Dealing with biting
Border Collies
Biting and mouthing is very common in Border
Collies, especially when they are playing. They should,
however, be made to learn to inhibit their biting and normally
this is learned from their mother at a young age. These days,
puppies are taken away from their parents and siblings at a
young age, and they may not necessarily would have learned to
control themselves, and that is where humans have to intervene
and complete the training themselves.
A large proportion of Border Collies are
given away to animal shelters, or just left in the streets
because they have bitten someone, more often that not, this has
been a child. The herding instinct, if not controlled, can be
very strong and this is overwhelmingly incompatible with a
household that contains children. This is particularly the case
when the owners and children have not been trained in dealing
with the peculiarities of the herding instinct.
Border Collies can make good family pets,
but only for those dogs that do not have the intense herding
instincts and if the families are prepared to deal with the
ramifications of this behavior. To a border collie, a child
running around outside may look like a sheep without wool. A
child that is running across the backyard or out of the front
door is, to the dog, a sheep has decided to break from the rest
of its flock. The Border Collies natural instincts will then
kick in and it will streak in front of the child to stop it
making a run for it! If a child is unprepared for this, the
experience of a dog cutting him off and barking at him with
seemingly evil intentions, will be quite a traumatic event. A
Childs normal reaction to this will to be frightened and
possibly let out a scream, running further to escape the
dog.
While the dogs in your household are allowed
to play while teething, it is up to you to teach him or her
what is acceptable and what is not. Most dogs and puppies are
loving, sweet, adorable, affectionate and wonderful 99% of the
time. Only 1% of the time will something happen to result in
your dog biting. Socializing your dog will generally stop it
barking. It will learn by the reaction of other animals that
this is not an acceptable move for the dog to make and it will
calm him down. They will learn to inhibit the biting
reaction.
There are other ways in which you can
prevent a dog from biting and they are to make the dog wear or
muzzle or use a training stick, which will not scare, but just
frighten the dog, just before it is obvious that he may
bite.
There is no way for you to prevent a dog
from following his instincts, but there are ways in which you
can modify his behavior to make him fit in with today’s
standards of dog-keeping. If you have the time and patience to
train him or her, you will not find you have a problem, left to
his own devices, however, and it could be potentially very
destructive!
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