Our new dog, Spirit
I had hoped to post about this sooner, but several weeks ago, we got a dog. His name is Spirit, and he’s a border collie mix. We’re not sure what the mix part is, but I was wondering if he might have some setter in him. He’s about 16 months old, and weighs around 55 pounds. He’s had some training already, and is pretty good about obeying a ’sit’ command most of the time. He’s been great with the kids, and he loves it when Mary takes him out to play after school.
Nice!
Border COllie’s are intresting dogs.
If you need help with health and maintence and such check out:
http://www.thegooddogblog.com
I found it the other day, looks new, but offers some great information on raising dogs to be healthy and playful…yet respective.
Best of luck!
What a cutie! Watch out, though, I’ve heard border collies are really smart. If there’s a way to get into trouble, a smart dog can figure out how to do it!
Spirit’s a cute dog! I just got purebread border collie a few months ago, and I love him
You mentioned training, I found this site great for training info: http://www.TrainingForDogs.com/DogTrainingSecretsCD.php - You can even get a free, 30-minute CD about training your new dog. You don’t have to buy the rest of the set, either!
I love loopholes
Good luck with your dog!
Jacob
Jacob,
Thanks for that link!!
Just what I needed for my Husky Puppie to get going in the right direction.
Im going test out the techniques starting tomarrow and see if they work out.
Thanks again!
If it is anything like the Border we had for 12 years (he was really my son’s dog, but he lived with us) then you will reap a ton of affection and loyalty.
They are smart - we never had to actively train our dog but he knew how to obey commands and walk at heel without restraint - I guess a thousand generations of breeding for stock handling has its benefits. Murray Ball, in his New Zealand cartoon strip “Footrot Flats” summed up just how intelligent Borders are.
He epitomised the saying “When a dog puts his head on your lap it is because he loves you. When a cat sits on your lap it is because its warmer.”
I can assure you, border collies are teh coolzz!!1
Congratulations, great looking dog. Awesome of you to adopt a pet!
Man, Dougal … you are not helping my resolve to hold off on a dog any!
I have to say….”Schweeeet!” He looks just like our Daisy http://mindfulmusings.net/gallery/v/12_23_04/DSC_2596.jpg.html
Geof, you know you want to. Dogs are awesome. Luckey (my german shepherd/husky mix) and Daisy (dalmatian/Aussie mix) are like having a warm fuzzy reserve with a twist of puppy charm.
I had not had any experience with Border Collies until last weekend. I went to a place here in the Dayton, Ohio area called Cox Arboretum. This time of year there is some beautiful fall gorgeous-ness there.
They have a number of different streams and lakes at the Arboretum. One of the nuisances that goes along with that are the geese and ducks that poop all over the place.
So, the owners have in their “employ” a great dog named Zing, who is a Border Collie. He is fully trained to keep the geese and ducks on the move to either in the water or up in the air. He is not on a leash — in fact — he just roams the grounds freely and if he sees any geese or ducks settling down for a bathroom break, he just stirs them up and away they go. (He also stops for the frequent pets from all the visitors!
An amazing dog.
Speaking of training, I saw that some of your other commenters were mentioning a training site they recommended. This may be the same one — but it’s really cool. (http://trainingfordogs.com).
Thanks for sharing about Spirit.
Shanti —— Ron
Hi Jacob,
Thanks for that info on the free training CD, I tried to get it but I got a page error?
doh! nevermind….I don’t know what I was doing wrong but it came right up! Looks like a great deal, Thanks Jacob for sharing. oh heres the link If anyone else wants to check it out http://www.TrainingForDogs.com/DogTrainingSecretsCD.php
Spirit is a real sweetheart. All he really wants is everybody’s attention. He’s been very well-behaved. He does have a habit of picking up stray shoes and carrying them around, but so far he hasn’t chewed on them.
What a great name! Congrats and good luck.
Hey, Congrats! Do check out my blog at http://iamtagged.blogspot.com/2005/11/bow-bowmeow-meow.html You can entertain Spirit on this online channel.
We’re endorsing the DogTrainingSecrets CD as well! It’s real cool (I bought it myself so I know it’s really a high quality product). “We” are six international doglovers that met through the Internet and created a dog training site together.
Speaking for myself, I have been having dogs for years now. After our previous dog (an airedale terrier) passed away, we just got ourselves a new doggy - Tirza (9 weeks now). She is a Dutch brand called “Friese Stabij”. It’s not known very well, internationally I mean, but it’s an acknowlegded breed. You can see a picture of the pup and our youngest kid on http://www.van-andel.nl/puppylove.jpg (who can count the number of pups he has on his lap?? :).
(the answer is three!)
Anyway, on our dog training site (http://www.dogtrainingclinic.com) you can get yourself a free 7-day ecourse on the basic puppy commands that we wrote with the six of us! Feel free to drop by and sunscribe to it.
I wish you a lot of fun with Spirit!
___
Rob Vanandel
My old boss used to train Border Collie’s for dog shows. Her dogs were amazing. I swear they were the smartest dogs I have ever seen. I hope you enjoy Spirit! I think you made a great choice!
You’ll have to let us know if you figure out the “mixed” part. Personally, I think mixed dogs are the best. You tend to avoid some of they hip dysplasia that purebreeds tend to have.
Thanks for sharing Spirit with us!
I got Hank, a border collie mix (definitely some kind of hound in there) at about the same age. He, too, would have one of my shoes with him a lot of the time, often ones I had just taken off. When he really settled down he stopped doing it. I think it was a Linus’s blanket type thing.
Nice hound!
http://www.mi5.gov.uk/
She ra (Princess of Power) had a horse called Spirit
[...] Maybe it was an omen when our dog ran away this morning… I opened our front door to let him go out for his “morning consititutional”, but he spotted a rabbit in the yard across the street, and he bolted after it. I chased after him, and came close to getting him to come back, but then he ran off again. We haven’t seen him since. All we can do right now is hope that he either gets hungry and finds his way back home, or that someone friendly will call the phone number on his collar and dog tags. [...]
That’s such a great picture