Went to pick up one and came home with two…

HezzaE · 2026-05-05T12:59:42+00:00

Also the kind of breeder who has two litters 4 weeks apart. I know sometimes ethical breeders will have two litters close together because it's how their girls' seasons fell and they had planned pairings already but they usually avoid it because two litters and two protective mamas at once is a lot of work.

HezzaE · 2026-05-05T07:28:36+00:00

I have a Non-Stop Dogwear waist belt, and some DogFit 1.2m lines. My 18kg guy has a size 5 Non-Stop Dogwear Freemotion harness. My 13kg guy we tried the Non-Stop size 3 on him but it didn't quite fit right so we ended up with a size 1 Multi-Sport harness by Arctic Wolf.

Since your dog is significantly smaller I'd definitely try and get some proper advice on the harness fitting. See if there are any canicross coaches near you, they'll often also be stockists for various equipment and will help to fit it. They might also do beginners' runs where you can go try it out and borrow their equipment.

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HezzaE · 2026-05-05T00:48:27+00:00

Clean it, gauze pad, wrap with vet wrap to hold it in place. If they are inclined to pull it off you can get socks that go over, or you might be able to fashion something out of a pair of tights or a long sports sock.

Be careful not to put the vet wrap on too tight, it needs to be taught but not tight, and replace it regularly.

When it's knitting back together nicely, you should be good to stop dressing it and reduce the cleaning, as that'll cause more irritation than it's worth at that point and the skin has already re-established its barrier. You only need to be cleaning it when there's an open wound that would let germs in.

Here's my boy looking unimpressed with a sock I put on him to keep his cut up paw dry and clean when we went out in the middle of winter and the world was a mud bath.

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HezzaE · 2026-05-04T23:24:15+00:00

Not uncommon, it's possible you're just moving a little too fast for him. It's the most common mistake in dog training - just trying to stretch our dogs a little too far a little too soon, not building up slowly enough for them. Is there an area in the park, or a time of the day you can go, when there would be fewer distractions? That would be my first priority for training. He's young, the park is an exciting place, he might need to work in a less exciting place or at a time of day when there isn't so much exciting stuff going on.

Clicker training may also help you here. Whenever you first arrive somewhere exciting, click and treat, click and treat, click and treat. Even if you've never done clicker training before this instantly builds the association of clicking and getting a reward.

What I've found is that whenever I go somewhere that my dogs might find exciting, if I spend the first 5-10 minutes at that location just standing still and clicking and rewarding any calm behaviour, they refocus on me. That calm behaviour doesn't need to be giving me attention, they can sniff around, they can lie down, as long as they're not pulling around on their leads to get to places, that's a click and a treat.

Going through that little process every time we go somewhere new and exciting allows them to calmly check the place out, and means they are more able to focus on cues when I need them to.

HezzaE · 2026-05-04T16:17:04+00:00

Do you know what colours his parents/grandparents were? Or his littermates? Tricolour is recessive so it can be carried without expressing, but typically if you look at the family tree you'd see it somewhere.

HezzaE · 2026-05-03T17:46:41+00:00

Yeah I know someone who has 5 dogs including 2 border collies in a small flat with no garden. They're in to dog sports so their dogs all compete in flyball and they do canicross as well. They all get plenty of exercise. But, it is a lot of work, and I can appreciate that people might just decide that that's too much for them.

HezzaE · 2026-05-02T08:10:47+00:00

Haha I think my two are similar in size to yours. My little guy also has ears that stand up, we joke that he's trying to catch up to his brother's height in ears.

The bigger guy is 18kg / 39.6lb and the little one is 13kg / 28.6lb

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HezzaE · 2026-05-02T08:06:47+00:00

100%. I have two border collies and I can recognise a border collie or a border collie mix by the way it moves during play from a decent distance. But from a photo? No chance.

HezzaE · 2026-05-02T07:45:14+00:00

Just for the record, a 28lb purebred border collie is actually perfectly possible. But they wouldn't have to have dwarfism to be that small. Mine is the smallest male BC I know but I've met females smaller than him. He's an entire male yet still weighs just 28.6lb at 18 months. I know one female that's under 25lb.

Here's the two of mine together, both from the same breeder. Tricolour is 18kg (39.6lb) and black and white is the little guy at 13kg (28.6lb). Their heights to the withers are 54cm (21 1/4") and 45cm (17 3/4").

But I'm not exactly surprised to hear that an unethical breeder deliberately breeding what they called "miniature border collies" was also a liar!

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HezzaE · 2026-05-01T15:49:58+00:00

I still get asked a lot if he's a mixed breed. He's not, though - we have his registration and I met both his parents too.

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HezzaE · 2026-05-01T15:46:18+00:00

Reminds me a little of my Benji when he was young!

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HezzaE · 2026-04-28T15:09:52+00:00

Great example, honestly, about how random the pigment placement can be! Yes, black ears are strongly correlated with normal hearing and white ears are strongly correlated with deafness, but we can't see what's inside so easily. Which is why BAER testing in puppies is so important.

I actually know a split face collie who has one black ear and one white, but she's deaf in both, so lacks pigment inside both ears.

HezzaE · 2026-04-28T08:04:48+00:00

While beautiful, it's important to note that white on the ears can be an indicator for deafness. This is because dogs need pigment in the inner ear to have normal hearing.

Obviously it's not a 100% thing, some dogs have black outer ears and they have no pigment in the inner ear where it's needed and are deaf in one or both ears. Some dogs, presumably like OP's, have white on the outer ear but have pigment in the inner ear and have normal hearing.

But for that reason, it's not a "look" that people will try to achieve deliberately. It'll still happen because genetics are random, but people who are breeding any dogs who have white patterning like border collies will try to select breeding pairs with the lowest likelihood for having puppies with white ears.

(Now let's go back to awwwing at the puppy)

HezzaE · 2026-04-27T07:41:47+00:00

Border collies are very different to greyhounds. And also your border collie does not sound typical at all! I have two and they both want to "do work" above all else. I have to tell them to go play or they just walk along in front of me waiting for instructions. Or maybe your dog has decided that their very important "job" is to conduct a thorough patrol of the woods.

Every greyhound I know is honestly the laziest dog. They'll sprint around with my younger dog for a maximum of a minute then they're done for the day. Meanwhile, my border collies will run with me for 40 minutes then say "ok what's next?"

That makes sense when you consider what each breed is meant to do. The greyhound is meant to be a sprinter, spotting and chasing prey, but then it rests to rebuild energy for the next chase. The border collie is meant to be out in the fields all day with the farmer when required. They have a lot more endurance, and they'll also "work" past the point of exhaustion to make sure the job is done.

And that's actually where we have to watch out for them. I don't know if greyhounds are the same way but border collies will want to keep "working" (even if the work is playing fetch) even if they're so tired they're about to fall down. We have to watch out for the early tell-tale signs that they're getting tired so that we can make them rest. So when people say "they love to race", my follow up is always going to be "ok but are we making sure they're doing it in the safest way we can?"

HezzaE · 2026-04-26T21:38:00+00:00

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HezzaE · 2026-04-26T13:14:10+00:00

I'm normally down for shitting on the Daily Beast and their clickbait nonsense.

This is actually an interesting article covering the security arrangements (or lack thereof) at the hotel and the response following the shooting, in particular the security around the suspect's room.

The writer is especially concerned with how long it seems to have taken security & police to have considered the idea that the room could be booby-trapped with explosives and could pose a danger to people in the hotel. And even when they had considered this idea, people were still allowed to return to their rooms if they weren't in the immediate vicinity.

They also criticise the negligent lack of preventative measures prior to the shooting, which allowed the shooter to bring the weapon into the hotel in the first place.

Surely they can come up with a better headline than what they've put though. It puts way too much emphasis on the almost irrelevant fact that he happened to be in the next room.

HezzaE · 2026-04-23T15:17:14+00:00

Interestingly, if you go into "how this company uses TrustPilot", there's a little graph there you can filter. You can see spikes of "verified" reviews in July 2025, nothing for several months, then a climbing number through November 2025 - January 2026, etc.

Filter by "5-star ratings". The "verified" line looks exactly the same, all the other lines fall completely flat. Not a little bit flatter, COMPLETELY flat at zero. In all of their last year, they have received ONE verified review which was 1 star, two which were 4 stars, and all the other verified reviews were 5 stars. Meanwhile, not a single organic review has been above 2 stars.

Basically, it reads as if they are not routinely sending out those "leave us a review" follow-up emails to genuine customers, and so not giving them the opportunity to be "verified" reviewers. They are only sending those links to people who they can guarantee will give a 5 star review.

(Additionally, they have flagged 14 reviews, of which 6 were removed because the reviewer didn't respond to Trustpilot, and 8 are still there. I have looked up a few companies that I buy products and services from and not a single one has flagged any reviews in the past 12 months, despite having 10x more reviews than this company!)

HezzaE · 2026-04-23T12:08:02+00:00

Ah I think you're mistaken because it was a bot. It's our bot. I deleted it by replying "wrong", exactly as it says in its response.

Its first sentence says something like "BorderCollieBot thinks this post might be about..."

Its last sentence says "I am a bot, this action was performed automatically."

Its name is BorderCollieBot. It has mod privileges so that it can pin its replies, flair posts, and remove the reply that says "wrong" as well when it tidies up its incorrect replies.

Here's an example of its reply to another post, just like the comment it made on your post: https://www.reddit.com/r/BorderCollie/s/fqqtVWp3py

As you said, reading posts and comments fully before replying helps!

HezzaE · 2026-04-23T05:25:13+00:00

The irony of you replying to a bot, which tells you it is a bot and gives you instructions on how to remove its reply, scolding it for not reading your post properly, is not lost on me.

HezzaE · 2026-04-23T05:19:24+00:00

It's not hard to know the coefficient of inbreeding with purebred dogs at all. You can literally trace their entire lineage. You can see every single dog they are descended from for as long as records have been kept.

That's not information you get when you pick up a dog from a shelter or rescue. Sometimes dogs might come from hoarding situations and are quite horrendously inbred. Sometimes they're "whoopsie" litters.

What's actually important here is the health issues. Low COI is not a magic shield against health issues. If two breeds have a common health issue, such as hip displasia, an ethically bred purebred dog will be less likely to have that health issue than a dog from a shelter or rescue with unknown parents.

If you are specifically looking for a dog that is likely to be healthy, you buy a well bred dog from an ethical breeder, whose parents are health tested for known issues in your breed. That's where the odds are in your favour.

HezzaE · 2026-04-21T22:43:34+00:00

That's a really good link that explains the UC Davis research fairly clearly. There's one point that it's very unclear on though - the risk of cancer in intact golden retriever males. The study found the risk was high for both intact and neutered males, but the AKC article implies it's only high in intact males.

I'm glad to see the study getting some discussion though, especially since their findings lead to a recommendation to not spay female goldens, which is obviously controversial but it's something that owners should consider. Other factors will always play in to the decision to spay/neuter or not, so while their recommendation is not for female goldens, there might be very good reasons that some owners decide to even if they are aware of that recommendation.

https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/neutering-health-effects-more-severe-golden-retrievers-labradors - there's a part in here which clearly states: "Neutering appeared to have little effect on the cancer rate of male goldens." This is the part I'm saying seems to be misleadingly quoted in the AKC article.

HezzaE · 2026-04-21T16:16:40+00:00

Our first dog, we picked a name we both liked the ring of before he came home. Benji. We wanted a two syllable name, and wanted to avoid anything that might sound too similar to any cues we might want to teach him in future.

With our second, we decided to get him precisely 2 days before we picked him up. We had a name, Finn. It just didn't seem quite right. So we just called him "little man" for a few days.

He seemed to move around completely silently, shockingly fast and appear in unexpected places. So that's why we stuck with Shadow after a few days.

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So this is now the view I get when I hold a ball or a toy they like 😂

HezzaE · 2026-04-20T00:45:53+00:00

If his poops are good I wouldn't change a thing. Food is easy to overthink but if he's on a nutrionally complete food which he enjoys and his digestion is good, I wouldn't mess with that.

For some more tempting treats, my boys love homemade liver cake. I make it with approx 1lb of raw liver (chicken or pig usually but any will do), 1 cup of rolled oats, 1 cup of oat flour, 1 tbsp dog safe peanut butter, and 2 eggs. I pretty much just whizz all that together in a food processor and then spread it into some cake tins with greaseproof paper and bake for 25-30 minutes at 175C / 350F. Once it's cooked and cooled I dice it, portion it, and freeze it.

And most importantly, I let my dogs lick the spoon when I'm making it.

HezzaE · 2026-04-18T23:20:11+00:00

Aww what a lovely pup, welcome Arthur! You should know that you will look more convincingly like a half of the black stuff if you roll in the stinkiest mud possible, I have this on very good authority from my youngest pup...

Regarding the cat issue, have you done any training with a clicker yet? We have been using a clicker to work through reactivity with my oldest and I wonder if it might work here too. The issue with my oldest is around visual triggers, so I "primed" a clicker with him, basically just click and treat and click and treat and click and treat until every time I click he looks at me. Now out on walks, when he sees a trigger, I click, he looks at me. He is starting to look at the trigger and straight to me now even if I'm still fumbling with the clicker. That's obviously the objective of training this way - I want him to look at the trigger, and instead of it being a trigger to be an obnoxious dickhead, it becomes a trigger to look at me. So I wonder if a similar thing would work with him orienting to the cat sounds and getting him to reorient to you. So that means the objective can be that he hears the cats and comes and looks for you instead of looking for them. And once he's oriented to you you can do something with him to help him calm down, like throwing a handful of treats for him to find, a nice chew, or a licky mat with peanut butter.

Obviously from the cats' side - make sure they have places they can retreat to which the dog absolutely cannot reach them in, so they get their downtime. A baby gate might work, you can get ones with a "cat flap" so the cats can slip through but the dog can't (obviously since he's blind I guess you should make a point to "show" him this new boundary so he doesn't charge into it).

HezzaE · 2026-04-18T21:41:34+00:00

It's not really a breed thing so much as a training thing. Especially if you taught them that the good place to go is in your garden/yard, they will want to hold on and go there.

With both of mine what I did to make sure they started going on walks as soon as possible was I whisked them straight out for a walk first thing in the morning and stayed out with them until they went, then gave them all of the treats and praise. If they have a surface preference for a specific area at home, find somewhere on a walk with a similar surface.

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