Border Collies are routinely described as the most intelligent breed. That is a selling point in a magazine and a warning in practice — intelligence is only an asset when it has somewhere to go.
A Collie whose brain is unused does not become calm. They invent a job, and the jobs they invent are usually chasing, herding, barking or spinning.
What they were bred for
Border Collies were selected for a specific fragment of the predatory sequence: eye, stalk and chase, with the grab and kill suppressed.
That explains almost everything about them:
- The eye — the hard, fixed stare at a sheep, a ball, a bicycle, a child, a shadow
- The crouch and creep
- The chase, triggered by fast movement
- Working at a distance from the handler, taking direction over hundreds of metres
- Stamina without bulk
- Sensitivity to the smallest handler cue, which is why they learn so fast and why they are so easily damaged by harsh handling
The chase drive is the source of most pet-home problems: chasing cars, bikes, joggers, children, cats, and — most difficult of all — shadows and lights.
Exercise is not the answer people think
The standard advice is that Collies need a lot of exercise. Partly true, and dangerously incomplete.
Running a Collie for two hours a day builds an athlete. You end up with a fitter dog who needs three hours, and who is more aroused rather than more settled.
What they actually need is work with rules:
- Training sessions, daily, teaching new things. They thrive on it
- Scentwork, which is calming as well as tiring
- Dog sports — agility, obedience, flyball, rally, treibball, heelwork to music
- Structured retrieving with sits, waits and releases between throws — not endless flinging
- Puzzle feeders and snuffle mats as the daily baseline
- Genuine rest. Collies are notoriously bad at switching off, and many pet Collies are chronically under-slept
Around an hour to ninety minutes of physical exercise plus substantial mental work suits most adult Collies. The mental half is the half that matters.
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Snuffle Mat for Dogs
Ten minutes of searching lowers arousal in a way that running does not. For a Collie, scent work should be a daily habit rather than a wet-weather substitute.
KADTC Dog Chess Puzzle Toy
A multi-level sliding puzzle. Most Collies solve a given puzzle within a few sessions, so rotate several rather than buying one — the value is in the novelty as much as the mechanism.
Teaching an off switch
The most important thing you will teach a Collie, and the thing most owners neglect.
- Reward calm actively. Drop food to a Collie who is lying quietly, without being asked
- Mat and settle training, worked on daily
- Enforce rest. A crate or a quiet room, with a chew, for periods in the day. Many Collies will not stop unless the choice is removed
- Do not let arousal escalate unchecked. Interrupt play and games with short calm breaks, then resume
- Avoid building obsessions. Endless ball chasing, laser pointers and shadow games create compulsive behaviour in this breed more readily than in any other
Never use a laser pointer with a Collie. It produces a chase with no possible conclusion, and shadow- and light-chasing compulsions in this breed are extremely difficult to resolve.
Health
Collie eye anomaly (CEA) — a developmental eye condition. DNA test available, and breeders should test.
Progressive retinal atrophy — DNA test available.
MDR1 gene mutation. Critically important. Dogs carrying it are sensitive to certain drugs, including some common wormers, anti-diarrhoeals such as loperamide, some sedatives and some chemotherapy agents. A DNA test is cheap, and every Collie should be tested — the result goes on their file and changes what your vet can safely prescribe.
Hip dysplasia — parents should be scored.
Epilepsy, which occurs in the breed.
Trapped neutrophil syndrome and neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis, both with DNA tests.
Noise sensitivity. Extremely common in Collies and often progressive. Start firework and noise desensitisation early, before it becomes a problem.
Grooming
A medium-length double coat — rough-coated, smooth-coated, and everything in between.
- Brush two or three times a week, daily during a coat blow
- Undercoat rake plus a slicker for the feathering on legs, tail and behind the ears
- Watch for mats behind the ears and in the trousers
- Bath every 6 to 12 weeks
- Never shave the coat
- Nails every two to four weeks
Training
They learn faster than almost any breed, which cuts both ways: they learn the things you did not mean to teach just as quickly.
Priorities:
- A settle cue, first and most important
- Recall, before the chase drive fully develops
- An interrupter — a cue that breaks a stare and turns the head
- Impulse control games, daily
- Socialisation with careful management of movement. Bikes, joggers, cars and children running are the triggers to work on early
They are sensitive. Raised voices and corrections produce a shut-down, worried Collie who stops offering behaviour. Reward-based training is not a preference for this breed; it is the only approach that reliably works.
Who they suit
People who want to do a sport, or train seriously, or work them. People who are around a good deal. People who find an intense, busy, brilliant dog delightful rather than exhausting.
They do not suit households who want a dog to fit around a busy life, who are out all day, who have very young children who run and shriek, or who want a low-effort family pet.
Collies are among the most common breeds in rescue for exactly this reason. Almost none of them are there because they were bad dogs. They are there because they were bored.
