Yeah, Roscoe is a Border Collie (smooth coat / short hair) and Lilly is a Sheltie/Aussie mix. Here's the two of them together...
I want a border collie so bad. I just love them. I'm naming my next dog Ole' Rip. If you know where that's from, we can be friends.
Border Collie's need a lot of exercise. I actually feel bad for some of the ones I see around town confined to a yard. They belong on a beach.
Not only do they need a ton of exercise, they need a job to do. If they don't have something to do, they'll make a job up for themselves. That job usually involves destroying your stuff.
Yeah. I keep telling my dad to not put anything he likes on the floor or on the low table. My dog, Oreo, just grabs that shit and runs away with it. Dad gets mad, but I keep telling him.
Can we share videos of our dogs? The one being chased is Lexy, a 2-year-old Flat-Coated Retriever mix we adopted earlier this year. The chaser is Mischief, a 12-year-old Australian Shepherd mix we adopted 7 years ago.
I love border collies and australian shepherds, but I have a rule that they have to be at least 5 years old for me to adopt one. The energy level is just insane. We had an amazing border collie mix who passed away several years ago, she was 15 and still running circles around dogs 1/3 her age. Now we have an Australian shepherd, who has calmed down a lot, but we've had him chase our car on road trips because he was too wound up and he jumped off our 3rd story balcony when he was 8 (came away with only a few scratches). We opted to adopt a different breed recently, solely because of energy concerns. Our 12-year-old Aussy has the same energy as our 2-year-old retriever. An amazing thing about border collies, not so much aussies, is how well they pick up language. Border collies damn near understand everything you say.
We adopted ours when he was about 12 months old: he wound up in a shelter because his first owners couldn't handle him. The first year to 18 months was a nightmare...he destroyed so much stuff...beds, couches, blankets, shoes. He chewed one of the steps...he even found a way to chew our wood floor. We can't keep any food on the kitchen counter, he'll steal it when you're not looking. He's slowly gotten better over the last year or so, now he's the most amazing dog. He'll do anything for you and he's so damn smart. Like you say, he seems to completely understand English. He knows the names of all his different toys, you can tell him to get a specific toy and he'll go get that one for you. I wouldn't be surprised if he starts talking soon.
I'm glad to hear you are over the hump. We've never had many property destruction issues. Mostly just issues with the dogs running for daylight if you try to skimp on their daily walks. They keep you active, that's for sure.
So after all this talk of Border Collie craziness....my fiancee left the kitchen trashcan out and unattended this morning. Here is the result (I like how he managed not to knock it over)... and here is the guilty party hiding under my desk after I found it...