Hm. I've got a border collie sleeping at my feet right now (a calm BC is a rarity...). We have two of them. One (the male, younger) does the head tilt a lot, but the other (our female) does not. What I find interesting in terms of this article is that the latter, the female, is a lot smarter, more agile, more focused, and has more of the classic border collie attributes ("the eye", intense focus, etc.) but head tilts a lot less. Instead she stares and does a lot of... ear antennae action. Instead of tilting her head, her (erect) ears wiggle all over the place, like they're ... tuning in.
So this seems to contradict the findings of the study here where they seem to associate the head tilt with intelligence,
We have a young male and we’ve also noticed the difference in behavior compared to their female counterparts, the latter seem to be following more “to the letter” the behavior usually associated with a BC.
They have the sweetest temperament, though. I was always a lab person until we got a rescue collie, and I just fell in love with them.
They are pure intuition. And they just want to please you and have fun (which for them means working non-stop doing stuff). Their desire to please makes them pretty easy to train, it's just a matter of being consistent, which we are not. But they don't cause trouble in general once they know what displeases you because they really just want your approval so badly.
In the hands of a more qualified trainer, our female would be an insanely talented agility or herding dog. So fast. So attentive. So sensitive.
Interesting! I mostly only know border collies by reputation, which is probably unfair.
The pleasing temperament is why we went with a golden retriever; my girlfriend wants to train her as a therapy dog. But training has been difficult, due in no small part to how inconsistent we've been (and how rambunctious the dog is). We also can't get her to entirely stop play biting, which is frustrating. I love her to bits and would do anything for her, but I don't think I'll ever get a puppy again.
Puppies are soooo much work. And there's so many mature dogs that need rehoming, so why bother.
But having had dogs that we've raised from puppy and ones that we've adopted, I find that the puppy-raised ones were more emotionally attached.
Labs are notorious chewers, and they have a long adolescence (3 years!). And then the chewing usually stops. They're people lovers and snuggly and have lower energy, so I can see them being great therapy dogs, just might take a bit.
When we had a dog that chewed more we got her deer or elk antlers from the pet store and she chewed those to smithereens. Kept her busy and prevented her from going after our things.
> Puppies are soooo much work. And there's so many mature dogs that need rehoming, so why bother.
I definitely feel bad about that. Our last dog was a rescued golden retriever who passed away around the start of the year, and we had our hearts set on another golden. We felt uncomfortable enough with purchasing a dog that we donated the same amount spread out to a few animal rescues, but I still feel a bit guilty.
But we got our last dog when she would’ve been about 5 (she was a stray! How was the sweetest golden in the world a stray!), so we skipped all the puppy and adolescence. We underestimated the puppy stuff.
Antlers are a good idea. We were doing pressed rawhide but she started choking on them for some reason.
The puppy stuff is a challenge but worth it because they get so heavily bonded with you. They really integrate into the family so strongly when you have them from little. My experience anyways.
Our previous collie was a rescue, and she died young (like 6 years old, poor thing) and we were so heartbroken my wife went out and got a puppy about two weeks later.
We also had mixed experiences with rescues. They can be hard to deal with and in general most wouldn't even talk to use because we live on a farm without a "fenced backyard" (you try fencing 6 acres)... Except it's actually heaven here for a dog and we are good at taking care of them.
Ha, this sounds exactly like our Springer Spaniel. She is highly focused, extremely agile, never really misbehaves, but absolutely looses her marbles if there are squirrels in the yard and she is inside.
It's like she views her entire purpose as eradicating the yard of squirrels. But if I put her outside while I'm working, she comes back immediately to the door and waits for me to watch her chase the squirrels.
She also does the head tilt nearly every time I talk to her.
Had an Aussie. Just wanted to add that, in my experience, causing trouble was inversely related to how much exercise the dog had. If you take 'em out and throw the frisbee every morning (walking is insufficient), you'll have a well-enough behaved herder.
Yeah our male BC was an adoption and I feel like he behaves more like an Aussie than a BC -- e.g. nips and barks at animals instead of the BC stare which is apparently a key difference in their herding behaviour -- and does the same for people. If he's really happy to see you? ... He'll nip a hole in your shirt. Something the female BC has never done.
But he's easier to wear out than her. Frisbee for a half hour and he's done. She's impossible to wear out. And thus you can see why they'd be invaluable on a sheep farm...
So this seems to contradict the findings of the study here where they seem to associate the head tilt with intelligence,
I've always interpreted head tilt as confusion.
But of course that's just a single data point.
Ah, border collies. Just wanna collect em all.