Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire My Dogs are Social Malcontents.

So I rescued a male and female pair, 50/50 Border Collie and Heeler.
They are smart dogs, and at six months they bounce off the walls.
We opted for the pair so they would run each other to death, and that is paying off, they play a lot, play rough.

The rescue lady said she didn’t agree with the practice of isolating them until all their parvo shots were completed, my vet sort of insisted on it.
Well now they have completed the shots, and I started taking them out in public, walking them downtown and trying to take them to dog parks to get them socialized.

At first they growled at everything and everybody, the male who is the smarter of the two is coming around to people, the female is still growling a lot more.

Other dogs? Forget about it, they want to fight will all dogs they come across. I don’t dare take them off the leash at the dog park.
The male right now is about 28 lbs and went after a 100 pound lab that towered over him, but tried a little too hard to play with him. Luckily I didn’t get bit by the lab when I pulled them apart!

I think I’m making progress with people, but other dogs I’m getting nowhere. I know cattle dogs can be chippy, but is there any advice how to get them more acceptable if being around other dogs?

Let them off the leash and if they attack another dog, beat the ever loving fugk out of them. They will learn quickly.

Yep. Pretty much what Paul said......

or get rid of them NOW. No sense letting the inevitable happen.

Or when they attack the right dog and hang out of his mouth like dental floss

Border Collie/Heeler mix sounds like a dog that would do best out on a farm working animals....not a pet at a park.

Just me.

Good luck!

Shock collars work.

Mistake getting two at once, they cue off each other as much as they do off o you. Dogs learn from other dogs by example, they are reinforcing each other’s bad behavior.

Take ‘em out only one at a time, don’t tolerate anything you wouldn’t tolerate in your kids. Strong check every time, grab em by the scruff of the neck, strong no. When they submit they got the message. Repeat as necessary. Gonna take a lot of repeating the first few times.

When they can behave, try bringing them both.

BTW I’ve had three heelers, none of them had any use for dog parks, or much use for strangers. They need a job, mine’s jobs were running at heel next to my bicycle or fetching a ball.

Here’s the last one I had (w/grandchild), off the leash, sitting at heel just as hard as she could, the same way heelers do everything.

I forgot to make fun of the word "rescue." LOLOLOLOL

Pretty much any problems associated with dogs stems from the fact that they're not a Labrador.

Nowhere near as funny as “rescue lady.”

A good shock collar

PM sent...

Old obedient trained dog and young untrained dog...good. Two untrained dogs...bad. Young ones developing pack behavior and you are not enforcing yourself as undisputed pack leader. The other thing no one wants to admit...most larger breeds were purposed for specific work...if they don't have a job, they will act like any chronically unemployed human...trouble. You are trying turn hundreds of generations of selective trait breeding into lovable little fuzzies. Good luck. Horses and dogs need jobs.

I think I’m going to steal that one.

I'd agree, one at a time when mixing with other dogs or people until they figure out what expected of them in social situations.

They're pretty smart and learn quickly.

My Border Collie will not let a strange dog get between me and him. He'll bite straight away if they try.

His aggressive behavior with complete strangers (people) is all show but pretty spooky for the stranger.

I don't allow any of his aggression to pass without strongly showing my disapproval. Once passed the learning stage he stands down instantly with voice command.

Quite a few people bring their dogs to my place to workout with my Border Collie, he does great with other dogs these days but that behavior didn't come by chance.

As mentioned, dogs bred for the specific purpose of working livestock require a lot more time daily to exercise or burn off steam than most are willing to deal with.
I put in a minumum of 5 to 6 hours every day working this dog.

If ya don't there's little chance of success.

No doubt, I’ve never used them but any negative feedback is good.

The the temptation would be to get pi$$ed at the dog and light it up in revenge, same thing as actually beating your dog. Continuing the check after they have already ceased is pointless, and means to the dog you just went crazy is all. They will accept the beating because what the alpha says goes, but they will get to being scared of you.

‘Nother thing I see is friggin’ dog harnesses, universal among the rescue dog crowd, like collars are supposed to be cruel or something.

All a harness does is reduce your physical communication with the dog and rewards the dog for pulling ie ignoring what you want it to do.

I was gonna say a load of #4s.

Tri-Tronics collar set to "medium-rare". Anytime one gets aggressive toward a person or another dog, give it a good zap an an energetic "NO!" command. Pretty soon, the shock won't be needed. Most good quality training systems have multiple channels so a signal can be dedicated to a single collar.

Harnesses are great for training them to pull.

I've found the chokers and other variations of training collars seldom need to be used to choke or restrain, just the fact they are wearing them has 99% of the nessasary effect once the dog understands how they work.

The biggest part of training a dog is having the time to do it and being consistent, if you don't have the time pay someone that does.

Otherwise you just end up with a POS for a dog because they have no idea what's expected of them.