{"id":2635,"date":"2009-04-13T10:40:36","date_gmt":"2009-04-13T18:40:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/angrypirate.com\/wordpress\/?p=2635"},"modified":"2009-04-13T10:40:36","modified_gmt":"2009-04-13T18:40:36","slug":"doggy-chronicles-advice-from-alan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alannarisse.com\/blog\/doggy-chronicles-advice-from-alan\/","title":{"rendered":"Doggy Chronicles – Advice from Alan"},"content":{"rendered":"

My friends Alan and Andi have a similar breed and they know our pain. It has actually helped keep me sane, knowing someone else I know has been through this. Here’s a nice email I got from Alan<\/a> today.<\/p>\n

Hey Alanna
\nBorder Collies are *great* dogs! But they are really challenging. We
\nunwittingly brought one home from the shelter. It’s sorta like having
\nan idiot savant.<\/p>\n

The four things a happy border collie needs in order:
\n1) Exercise
\n2) Structure
\n3) Food
\n4) Affection<\/p>\n

Toss-up on 1 vs. 2 and 3 vs. 4 but you get the idea.<\/p>\n

They need serious exercise. That will likely be the answer to half your
\nchallenges. They care more about exercise than food. When Ocho was a
\nyear old we ran her an hour in the morning and an hour again at 5. Wear
\nher the hell out and you’ll probably skip the bratty part.<\/p>\n

Border Collies can also have a sort of extended adolescence. So while
\nother dogs will lose a lot of drive at 1 or 2 — border collies are
\noften still nutzo at age 4 (although less puppyish and chewy etc). The
\nupshot here is – don’t wait for her to grow out of stuff or you’ll be
\nsad. Also keep her dog-socialized (a mistake we made) – because they
\ncan get focused on working and then get dog-bitey as they get older.<\/p>\n

They also need work. Jobs vary — gathering and chasing rocks,
\nshuffling cats — it won’t be hard to find something because there are
\nso eager and obvious. But, it’s better to guide them to stuff you can
\nlive with – otherwise they’ll write their own job description and it
\nwon’t have your interests in mind. With the lab part you can probably
\nget her fixated on a frisbee at which point it will be easy to wear her
\nout.<\/p>\n

Structure is good. Be confident, orderly, and alpha. This is the best
\nkind of love you can give them.<\/p>\n

They love love love to train. Killer trick dogs. Ocho will jump on
\nrocks, target your left hand, roll over, find people by name and all
\nkindsa stuff.<\/p>\n

So with the bratty part — ignoring probably not so good. Kong’s might
\nbe – but Ocho didn’t care about food until she was 6. I would suggest
\nworking on teaching her to lay down and stay in a specific spot when
\nshe’s getting fussy – and\/or to be able to get certain toys by name.
\nShe’ll get better at it and you’ll be able to focus her away from stuff.<\/p>\n

Hope this helps. I know it can be really tough. Don’t despair! She’ll
\nbe your favorite dog ever. She’ll just also be the most work. And then
\nif you n Tom ever think about kids — you’ll be in for a cakewalk \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

Cheers
\nAlan\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My friends Alan and Andi have a similar breed and they know our pain. It has actually helped keep me sane, knowing someone else I know has been through this. Here’s a nice email I got from Alan today. Hey Alanna Border Collies are *great* dogs! But they are really challenging. We unwittingly brought one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alannarisse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alannarisse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alannarisse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alannarisse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alannarisse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alannarisse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2635\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alannarisse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alannarisse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alannarisse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}