, “Sit” and “Stay”. However, your pup will take a couple of days to adapt to the new surroundings so you will have to be patient. You can make your pup aware of what you want from it if you frequently use these commands. Thus, your pup will gradually develop a bond with you and will start obeying you. Whenever your pup obeys a command, make sure you praise it so that it knows that it is behaving the right way.

To keep your Border Collie physically active, play with it or take it out for a walk at times. You can start training your pup to do field work once it gets acquainted with its surroundings.

Socializing

To improve your pup’s concentration, get it acquainted with different environments. If you want to prevent your pup from getting distracted by typical, normal noises, while you are training it, visit various surroundings with your pup. Call your pup’s name to make it follow you, so that it feels safe and does not lose track. Every time your pup comes to you by picking up your trail, make sure you praise it.

Leading

Once your Border Collie pup is older, start using a leash whenever you take it out for a walk. Once outside, your dog will most likely lead the way, curious to explore the outside world. You will be able to keep your dog close to you by using a leash. If your dog starts leading, gently jerk the leash to make your dog match your pace. This will teach your dog to walk closer to you.

Teaching to be Attentive

Teaching your Border Collie to be attentive will save you save you from embarrassment. At times, your dog might not listen to your commands if its attention gets diverted. So, call out its name and praise and pet your dog when it obeys.

Advanced Training

Herding

For Border Collies, herding is a natural instinct. Once your dog is one year old, you start training it for herding.The instinct to herd in Border Collies evidences itself differently than in most other herding dogs. Whereas most breeds of herding dogs drive the livestock away from the handler, Border Collies circle the livestock at the far end and bring them back to the handler (known as “gathering” or “fetching”). Additionally, Border Collies tend not to use force (initially) to drive the livestock where they want to but rather, use what is known as “eye”, a sort of threatening stare-down that intimidates the stock into moving in the desired direction. If the non-physical means of moving stock do not work, a Border Collie’s natural instinct is to slowly escalate the encounter into an ever-increasing use of force. Barking, nipping, and eventually gripping (biting) are used to get the point across to the more stubborn sheep. But despite its natural instinct, your dog might take time to master the skill of herding so you will have to be patient.

Teaching Tricks

Tricks are enjoyable and fun. You can make your Border Collie’s training session more entertaining by teach it some tricks. Some of the tricks your pup will easily pick up include:

– Hand Shake
– Kissing Trick
– Roll Over