It’s often the moment afterwards that feels the worst.
The moment when your voice came out sharper than you intended, you tightened the lead in frustration, or you got home from another difficult walk and thought:
This isn’t the kind of owner I want to be.
You didn’t get a dog expecting to feel like this.
You probably imagined long walks, companionship and a warm body curled up near your feet. Instead, you may now have a dog you love very much, but a life that has gradually become smaller and more difficult to manage around them.
So let me say something I often say to owners before they have even finished explaining what has been happening.
You probably don’t hate your dog.
You may simply feel trapped, overwhelmed or completely unsure what else to try.
Those feelings are not the same thing. Recognising the difference is often the first step towards making life feel more manageable again.
It’s a comment many struggling Collie owners have heard, and it can leave you feeling as though your dog’s behaviour must somehow be your fault.
Perhaps someone at training class said it.
Perhaps it came from a person in the park whose dog was lying quietly while yours appeared to be doing an impression of a firework.
Perhaps you grew up with a Collie who seemed to be no trouble at all. They slept under the kitchen table, came when they were called and fitted easily into family life.
It is very easy for the conclusion to become:
It must be me.
But you are often comparing your most difficult moments with a small snapshot of somebody else’s life.
You see five calm minutes in a car park. You do not see the months or years of training that came before it, the management happening behind the scenes, the difficult days or the professional support they may have received.
Border Collies are exceptional learners. That part is true.
However, they are also extremely good at noticing patterns and learning which of their own behaviours change what happens around them.
A Collie who has learned that barking causes you to cross the road, lunging makes another dog move away or refusing to walk results in going home has learned something very successfully.
It just was not necessarily the lesson you intended to teach.
Living with a sensitive, highly responsive Border Collie can feel rather like being handed the keys to a performance car when you have only ever driven a small run-around.
Nothing is necessarily wrong with the car. It may be an incredible piece of engineering.
But it responds much more quickly. The controls feel more sensitive. Small inputs create bigger results, and the more nervous or uncertain you become, the harder it feels to drive smoothly.
It can be similar when living with a Border Collie.
They may respond to changes in movement, sound, routine and body language that you had not even realised were significant.
If this is your first dog as well as your first Collie, the learning curve can feel particularly steep.
Most owners are told that Border Collies need plenty of exercise and mental stimulation. Far fewer are prepared for what it can be like to live with a dog who notices almost everything, learns patterns extremely quickly and may find it difficult to filter out the world around them.
That does not mean you are failing.
It means you are learning to live with a dog whose needs and responses may be very different from those of the dog you expected.
There is another part of this that matters too.
We chose to bring these dogs into our lives. They did not choose the homes, environments or expectations they were given.
That is not something to use as a stick to beat yourself with. It simply means that the responsibility for making changes sits with us rather than with them.
It can be hard, and it can still be our responsibility.
Both things can be true.
The stage at which many owners begin to believe they have somehow ruined their dog is also the stage at which dogs are often most challenging.
Studies from the UK and US suggest that a large proportion of dogs surrendered to shelters are adolescents or young adults, broadly between six months and three years old.
In one large study involving twelve shelters, 40% of relinquished dogs had at least one behavioural reason recorded for being handed over.
A UK study following young dogs found that owner-reported unwanted behaviour peaked at around twelve months of age. Barking, jumping up, pulling on the lead and recall difficulties were among the commonly reported problems.
Researchers have also identified inappropriate expectations around the realities of caring for a dog as one of the potentially modifiable risk factors for relinquishment.
In other words, the gap between the dog someone expected and the dog they actually brought home can have a significant effect.
That is not a story about uncaring owners.
It is often a story about people who did not receive the information, preparation or support they needed.
Information gaps can be filled. Skills can be learned. Plans can be changed.
Breed-specific research also suggests that Border Collies may be particularly sensitive to certain environmental sounds.
Studies looking at responses to fireworks, gunshots and other loud noises have found that Border Collies can show strong fear-related responses. Those signs may include panting, hiding, freezing or becoming more reactive.
Because fear does not always look like running away, it can easily be mistaken for stubbornness, overexcitement or “naughty” behaviour.
Understanding what may be driving the behaviour gives us a much better starting point than simply blaming ourselves or our dogs.
When the big, intense and unmistakably Collie traits are firing at full volume, it can be a sign that the dog is struggling to cope with what is happening around them.
Many frightened animals try to create distance from the thing that concerns them.
Border Collies, however, have been selectively bred to move towards a situation – exert pressure, influence movement and control what happens around them.
That can mean fear or discomfort does not always look like retreating.
When a Collie barks and lunges at another dog, it may look as though they desperately want to reach it.
It can look aggressive. It can feel frightening and embarrassing. You may find yourself apologising while worrying that everybody around you thinks you own a dangerous dog.
But in many cases, the dog is trying to make the other dog move away.
They feel uncomfortable, and the behaviour they have found most effective is to take control of the situation.
The difficulty is that this strategy often works.
The other dog was already walking away. The cyclist passed. The person gave you more room.
From your Collie’s point of view, barking and lunging achieved the desired result.
The more often that pattern is rehearsed, the more likely it is to be used again.
I often hear owners say that their Collie simply can’t switch off.
I understand why it feels that way, but I don’t believe we should assume that calm is impossible for them.
Many working Collies learn to rest very well between jobs. Part of the reason may be that their active time and rest time are clearly separated.
A working dog may return to a quiet kennel or stable area where very little is happening.
A pet Collie may be expected to settle in a room containing a television, a washing machine, a microwave, a doorbell, phones buzzing and several people moving around.
For a dog who has been bred to notice changes in sound and movement, that environment may not feel restful at all.
It may feel like another working shift.
I have lived with many Border Collies, and I know that a Collie living an ordinary family or suburban life can learn to relax.
However, we may need to help them by creating suitable conditions for rest rather than simply expecting them to find calm in an environment that continually asks for their attention.
The environment is not the only factor. Health, genetics, learning history and temperament also matter.
But the environment is one of the things we may be able to change.
This can be an uncomfortable subject, but understanding it gives us more options rather than fewer.
Some of the behaviours our Collies display are patterns that we may have unintentionally strengthened.
That does not mean you have caused every difficulty your dog has. Nor does it mean you have been careless.
Certain activities are simply extremely rewarding for some Collies.
Repetitive, high-arousal ball chasing is a common example.
It looks like exercise, and the dog may appear to be having the time of their life. But in some dogs, repeatedly chasing fast-moving objects can strengthen patterns of fixation, anticipation and pursuit.
And most importantly – not being able to listen when in high arousal, simply being on auto-pilot.
Those patterns may start to happen around other moving things, including cars, bicycles, joggers, children on scooters or other dogs.
This does not mean that everybody must stop playing with a ball.
It means we should consider how the game affects the individual dog.
Can they take a breath during the game?
Can they respond to you between throws?
Can they stop and move on if the ball is taken away?
Does the game leave them settled, or are they still scanning for movement long after it has finished?
Changing the type, intensity or structure of play may form part of helping a dog who is struggling with chasing or fixation.
That should feel hopeful.
Behaviour that has been learned or strengthened is behaviour we may be able to influence.
I need to tell you about Vodka, because so much of what I understand about pain and behaviour came from living with her.
Vodka came to me from Italy when she was sixteen weeks old.
Before I had even met her, I already had a picture in my head of the dog she was going to become. Looking back, that expectation placed a lot of pressure on a puppy who had never agreed to carry it.
When I travelled to meet her, she barked and lunged at every dog she saw.
But when a dog actually came close, she tried to get as far away as possible.
She came home with me, and life was hard.
She barked and lunged. She was not particularly interested in treats or toys, which meant that many of the training approaches I would usually use were unavailable to me.
At the same time, I was caring for my father, who had multiple system atrophy. I had two young children, and my business was under financial pressure.
All the sensible advice I might have given another owner felt almost impossible to apply to myself!
The turning point came one evening in the garden when I reached towards Vodka’s collar and she cowered away from me.
I had never intentionally done anything to hurt her.
Seeing her move away broke my heart.
My friend Jan, who is also a behaviourist, was able to look at the situation more objectively than I could. She wondered whether Vodka might be in pain.
We arranged for her to be examined, and a small area of discomfort was found high up near the back of her head.
There had been no obvious limp, yelp or dramatic sign of injury.
It was the kind of discomfort that could easily have been missed.
Within days of treatment, things began to change.
Vodka became more interested in treats. She began to play tug. She allowed me to take hold of her collar.
She even started rushing over to people to say hello, leaving me to do what many puppy owners do and apologise for her enthusiasm!
Training cannot resolve behaviour that is being caused or significantly affected by pain.
When a dog hurts, they may be less tolerant, more reactive and less able to learn, just as we often are when we feel unwell or uncomfortable.
It is also important to remember that behaviour which begins during a period of pain may not immediately disappear when the pain is treated.
The behaviour may have been practised and learned.
Treatment may therefore need to be followed by behaviour support and careful retraining.
If your dog’s behaviour has changed, seems unusually intense or is not responding as expected to training, it is worth arranging a thorough veterinary assessment.
You can read Vodka’s full story here.
Shame does not usually motivate people to make calm, consistent changes.
More often, it sends them searching frantically for the answer that will prove they have not failed.
You buy a course.
You watch a series of videos.
You try one harness, then another.
You follow the method recommended by someone in the park, then the technique from an Instagram account, followed by something you found at four in the morning because you could not sleep.
Before long, you have twelve half-started approaches and no clear way of knowing which one might have helped.
This is one of the most common situations I see.
Not an incapable owner.
An overwhelmed owner who has been given too many things to do and no help deciding what matters most.
When you feel overwhelmed, it becomes much harder to respond consistently, recognise early warning signs and make clear training decisions.
Your dog does not need you to be perfect.
They need a plan that feels manageable enough for you to follow.
Me saying that your dog isn’t broken does not mean doing nothing.
It means looking honestly at what is happening without using blame as the starting point.
Compassionate realism may mean doing fewer things, but doing them properly.
The expectations you currently have may be based on the dog you imagined rather than the dog who is standing in front of you.
That doesn’t mean giving up on progress.
It means beginning at a point where your dog can learn and you can succeed.
Management is not cheating.
It is not avoiding the problem forever, and it does not mean you have failed.
Good management reduces the number of times your dog rehearses the behaviour you are trying to change while you build the skills they need instead.
That might mean choosing quieter walking routes, creating distance from triggers, using visual barriers at home or reducing activities that leave your dog over-aroused.
You do not have to fix everything at once.
Choose one to three priorities. If life feels especially difficult at the moment, begin with just one.
It may help to choose:
Work on those until they feel more established.
Then decide what comes next.
It is not glamorous, but it is much more effective than attempting twelve different things and feeling as though none of them are working.
What might change this week if you gave yourself permission to stop trying to solve everything at once?
I struggle with the phrase “difficult dog”.
Not because these dogs aren’t genuinely difficult to live with at times. They absolutely can be!
But the label can make it sound as though the case is closed.
This is simply who the dog is. There is nothing more to understand.
Many dogs described as difficult are dogs whose needs, discomfort, fears or behaviour have not yet been fully understood.
That does not mean their owners do not care.
It usually means there is more information to uncover.
The fact that you are reading this and looking for answers already tells me that you want things to improve.
I also want to be honest with you about how hard things became with Vodka.
There were three days when she wasn’t living in my home.
I found what I believed was a lovely home with a couple in a quieter part of the country. I drove her there believing that rehoming her might be the right decision for both of us.
I cried when I left her.
And pretty much continually until I went back for her.
She has never left again.
I have made the decision that many struggling owners are frightened they may be moving towards.
I understand how painful and complicated it can feel, and I am not going to judge somebody for reaching that point.
Sometimes life gets in the way of dog training.
Sometimes we are doing the best we can with the energy, information and support available to us at the time.
You are allowed to forgive yourself for the things you did before you understood more. All of us are only human.
Blaming yourself does not tell you what to do next.
Gathering clear information does.
Take a piece of paper and draw two columns.
In the left-hand column, write down what your dog currently does and when it happens.
Keep it factual rather than emotional.
Instead of:
My dog is a nightmare on walks.
Write:
My dog barks and lunges when another dog appears within approximately twenty metres on the pavement.
In the right-hand column, write what you would like your dog to do instead in that exact situation.
Be specific.
“I want my dog to be better around traffic” is understandable, but it is difficult to turn into a training plan.
A more useful goal might be:
I would like my dog to walk on a loose lead beside me while traffic passes on the road.
You may find it helpful to consider whether your goal is:
Could you film the situation and clearly tell whether the behaviour happened?
If not, the goal may need to be more specific.
Now look at the space between the two columns.
On one side is what your dog currently does.
On the other is what you would like them to do.
The steps needed to cross that gap become your training plan.
You may look at the gap and think:
I have absolutely no idea how to get from one side to the other.
That is okay.
It is an honest and useful place to begin.
It is far more helpful than deciding that either you or your dog is simply a failure.
Helping owners cross that gap is exactly what we do inside the Collie Culture Club.
It is my membership for owners of Border Collies and other sensitive dogs who want practical, kind and realistic training support.
Inside the Club, owners receive help deciding what to work on first, guidance with management and training, and access to a community of people who understand what living with a challenging or sensitive Collie can be like.
The focus is not on chasing quick fixes.
It is on doing fewer things properly, building skills that hold up in everyday life and creating a plan that fits the dog who is actually in front of you.
Doors are not open all the time, but you can join the waitlist here:
👉 Join the Collie Culture Club waitlist
PS If you are worried that your dog is somehow too difficult to improve, please know that many owners feel like that before they have the right explanation, support and a manageable plan.
Start with your two columns – and put your name on the waitlist while you’re at it.
