Out Of The Blue Border Collie Aggression

by Angel
(Palm Coast, Florida)

Black Jack

Took in a 2 yr old border collie back in January,I have two other dogs,everything was going really well. He has been in several homes, knows all commands & listening well. He is a high drive dog, which is good because we compete in frisbee & also do frisbee shows with our other two dogs. He also loves frisbee.

He was at a training class & two dogs ganged up on him, nipped at him. After that he has been starting fights with my other border collie, which is not a fighter at all! It has escalated to where you do not know what he is going to do. I now keep them seperated, now also testing me & my husband.

We have purchased a muzzel & put it on when he is free but supervised, we are back to doing clicker training. Gets plenty of exercise. And also is kept in a crate. It happens with me more beacuse I work from home & is with them most of the time. I am 4'11 & he seems to be testing me more. He has nipped at me,when trying to crate him. He just seems to snap into a different mood & he will not listen. We know a couple of different trainers & have spoke with them & was told different things to break up the fights if they happen. They both weigh 40lbs.

Any suggestions for someone that is small to control him more, we dont want to have to find another home for him, but may have to.

Collie/Alsation - Baby Protector

by Victoria
(UK)

I have a 12 year old Collie/Alsation when I was pregnant she started becoming quite protective, barking whenever a dog came near us when we went for a walk.

Since having the baby this has escalated, I have no idea why as she goes for the same amount of walks. Yesterday when seeing a friend out of the house a dog (lurcher) walked by on the other side of the street and my dog bolted out and tried to attack it. The other dog was on a lead and didn't even bark. Luckily the owner was understanding and nobody was hurt.

I have no idea what to do as I am worried of it getting worse. Because of her behaviour I won't take her out on my own with the baby any more.
Has anyone got any ideas what we can do?

Aggressive Border Collie

by Shelly
(North Dakota)

They found a week old puppy half dead in the barn after her mother had been hit by a car. The other puppies were bigger, stronger, and vocal. I took her in and bottle fed her until she was weened. She knew about 8 people, 3 cats, but no other dogs.

She is now about 9 months old, and smart as smart can be. However, she will bite/attack anybody coming into her yard, house, territory...she even bit the vet.

I bought her a muzzle so that I could start taking her on walks again, but she somehow manages to get it off within seconds. I do not dare take her on the leash without it.

Chance listens to me on simple commands but I can't stop her from attacking people and other dogs. No obedience school around here will take her as a student, and I need to know how to get this out of her before something worse happens. I want to get her acclimated to people and other dogs, but I can't trust her around them. What should I do?

She also has an aversion to any sudden noises and will try to attack the noise. Clickers with her are out of the question, as she goes completely nuts when she hears anything click. I would like to build her a jungle gym kind of thing in the back yard to get her some more exercise but I would have to do it outside of her fence. She already has a swimming pool and we play frisbee, but other than that, this poor dog just doesn't get what she needs.

Long story short, I love my girl, Chance. I want to save her and I need all of the help I can get.

Bizarre Aggressive Border Collie

I have a 2.5 yr old Border Collie trained to compete at fairly high level in herding. She is dominate to other dogs. My husband and I can do anything with her including having her upside down to see her belly.

The problem is she wants to be aggressive to everyone else! She comes up to a person like a friendly dog wanting a pat. When the person reaches out to touch her, she snaps!

I had her vacinated recently. I held her while this was done...no problem Then the Vet tried to scan for a microchip, she appeared to panic. so I looped the rope over her nose so she could not bite. She crawled over me scratching like a wild thing to get away. The Vet tried to correct her which only ended up in a big fight with the Vet bleeding. She could not get away (which she tried to do) so she fought back. Staring at the Vet without breaking her stare and snapping . Ears up and looking quite aggressive, No peeing or sign of giving!

I can do anything with this dog but do NOT understand what is going through her head with other people. Help Please!

Aggressive Collie

We have a 3yr old male collie (rescued a month ago). He doesn't like other dogs. We have two others too, a male and a female. I was hoping he would learn off them. We have had a few run ins with the two males and I thought they were trying out the pecking order as this happened with another male collie we had who recently died.

We have now just got to a stage where they get on but when out for a walk he particularly goes for black males and usually black labradors. I'm always worried about who is round the next corner. Even if I put him back on his lead (he has a great recall) I'm worried that another dog will run towards him (and they always seem to 'home' in on him) and then attack him. He is perfect in every other way, great with the children and very chilled in the house, and I feel I am pack leader - they respect me and listen to me and walk to heel. I want to nip this before it escalates.

When he does go for another dog I pin him down by the scruff and he understands he's done wrong because he goes all submissive but then he will do it again! I have also tried walking him on the lead around the village with my friend and her black lab male on the lead to try to de-sensitise him and make him bored by the other dog but that hasn't worked either - I don't like his body language.

Aggressive border collie rescue male

by Lyn
(Australia)

I work with a rescue group for reforming working breeds. I have trained GS, BC as obedience training to companion dog excellence and BC as working cattle, sheep dogs, this dog is obedient but in a military fashion, he knows it and does it without emotion. On lead on first day he became aggressive toward another male dog, we used No bad dog and he got worse, at this point I did not correlate the use of this words. But since then, same scenario, however, today, I tried using the no bad dog whilst he was secure on a chain. The outcome was same, he looked at me then went into a frenzy. U got any suggestions!

Aggressive Border Collie Getting Worse

by Stacy
(California)

We have an eight year old border collie we adopted when he was six months old. He continues to progressively get worse around other dogs. We have a second dog he has no problems with.

We went to training when he was a year old and he had no problems with other dogs at that time. We were told when we got him that he had been attacked at least twice by pit bulls an possibly another time. He follows all basic commands when he is not out of his element and has no distractions. Otherwise he started pulling on his leash and just can't focus. Our second dog is a nervous dog and feeds off the collies stress. So now what can we do to help him and his brother to just relax and enjoy life?

Aggresive border collie

by Sarah
(Dorset, England)

Hi, we have two female dogs four years old. One aborder collie and one springer spaniel. They have been having confrontations for a long time but not been a problem until recently. The collie growls a lot at the springer and sometimes the springer has enough and goes for the collie but low key until recently whe now on 3 occasions there has been a terrible fight the collie has gone into a frenzied attack and impossible to get her off. She has cut the springer badly this last time.

We have tried all sorts of things to stop it hapening in the first place and considering electrified collar otherwise my partner feels we should get rid of the collie. Please can anyone help with ideas?
thanks, sarah c

Aggressive Female Border Collie

by Mari Jo C.
(Ohio)

My 2 year old female full blood Border Collie showed her teeth at me last night. I was sitting in my chair, she walked up to me sat down, gave me the stare, and then curled her lips and showed me her teeth!

She also is not always happy to be petted by strangers, she nips them when they leave.

Please advise how this can be stopped.

Thank You!

Aggressive Border Collie Towards Strangers

My Border Collie is 6 years old male. He has always been somewhat aggressive towards strangers most of his life. It seems that anyone he knew as a puppy, he is friendly towards. Anyone else that he encounters he is very aggressive towards. He is so aggressive that he nips or even bites. Just last week he was on a leash and saw the mail carrier and bolted out of the yard and attacked the carrier and nipped/ bit his chest. I was horrified and the carrier was terrified. I am at my wits end with my dog. I love my dog and he is a great dog to me and my family/extended family, but all outsiders and strangers are in great danger around him. I do not know what to do or how to stop this behavior. I am running out of options and feel he is a dangerous liability. I runs trails with him daily so lack of exercise is not the issue. I am looking for advice and a solution, or I may have to put him down.

Australian Shepherd, Collie Mix

by Laurie
(Minnesota)

I care for the dog at work bringing him home evenings, weekends and holidays. He is a shelter dog almost 4 years old now. He has become increasingly more aggressive toward strangers and other animals. I am his main caregiver and try to make sure he gets plenty of exercise but sometimes it is difficult for me since I also have a part time job and live alone. He will lunge at strangers and even a few people he doesn't' care for along with animals. His behavior is getting worse and I do not know how to correct it. It's getting to the point I have to lock him up when guests come over. My lab used to keep him in check but now she has passed away and he has gotten more and more difficult to control.

When he first meets someone I try to do it outdoors with him on tight leash. I have the people ignore him and try to walk in with us, however he keeps barking and lunging trying to bite. He has also started lunging at people on the street while driving in the car.

Please help!

Border Collie/Blue Heeler Mix with Territorial Aggressiveness

by Tom
(Ogden, UT, USA)

We inherited a border collie/blue heeler puppy when she was 8 weeks old. As she's "grown up" with us for the past two years we (our family) have had no issues with her. Toward us she is affectionate and playful; she dotes on our 10-yr-old male Border Collie/Aussie Shepherd mix and, although unsure of exactly what our tabby cat is, she's never attempted to harm her. She's very smart, and breezed through beginning dog training. At home and on loose leash walks she's obedient (without treats). The groomers, vet, and kennel personnel say she is extremely well behaved. Her issue appears to be territorial.

If we have guests in our home we have to place a barrier between the guests and her (either a door or gate, or place her in her crate). We had a dog-friendly guest last week; she was able to feed our dog treats by hand, and our dog loved her...as long as our guest was standing or sitting still. As soon as our guest began to move (direction didn't matter), our dog became aggressive. Once the movement stopped, she went right back to accepting treats from this same person.

Her barking at people and animals outside the fence appears to be more than simply barrier frustration. While she immediately stops barking and comes when called, and will tend to ignore activity outside the fence when we are outside with her and providing a diversion, we'd like to get to the point where she can be in the back yard unsupervised for short periods of time without worrying about her annoying the neighbors with incessant barking.

Looking for training techniques to reduce her threshold to guests in the house, as well as transfer her natural herding tendencies (including nipping heels) into activities that are less aggressive toward house guests.

Aggressive Border Collie

by Debbie
(Centreville, MD, USA)

We have a 2 year old BC that is very loving to family members. However, when a stranger or even a friend that our BC has met before comes into our home, he barks, nips and even lightly bitten once. He constantly barks at the neighbors, be it from inside our home through the window, or out in our yard. What can I do to train my BC not to behave this way any more?

Phil and My Collie Sam

Hi i am Phil and this is about my collie Sam.
I've had Sam since he was 9 weeks old,I have trained him very well myself as a pet, right from the start i took him with me to my work as i was a zookeeper.

He grew up being around animals of all kinds especially the ones i hand reared including; lemurs,otter cubs,baby skunks, owls, ferrets, polecats etc etc,so he gets on with all animals. Where i lived before there was a field in the village for the dog walkers so he was very social with dogs too.

Since i became disabled and had to move 3 yrs ago to a different village, where there is no common space for dogs to mix/play only paths in forests and the 2 beaches, I now have a large mobility scooter to take him for his runs,he is on his lead attached to my scooter until we are away from the center of the very small main street then he runs just ahead of me.

Now he is 7 yrs old and everywhere in the village there are dogs in gardens & jeeps (mostly collies & labs) barking like mad when we pass them,the jeeps ones are worse for aggressive snarling at him.

Since the 3 yrs we have been here he has been attacked by others dogs whilst Sam has been on his lead.

Up to now if he we are up a forest path or the back roads he now gets in fights with MALE dogs only,Even though he has been trained to a high level and i have also trained him to do things in the house for me since i was made disabled,he obeys everything i ask him to do without hesitation but now when he is involved in a fight i have to try and get him to stop but falls on deaf ears until 30 sec to a minute before i get hold of him & the other dog are secured,most of the time he does not start it,the dogs from gardens we pass and they know its Sam from passing there garden.

I need to try and find away to get him to just ignore them when they are barking as we pass and to stop fighting other male dogs,ANY SUGGESTIONS WOULD BE GRATEFULLY RECEIVED