Last ditch effort to keep dog. Chasing deer.

[gfam]

Hi, I'm hoping you can all give us some advice here. We are a five year owner of a six year old border collie. I've got 4 kids and we live on 5 acres in the mountains of Colorado. Two dogs in a huge huge fenced front yard. We homeschool so we are home all the time. My son has trained her in obediance and confirmation for 5 years. She is not ignored, but she does not have a job so she has made up her own. Chasing deer. We've been working on this problem for several years now. We invested in a shock collar (not invisible fence). We raised our fence b/c she was jumping the fence. The trouble is she is so dang smart that she knows exactly when we aren't paying attention and will rush the gate to chase the deer. She is gone for hours at a time and she is going to end up getting hit or shot. Never mind it makes me really angry and she always does it at the most annoying time.

We currently send the little kids out and leave the gate wide open to try to get her to run and then zap her for training. She almost never falls for it. The times she tries to make a break for it is when we aren't paying attention and by the time we grab the transmitter to zap her she is out of range. She is that fast. I don't think an invisible fence would work at all b/c I think she would learn to run through it. She's training our other dog to run off too.

She would be so dang good at agility and/or sheep trials b/c we do have a few lambs here every year and she is amazing at getting them back in the barn.

Is there anything else we can try? My son does not want to give up on her yet but it just can't go on. Any suggestions before we try to rehome her would be really appreciated. I just thought by almost 7 years old she would be calming down, but I guess bc's don't calm down until they are cold & still huh?

Thanks.

[Samismom]

Seems your dog's training is lacking in a couple of areas. I would suggest working really hard on a really reliable recall and on some boundary trainging. eg. you don't go through the gate/door without permission. It will take consistent work with a lot of POSITIVE reinforcements. Your dog is definitely not a lost cause. She just needs some time dedicated to appropriate training.

[gfam]

Excuse me for being confused but before I even think about this I have a few questions.
1. If you have a fenced yard, with a gate, what do you mean by, "rushes the gate"? Why is it open?

We have to go in and out the gate of the yard when we leave and enter our home. She will charge through the gate when she knows someone is distracted with something else.

2. You purposely leave the gate open, then zap her?

As training only to not leave the yard with out permission. We don't leave the gate wide open, but have one of the kids go through the gate slowly etc. She is so darn smart she knows who doesn't pay so close attention. My kids are 15 to 4 so it just happens.

3. She is training your other dogs? Who's in charge?

I'm not sure what the question is here. When the bc rushes out often times the other dog is able to follow her out. Not always, but the other dog never ran off until she started following her.


4. She was trained for 5 years and doesn't respond to you? How is that possible?

Oh am I the only person with a dog who does not obey completely when off leash or not in the show ring? She is brilliant and so smart. She gets it in her head she wants to chase the deer, she's going to wait till the time is right and chase deer. She won't take off after them when she knows she's being watched. She's just gone like a bullet and she ignores voice commands. Yes, she has had 5 years of training and is brilliant in the show ring.


5. At almost 7 years old do you think she will be easy to rehome?

Having worked in a shelter and as a vet tech I have no illusions she will be easy to find another home for her. I also know when something is not working. That's why I came here for some help. I was hopeful for some concrete ideas of things I have not tried.

Samismom,
Do you have some suggestions? She is very reliable on recall and voice commands 99% of the time. It's just when she gets whiff of the deer that she is gone like a flash. The shock collar works very well as reinforcement for her as long as we can use it prior to her getting out of range. We leave the transmitter hanging by the door, and it worked fine for a very long time. She has gotten so fast lately though. She's gotten out three times in the past week. I can put a stop to the behavior if we can catch her trying to get out, but she's just gotten too smart that we haven't been able to catch her in time. I'm not sure what else to do. After putting 5 years of our time and training and work into this dog we certainly do not desire to get rid of her. Not at all that's why I came here. We want to make it work. We feel guilty enough for even contemplating the idea, I hope we will not get the guilt trip here as well. As a busy mom of 4 I can only do so much and will not keep a dog that we can not keep home.

I'm thinking the answer is just make sure she has a job to do every single day. I'm just not sure how to do that. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Donna

[gfam]

Just wanted to add we rescued this dog from a man who was shooting nail guns at her and stopped feeding her so she would "run away" b/c he did not want to take care of her any more. We have seen this dog through so much & love her. I grew up with border collies. I know how insane they can be. My reason for posting her is not to find a way to get rid of her. It's to find a way to keep her. She is a great dog. She's not aggressive, she doesn't nip folks heels, she doesn't bark too much, she has no bad habits except this. I will not keep her if I can not keep her home and we will not keep her if we have to keep her chained. Just so you know we did not enter into owning this dog blindly. Sorry if I'm feeling a bit sensitive, but we have been trying for so long now.

[muttlycrew]

I've never really had a problem with any of mine chasing deer, but then again we rarely get deer...

You said you think she would be good at agility. Do you think one of your kids (or perhaps yourself) could take her to an agility class? There could be one in your area, and perhaps the mental stimulation combined with the physical exercise would be enough to calm her down.

When we used to live in an apartment for a few months, my BC always got a little stir crazy even though I would run her 3-5 miles each morning and another 2 miles each night, weather permitting. She would be a perfect little girlie, then every so often she would "rush the door". This usually would be when we had people over, as she knew they weren't paying attention and took too long to close the door and out she would go. This was dangerous, as living in an apartment complex there are always cars, people, other dogs, CATS, etc. I began to realize that no matter how much physical exercise I gave this girl, it wasn't enough. But equally, little training sessions throughout the day just weren't cutting it either. She needed just as much (if not more) mental stimulation than she did actual physical.


I started taking her to a weekly agility class (she was 4 when she started) and I found that as she grew to love it, she seemed to keep a 'storage bank' filled with energy that she would bring out for class. I found this was a great outlet for her energy, and she became to anticipate the day I'd tell her "Let's go to class!". Since we started classes (2 years ago), she hasn't rushed the door since.

Now, this may not work, and you also may not have a place near you. But perhaps finding something that could become her job would help the deer chasing, because it definitely seems like she is making that her unofficial job. For example, each day she gets a 15-30 minute workout with the Frisbee. She could start to see this as her job. Get creative, I'm sure there is something around the house she could do everyday. It doesn't have to be a huge thing! It could be as simple as several little jobs like getting the paper each morning, fetching slippers when someone comes home from work....my older sister taught her BC x to clean up the kid's toys several times throughout the day and put them in the toy box. This was enough to make him feel like he was doing something productive.

It seems like you have a very smart girlie, and this stuff may not happen over night, but if she could do just a few things every day or a few times a week, it may be enough for her not to be so crazy about those deer. Chances are she is still going to always get out here and there, but hopefully with enough mental stimulation she won't do it as often.

I hope this helped.

[gfam]

Muttleycrew,
Thank you for the suggestions. I wish we could take her to agility, but the closest classes are over an hour drive away. She would be great at it and I would enjoy it too. She is just so dang smart. I will have to try to think of ways to give her more jobs through out the day. I just didn't know if there were any other training ideas to implement besides keeping her busier. If we lived in the city keeping a leashed dog would not be a problem, but gosh, we live in the country.

Is there any age at which they start to slow down?

Now how do you train a dog to pick up toys??? I can live with that idea!! THanks again for the tips. I really do appreciate them.
Donna

[muttlycrew]

Clicker training. =) I have used clicker training to teach mine to open and close doors for me, get the newspaper, bring me their leash, etc.

Make a game out of cleaning up the kids toys. With my sisters dog, she did a few "Tucker, lets clean up!" and she would walk him to a toy, say "get it!" (or put it in his mouth), then say "clean up!" and walk him to the toy box. She would then tell him to "drop it" and then she would click her clicker. After a few reps of this, she was able to point to a toy and say "clean up!" and he would run over and pick it up and drop it in the box.

After a week of this, she didn't have to point to each individual toy. He figured out that ALL the toys needed to go in that box. Now once a kid gets up and leaves a toy on the floor, he immediately picks it up and puts it away. It is too cute.

EDIT: As for the age, my oldest is 9 and she is still going strong. I know of BC's who compete in agility around here, and some are 13 and still act like a crazy puppy.

[gfam]

Clicker training. I have heard of it, but really know nothing about it. I'll have to look into it. I guess there is just no easy answer. I wish I only had more time.

[gfam]

Thanks for the tips Joe. I do appreciate them. Just so you understand the only aversive technique we use is the shock collar. It was either get a shock collar or get rid of her. She was running the deer every single time she would see one. Two or three uses of the collar and that was cut down to once a year. It was not overused and combined with her other training. As far as our other training, she was trained at a local training center and through 4-H using reward based training. The only aversive experience she had was from her previous owner shooting nail guns at her.

The shock collar worked great for about 3 years & the transmitter had stopped working and we didn't realize it. She ran off once or twice and realized it and we can't seem to get her back to where she was b/c we can't seem to catch her to reinforce. I'm trying to figure out a way to hang the transmitter on the fence post so we don't have to run in & get it. She is just so fast & so smart. She knows when someone is distracted. She never does it with me or with her boy, just the others. She is definitely not the alpha dog in our family. As a busy family of 6 we go through the gate 5 zillion times a day. She can go for weeks with out trying to rush through. It's not a constant thing at all. Part of the problem is her boy is now 15 years old and getting busier with work, classes etc. Maybe I can assign some of the playing to one of the younger children.

She is very hard to reward as she cares nothing for food , only chasing things. Balls frisbees etc. Doing further classes is not an option. We can not afford it right now as the closest facility is over an hour away. I am a busy homeschooling mom of 4 young children. More training is just not realistic. I will look into the clicker training but maybe you could explain to me how a click will keep her from running deer? I don't mean that in a snarky way at all either. How on earth with a sound distract her from what she's gotten in her head to do?

One thing I have been working on the past few days is simply training the kids to look at her directly when approaching the gate. If she knows someone is watching I am hoping that will help. She is just so dang smart. So smart.

The double gate is a wonderful idea I didn't think of, but impossible in our situation. Please email me the recall exercise at geerfam @ yahoo.com. Remove the spaces.

Thank you.

[gfam]

Ah, I understand. We do not put her in stay or down when going in & out of the gate. With 6 people in our family going in & out 5 zillion times that just would not work for our family. 99 out of 100 times going out the gate is fine. It would be easier I suppose if she did it allll the time.She doesn't. She waits till we aren't paying attention, which with a large family is just going to happen. I am busy enough training my children.... I'll just have to think about ways to give her more to do.

Thanks.

[muttlycrew]

If she is not food motivated, use a toy as the reward. Instead of saying, "<insert name here>, SIT"..."GOOOOOOOD GIRRRRL" and trying to give her food, do an enthusiastic "YES!" and toss the ball/frisbee/toy/whatever to her. This makes it fun for her (and she is getting some playtime, win-win).

Joe pretty much said it with the click...the clicker is a marker. It lets the dog know that "YES! That thing you did is what I want". It helps to mark the exact second the dog gives you the desired command. It won't teach her not to chase the deer.

Since one of my BC's used to be a door rusher (but agility for the most part solved that) I wanted to add a way to get her to not do this, since the only time she did it was when we had guests over. So with our dogs, we taught them a "go place" command. It pretty much means go to your bed/area/zone/whatever. Each room has one. When the door bell rings, my 3 will run and bark and go nuts. I tell them "go place" and they backup and stay in the area I taught them to stay. My front entrance-way is a wood flooring, and the dining/living rooms all have carpet. I taught them they need to backup onto the carpet and stay there until I release them.

In the kitchen, they all have beds. If the garage door goes up, they immediately get into their beds and STAY there until I tell them the release word. That could be in 5,10, or 20 minutes when I release them. They won't move, even if its someone new, chicken being dropped on the floor, a new dog coming in the house, etc.

This took awhile to train (2-3 weeks to make it totally solid, a good 3-4 weeks with adding crazy distractions), but I really think you could do something like this with your girl. Setup a little area and walk her to it and have her lay down, and treat her (toss toy, whatever it is). Release her with whatever your release word is (mine is simple, its "GO" . Used to be "ok", but I use that too many times in conversation and they would get up...). After a while, you will be able to stand further and further away and tell her "go place" or whatever the word is you want to use. The further and further away you get, the longer you need to increase the time. Eventually, increase the distractions like opening the gates, people walking in and out, you standing there with the gate WIIIIIDE open, etc. It will take awhile, but if you make a habit of always telling her to get in her area each time you want to go near the gate, it should help.

That..or put a loud bell on her collar so when you hear it ringing loud and fast, you can close the gate. Kidding.

It takes some time to make this solid, but it's been a lifesaver for me. This just came to my mind as I was reading the postings. Good luck being creative.

[Miles96]

Why don't you try multiple invisible fences? She may run through the first one, may endure the second one, but a third one would stop her for sure. I have a fw neighbors who do this and it works pretty well. Plus, I don't think its a good idea to try to bring people through the gate just to test her... she clearly isn't responding to training when deer are involved, so don't even push it. Just make sure it is an important rule that everyone opens the gate just enough to get through, and closes it asap.
(I'm homeschooled to! High five!)

[Seelie Fey]

Hmmmm, trying to think what I would do in your situation. I don't know the set up with your gate - if the car has to come in through the gate, or just people, so some of this may not be appropriate.

1.) I think, I would try to rig the gate with a spring and bungie cord so that it automatically pulled shut and you have to pull hard to open it. This would make it hard to leave the gate open accidentally, and also help make people be very aware of what they are doing when they are opening it, so it doesn't get left open or get opened and shut as much.

2.) If I could afford it, I would go down to Home Depot and get one of those outdoor dog kennels and use it to create a sort of "airlock" by assembling three sides around the gate, on the inside of the fence, so that you go through the door to the outdoor kennel, then through the gate, and vise versa, so that one gate is always shut.

3.) I would clicker train an incompatible behavior with the gate opening - teach the dog to go lay in a specific spot, or something, whenever the gate opens.

4.) I would pick one of the kids and assign them teaching the dog to herd the lambs through some sort of obstacle as one of their projects. (Because I am an old fart and totally into child labor in families. Plus it gives the kid something to do, and the dog something to do. Can't beat that)

5.) I would go to Home Depot, or whatever, and get several length of cheap pvc and some t-junctions and a cheap little saw and assign another kid the project of teaching the dog to jump the three jumps and weave through 6 poles. The child can research home-made agility equipment on the internet. Jumps and weave poles are relatively easy to make. I just chopped the pvc up and stuck it together with the t-junctions. It falls apart, but you just shove it together, again. No glue needed.

6.) I would, or I would assign a kid to, take the dog on a walk every day. The most important part of the walk is for the dog to politely wait for the person to open the gate and invite the dog outside. I would probably repeat this several times before starting each walk. I would probably also teach the dog to stop before crossing the line to outside and sit, waiting for permission before continuing out the gate.

7.) I would, and I would also assign the kids to work with the dog on recall exercises for five minutes every day.

8.) I would probably assign a kid to be in charge of having the clicker for the shock collar in hand whenever the gate is opened. I would try to make a game out of it for the child, going through the protocol of the opening the gate checklist, or whatever.

Those were just my thoughts. They may or may not be useful or applicable in your situation. A lot of it involved "assigning a kid" because if they are doing tasks related to the deer chasing, it will help them be aware of the problem and helpful in solving it. If anything seems like it might be workable in your situation, use it, and if it doesn't, ignore it.

Good luck! It sounds like a frustrating problem, and I hope you can come up with something that works in your situation.

[Wendy M]

Wonder what ever happened with this dog...as the original post was made almost two years ago.

Hope that they resolved the issue and kept her, somehow.

-Wendy M.