If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Need solutions to tame brat collie girl (long)
Hi all,
As you know we adopted our new collie girl, Lucy, a little over 4 months ago. Overall she fits in perfectly in our family. Lucy was just under 2 when we brought her home. She was living at her breeder's house, in a rural subdivision. Each lot was about 3 acres or so. The local kids like to run their ATVs & motorbikes in the field behind the breeder's property. Her collies (all five of them) hate the motorbikes and take great delight in chasing after them along the fence line. At first, if Lucy saw anything exciting outside the fence (exciting being an animal such as squirrel, mowers being used by our neighbors, people walking, biking or running on our streets.) she would rush the fence, barking furiously. That was really obnoxious. To reduce this behavior I only let her out when I can go out too. When she starts a charge, I call/distract her. I've been taking on many walks to expose her to bicyclists and all sorts of people. While on walks, at first she would get overly excited about bicyclists but is now nicely blasé about them. She has always been very friendly and polite with meeting people on walks. I need to describe our backyard set-up so you can understand our current problem. Our house is a raised ranch which means our basement is half out of the ground. The windows for the basement are unusually large. Inside they start at 4 feet and go to the ceiling. They are 6 feet wide. Due to some extra insulation work, three of the windows have extra deep sills which are 1 feet deep. The majority of our basement is an apartment rented by Allison, a vet who has 1 dog (Sydney who hangs with us) and two cats, Tabitha & Lilly. Of the six windows in the apartment, four of them face the fenced in backyard (two facing south, two facing east). It's very easy for a nosy collie to spy on our tenant's activities. (go to http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/chrisjjung/my_photos to see a photo of Lucy supervising Jo, our previous tenant while she was folding her laundry) The problem is that if Lucy sees any movement in the apartment, she likes to stalk and then rush up to the window with a big loud roar. I've been on the reviving end of one of her charges and I just about had a heart attack. (As an aside, Lucy was most embarrassed and apologetic when she realized that it was me that she had startled) The two extra wide window sills would make ideal cat sunning spots but when Lucy spies a cat, she charges to the window, slamming her nose into the window/screen and spraying the window with little rocks. Poor scaredy cat Tabitha runs. Lilly on the other hand, has taken up the challenge and likes to taunt Lucy. They will both stand at the window, nose to nose. Lilly will pace and occasionally sit up and paw at Lucy's face through the glass. Lucy whines, wags and matches Lilly's pacing. Both Lucy and Lilly are brats. If Lilly hears that I've let Lucy outside, she immediately jumps up to the sill and taps at the pane to get Lucy's attention. Allison and I don't mind that Lucy and Lilly have a sort of play relationship going. What we don't like is Lucy's sneaky charging/barking behavior. Allison should be able to have her curtains open and walk around her apartment without a bratty collie sneaking up on her. My impression is that Lucy isn't doing this out of fear but that she thinks it's fun. I"m pretty sure she knows I don't like it (if I spy her starting a charge, I just need to say her name and she puts on the brakes and starts non-chalantly sniffing grass). But she's sly and waits until I've turned my back to make a quick charge. I've thought about doing something in front of the window to force Lucy to stay back. I had heard that dogs don't like to step on upside down plastic runners (like those plastic mat used under office chairs). I tried that and discovered that Lucy doesn't mind at all stepping on those plastic points. I've tried a tube of chicken wire on the ground before the windows thinking that she wouldn't like to get her little toes caught in it but that doesn't bother her either. Does anyone have suggestions on how to break Lucy of her bratty sneak attack habit? I'm now thinking of buying some welded wire fence, pound in some fence posts and making a half circle buffer zone around each window. I'm not thrilled with doing that - it'll be a hassle. Any other ideas? Chris and her smoothies, Pablo the Good and Lucy the Total Brat, good thing she's cute |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Need solutions to tame brat collie girl (long) | Chris Jung | Dog behavior | 48 | September 8th 04 10:27 AM |
Need solutions to tame brat collie girl (long) | Chris Jung | Dog behavior | 0 | September 6th 04 03:49 PM |
Questions about my new collie | Chris Jung | Dog behavior | 19 | August 9th 04 03:56 PM |
I Got Bitten Today | Debbie S | Dog behavior | 32 | September 10th 03 11:39 PM |