THE YARD MYTH

Border Collies need a lot of room …. Don't they?

How often have you seen this ad in the newspaper: "Free to good home - border collie. Great dog. Needs room to run, farm preferred. Moving to apartment and can't keep."

Most any farmer will tell you that he doesn't need another dog, and please stop dropping them off in his driveway in the middle of the night.

You might wonder where such a myth comes from. It does seem valid at first thought. Border collies are sheep dogs and sheep are found on farms, and usually farms are pretty big and since sheep dogs are found where sheep are, then it makes sense that sheep dogs need big farms (room to run). Makes sense. Or does it?

The reality is that sheep dogs don't do that much free for all running around. They do quite a bit of working, and a lot of starting and stopping and creeping and staring. They pivot and turn, anticipate and rush. And when they're done with all of that, they're often bundled into high-walled kennels and left there for another day when there's more sheep work to do. Honest - they don't spend 20 hours out of every 24 doing laps around acreage.

A working sheep dog is a thinking athlete. He is using his body but he is also using his considerable brain; he needs both, or he's not much use to the shepherd. A working border collie is not chasing sheep but working them in a highly ritualized activity that involves coordination, anticipation and an awful lot of decision making. The border collie is bred to be able to work all day, but you can work him for an hour in a small pasture and he'll happily snooze the rest of the day away, because all his parts have been through the ringer and he'll be content to turn it all off.

Unfortunately for the border collie, sheep farms aren't as common as they used to be. The border collie's modern job is often fetching tennis balls, or screaming over agility courses. These are also activities that get his brain and body working in synch and demand something from both sectors. It's not sheep herding but it can be, and is, work. It's a close enough second that provided you keep your border collie nicely conditioned all over, he'll be a generally satisfied dog.

Games of fetch are not necessarily space-intensive. You can play a decent game of fetch in your living room, if you're innovative (and if you've got an accurate arm!) and if you're coordinated enough, you can even play it while you read the paper. If you need a little more room, most neighbourhoods abound with local parks, schoolyards, vacant lots and dog parks; all places where a good game of fetch can be worked up. You don't even need a yard, and you definitely don't need a farm.

Agility doesn't have to be space intensive either, but it can be equipment heavy. Most people just hop in a car and head over to their local sport dog club where they don't have to haul obstacles all over the place every time they want to mow the lawn. However, agility can also be improvised at local playgrounds (please wait until the kids go home!), the nearest nature walk and again, in your living room. Toilet plungers and cardboard tubes, broom sticks and stacks of books - all inexpensive items that make good obstacles and are easily stored.

Other activities that are engaging for a border collie, like musical freestyle, obedience and trick training require nothing more than you, your dog and a surface to stand on. So it's not space your border collie needs - it's time. A border collie is by nature, time consuming. You've got to be willing to put something into your dog to get something out of him.

Sadly, especially for the dogs but for their owner as well, too many people aren't willing to put anything - time or effort - into their dogs. They naively acquire themselves a border collie with the vague notion that he will amuse himself and also look nice in the black-and-white tiled kitchen. They read that border collies were the smartest dog in the world and figured it was The Dog For Them, and would go nicely with the SUV, the Ikea furniture and the white picket fence. But a bored border collie is bad news and owners are dismayed when they learn the hard way that their busy lives can't accommodate the dog and they return home from a long work day to a condo destroyed. The border collie is not a life accessory; the border collie is a life style.

When people say their dog needs "room to run" what they're really saying, if you understand border collies, is this:

Doesn't sound like these people really care about their dogs' well being after all, does it? It seems that a lot of border collies get given up by people who don't care if their formerly cute puppies have room to run or not, they just don't want to have to think about the dog anymore. But don't judge them too harshly - people like this just don't have what it takes to make the effort to have a happy, relaxed, well-adjusted border collie in their new condo. They should never have gotten a dog in the first place, of course, and keeping the dog isn't going to make a big difference for the border collie. You can keep your border collie happy whether you are urban, suburban or rural, but it does depend on you.

I have often remarked about my dogs that they would rather cram themselves into the bathroom and watch me floss my teeth all day, presumably preferring this to being dumped at the nearest farm. Border collies are interactive companions who only need a creative and caring owner to set their days up to be fun, useful and entertaining.

My yard is so small it is non-existent. Actually, it is non-existent; I live in a thousand square feet on the fourth floor of a downtown apartment building. I share my home with my border collies, two cats, a never ending assortment of rescued border collies who come and go, and my long suffering partner who has learned to just call everybody "doggie" rather than try and keep track. It's a chaotic but lovely existence and I really am grateful for the education that living like that has offered me. I learned long ago that my dogs would love me, yes, protect me, keep me warm, entertain me, yes yes, but they asked for just one thing in return: something to do.

We don't have the luxury - or excuse - of a big fenced yard to turn the dogs out in rather than turn off the tv and go outside with them. Every day, rain or shine, we traverse our urban landscape to find something to do. We are fortunate in that we live near Vancouver's largest park and it has lovely open green spaces for ball playing, long, twisty forest walks for exploring and running free and it's flanked on all sides by the ocean, Mother Nature's bath tub. At least twice daily - morning and night - we dress against the weather and head out with tennis balls in my pockets to play games. On weekends we trek out to somewhere rural for sheep herding fun, and once a week we spend an evening at agility class. If the weather is really bad, or if I just can't convince myself to go outside again (it happens to the best of us) we'll stay inside with a clicker, a handful of treats and learn some new behaviours that are fun to show off at parties.

There are drawbacks for sure. Once upon a time I did live in a house with a gloriously large backyard, and all I had to do in the morning was slide my slippers on my feet and shoo the dogs outside for a pee. I could sit on the porch in my pajamas with a cup of coffee and lob tennis balls across the yard. (Now it's boots and a raincoat if someone needs an emergency 3:00AM pee) But I still took them everywhere I could, because they needed to know important things like how to walk on a lead and how to be polite in public. The yard was nice, but it was no substitute for being with my dogs. I still remember putting the dogs outside on a lovely sunny summer day while I washed the kitchen floor, and glanced up to see three noses pressed wistfully against the screen door. They had no use for the yard unless I was out there with them making it fun.

There's a man who lives in my neighbourhood that I see fairly frequently in the summer. He walks an adult Labrador Retriever who ambles along sedately beside her owner while he read a book! To a border collie owner like me, it's an amazing thing to witness because it's like a fairy tale; it will never happen.

No matter where you live, unless you're a livestock farmer looking for a working dog, you can keep a border collie and the two of you can enjoy a rewarding life together. It doesn't matter what size your yard, it matters what size your heart and your vision. If you're thinking about adopting a border collie, no matter where you live, here are some things you absolutely need to consider first:

Think long and hard before you commit. Every day literally thousands of border collies and mixes are listed on petfinder.com looking for new homes. They are euthanized in shelters every day, and rescues are stuffed and bursting at the seams. And it feels like every one is turned in with a sigh and "He needs room to run."

And when I hear that phrase as I sit with four border collies crammed under my computer desk in a small corner of my even smaller apartment I can only think to myself: "You lucky dogs." Sure, I hope to one day be standing in the middle of my 50 or so acres of land, whistling commands to my working dogs as I shade my eyes against the sun, watching the flock get brought in by my furry little helpers. But until we get there, I'll scritch my dogs under the chin, load my jacket pocket with tennis balls and stroll down to the park for a happy game of fetch before we leave for agility class. It's the best we can do right now, and for my very happy dogs, it seems to be enough.

If you can offer an active, intelligent dog a lifetime home with challenging things to keep him busy, please view our Available Dogs page and see if your forever companion is waiting in a foster home to meet you.

 

 

That'll do Border Collie Rescue
(formerly IBCRforBC)
is now on Petfinder.