Border Collie Quotes

Possessing a creative mind, after all, is something like having a border collie for a pet: It needs to work, or else it will cause you an outrageous amount of trouble. Give your mind a job to do, or else it will find a job to do, and you might not like the job it invents (eating the couch, digging a hole through the living room floor, biting the mailman, etc.). It has taken me years to learn this, but it does seem to be the case that if I am not actively creating something, then I am probably actively destroying something (myself, a relationship, or my own peace of mind).

I suspect if I had owned a border collie, this story would have a very different ending, and I probably would not have been around to type it up. But I had Bongo, and he saved our lives because he is simple and made of nose.

Good men are a bit like border collies: we're happiest when we're useful. That's why the life of a good man involves constant striving for direction and meaning.

Possessing a creative mind, after all, is something like having a border collie for a pet: It needs to work, or else it will cause you an outrageous amount of trouble.

Had it been just the two of us with the flock, I am sure it would have been a complete disaster. But Louie came with a helper, partner, friend, second brain: a border collie named (he must have wanted the similarities in names) Louise, and she quickly—after watching me for a moment and seeing how useless I was—took over completely.

Possessing a creative mind, after all, is something like having a border collie for a pet: It needs work, or else it will cause you an outrageous amount of trouble. Give your mind a job to do, or else it will find a job to do, and you might not like the job it invents (eating the couch, digging a hole through the living room floor, biting the mailman, etc.). It has taken me years to learn this, but it does seem to be the case that if I am not actively creating something, then I am probably actively destroying something (myself, a relationship, or my own peace of mind).

Mine. It's all mine.

I do believe in the power of prayer. I do. And I believe in the power of human kindness.

I ran from the barn out through the herd to make certain and saw that the coyote was really dead, as was the sheep, but I ran smack into what makes border collies the incredible beings that they are. Louise grabbed at the coyote’s neck, growling, and having made certain that it was dead, tried to bring the sheep back to life. She pulled at the ewe, trying to lift her to her feet, nudged at her ribs in a kind of crude CPR,

I have a writer’s concentration: intense, but flickering.

He’d try to keep it light. “Kate, if you’re going to call my border collie your baby every time you see her, maybe we should marry and make the poor dog legit.

Eight-year-olds playing soccer, Teddy decided, was a lot like a pack of border collies chasing a single sheep, except that the dogs would’ve used more teamwork.

A border collie is a good thing to have if you don’t want to be the most neurotic being in the house.

As I stare into the Border collie’s eyes, I think that maybe I should go inside and call the girls. Claire, Cindy, and Jill would be here almost before I hung up the phone. They would hold me, hug me, say all the right things. You’re special, Lindsay. Everybody loves you, Lindsay.

It is not the job of the dog trainer to summon the dog’s generics, not to impose man’s will over dog’s. It may be worth noting that many Scottish hill dogs never know the weight

It’s the season. We share what we’ve got.

hawk being chased by a crow that was being tailed by a mockingbird, and, to her astonishment, a determined hummingbird brought up the rear like a border collie herding the whole bunch out of his territory. Hummingbirds’ inclination to take on creatures one hundred times their size is the key to their survival. Without their oversize aggression, these mini-flyweights would not stand a chance

She lived upstairs in the farmhouse; guests and visitors occupied the B&B rooms downstairs. She kept crates tucked all over the house, in which herding dogs-border collies and shepherds-slept while waiting to work, exercise, or play. These working dogs, I'd come to learn, led lives very different from my dogs'. Carolyn let them out several times a day to exercise and eliminate, but generally, they were out of crates only to train or herd sheep. While they were out, Carolyn tossed a cup of kibble into their crates for them to eat when they returned. I asked her once if she left the lights on for the dogs when she went out, and she looked at me curiously. "Why? They don't read... Still, they were everywhere. If you bumped into a sofa it might growl or thump. Some of her crew were puppies; some were strange rescue dogs.

The sheepdog trial is a contest of farm and ranch dogs doing the same work they do every day at home. It's a simple test: dog runs out, gathers sheep, and fetches them to his shepherd. Dog drives the sheep through obstacles. Then dog and man sort the sheep and pen them. Any halfway decent sheepdog can do it but some are better than others

Mother, just like the last fifty-five thousand times you’ve mentioned it, I have no intention of getting married and having a family. You’re just going to have to content yourself with the grandchildren you already have.” ... ... His mother narrowed her eyes at him. He could see her mind working on how to get him to come around. She was never going to give up, and she would be fit and healthy enough to badger him about it for years and years. ... Lance had heard humans talk about the tenacity of Jewish mothers. He didn’t know any, but he’d be surprised if they could hold a candle to the relentless herding instinct of a quickened mother who was descended on both sides from border collies.

The trainer Tony Illey has said, “The most difficult thing I ever saw a dog do was bring a ewe who’d just lost her lamb through a field full of lambing ewes.” Let me offer a gloss: Ewes with new lambs are extremely protective of their lambs and often charge a dog. When they lose sight of their lamb, they assume the dog has killed it, and despite his teeth will try determinedly to trample him. A ewe who’s lost her lamb will rush back and forth seeking it, bleating to other newborn lambs trying to collect one. The other mothers are confused by this, and when the dog gets near them they, too, go on the attack. Unlike Tony Illey, I don’t think what this dog did was difficult. It was impossible. Knowing that the dog can read sheep better than any man and can react much quicker than any man, what commands would you give him? Correct answer: his name.

Hard to imagine, but Dakotah herself was 99.98 percent wolf, including, you might suppose, the part of her that loved pursuing and catching things over and over at breakneck speed and delivering them back to her pack, in a faint echo of the chase. I’ve wondered if some dogs may feel a higher level of drive for such games, since it’s their only outlet for genetically programmed catch-and-kill hunting behavior. A wolf in the same situation seems more relaxed, more purely at play—certainly the case with the black wolf just then, and with other wild wolves I’ve seen. After all, wolves hunt to live, on a daily basis; fooling around with a toy is more of a break, quite separate from the serious business of living—having fun for the sheer sake of it. To high-drive Labs and border collies, fetch is often more than just a game; it’s their job, a dead serious business.

Every trainer I spoke to, though advocating methods as contradictory as Koehler and pharmacological behaviorism, agreed on four basic principles. The are magic principles, and so important that training may not help dogs living without them, while some dogs living with them require little formal training. • Magic principle #1: Don’t be nuts! • Magic principle #2: Puppies are baby dogs • Magic principle #3: Exercise your dog • Magic principle #4: Give your dog a job

when we consider DNA, the genotype is the DNA sequence that contains instructions for the living organism. The phenotype is the observable characteristics of an organism, such as its anatomy, biochemistry, physiology, and behavior. The genotype interacts with the environment to produce the phenotype. To put this in an everyday situation, consider the blueprint as a house’s genotype and the actual house its phenotype. The phenotypic construction process is the building of the house using the blueprint as information about what and how to do it. The phenotype is related to the genotype that describes it, but there is a world of physical difference between the genotype and the phenotype and even the phenotypic construction process. For one, the genotype is non-dynamic; it is a quiescent, one-dimensional sequence of symbols (DNA’s symbols are nucleotides) that has no energy or time constraints. Like a blueprint, it can sit around for years, as you have probably learned from watching CSI. The genotype dictates what should be constructed (perhaps a really cute dog), but the DNA itself does not look or act anything like a cute dog. On the other hand, the phenotype (the cute dog) is dynamic and uses energy, especially if it is a border collie.

By human standards, I know far more than the dogs do. But Luke and June can do what I cannot. In a millisecond, forty feet from just encountered range Rambouillets the dogs see, big as a Wall Drug bill board, which sheep is the leader. They immediately understand the complex social order in this particular miniflock. they know whether the sheep are ready to fight, split up, or break for the tall timber, because the sheep tell them what they mean to do. For the sake of that instant, for that millisecond, that's why the Mister and Missus have put so many miles beneath their paws. Luke and June have developed an all-sheep, all-breed, all-terrain method that doesn't give them an edge over dogs who've been working these sheep on this terrain all their lives, but does help them transmute the novel into the manageable

words are a border collie’s worst nightmare.

If there’s one thing we dogs know, it’s always trust your gut. Always. Objective analysis is highly overrated. Reasoning is better left to lawyers and scientists. And sometimes Border Collies, but don’t get me started on that.

Never take hold of a dog’s collar and pull him to where you want him to be, as this is a direct confrontation to a dog and can make a strong-minded dog want to be dominant and a gentle or sensitive dog may be made to feel submissive, neither of which you want in your dog. There

Possessing a creative mind, after all, is something like having a border collie for a pet: It needs to work, or else it will cause you an outrageous amount of trouble. Give your mind a job to do, or else it will find a job to do, and you might not like the job it invents (eating the couch, digging a hole through the living room floor, biting the mailman, etc.). It has taken me years to learn this, but it does seem to be the case that if I am not actively creating something, then I am probably actively destroying something (myself, a relationship, or my own peace of mind). I

A SIMPLE BEAUTY The Border Collie is the epitome of all we may ever desire in a dog, a friend and a partner. Honesty, integrity and loyalty are second nature to a collie and they will work until they can go no further. Yet for all their willingness to give they are not submissive, they are proud of their heritage and they do not suffer fools gladly. Look beyond the colour of the coat and the cloak they wear labelled ‘dog’, search inside and reach its soul, for once there you will be trapped in a world of unbelievable love and honesty. You will have found true beauty, for the wonderful qualities within this breed are always there waiting to be unlocked and are what make it truly beautiful. Drink in its grace, speed and stamina, for rarely has so much come together so perfectly in so small a package.

If you have a border collie, and do your job, you will learn patience. if you have Labs, you will learn to stretch the boundaries of hygiene. I'm told that the original Labs hailed not from Labrador but from Newfoundland, where they worked with tough and tired fisherman who let them hang around but didn't provide organic or vegan dog food. As a result, Labs became scavengers, with little fussiness about what they ate.

By obligation Pamela read me “The Posting,” a warning to would-be owners that pure Border collies are essentially smarter than your average local elected official and slippier than Cool Hand Luke. They can jump six-foot fences, dig under walls, open doors and gates and in an emergency, hot-wire any automobile manufactured before 1998.

Abigail had keeled over at the judge’s signal. Pip, her Border Collie, had come flying when Abigail called, then dropped to the grass twenty feet out on her “Down!” command. According to the American Kennel Club rules, Abigail should have called him again when the judge gave the signal. I’m no expert on the finer points of scoring, but I was pretty sure that falling flat on her face was a serious handling error.

There was a dog on that Man's Best Friend show who supposedly understood like a thousand human words. Border collie, I think. Those guys need to switch to decaf.

Mason moaned, a filthy sound that made my cock jump to life like my mom’s old border collie hearing the rattle of keys. Wanna go for a ride, Charlie? Fuck yes, I did.

Border collies' sensitivity to the human voice compliments one of their most remarkable instinctual gifts, the "eye".

Anna dropped the brush and doll and quickly scurried to her twin bed, where Bandit, the family’s black-and-white border collie, was already resting as she slid under the covers just as her mother opened the door. She pulled the flowered blanket up past

I drove my Border Collies crazy for a few weeks trying to teach them to wait at the door as a group and then go outside one at a time. Each dog could go out the door after I said his or her name, followed by the word OK. As soon as I said “OK,” not surprisingly, all the dogs would get up and move forward, no matter whose name preceded it. I knew it would be hard for them, since they had all learned as individuals that “OK” meant “Go ahead and do what you want.” But I thought that if I were clear and patient, they would learn to move only if they heard “OK” after their own name. After a couple of weeks, I was frustrated and my dogs were confused. Pip was so distressed that she started to stress-whine. Pip gets the connection between a sound and an action faster than any dog I’ve ever had, but she never could figure out that “OK” only related to her if her name preceded it. She’d sit waiting at the door, I’d say “Luke, OK,” and she’d start to move forward and backward, clearly unsure of how to proceed, searching my face for clues until she began to look stressed when I moved toward the door. She practically wrapped her paws over her ears.

you still have to make things in order to live out your highest creative potential—and also in order to remain sane. Possessing a creative mind, after all, is something like having a border collie for a pet: It needs to work, or else it will cause you an outrageous amount of trouble. Give your mind a job to do, or else it will find a job to do, and you might not like the job it invents (eating the couch, digging a hole through the living room floor, biting the mailman, etc.). It has taken me years to learn this, but it does seem to be the case that if I am not actively creating something, then I am probably actively destroying something

they called the four winners again in reverse order. “And first place goes to Ripley, the Border Collie.” The black dog with white markings cocked his head at his name and, for an amateurs’ show, seemed to understand everything going on and what to expect. Annabel’s nervousness ramped up as the toy breeds and their handlers showed themselves off. A toy poodle with a giant attitude won first place. Annabel stood up and pinned the paper with her entry number on her shirt. For the last time, she plucked the last stray pieces of straw off Oliver’s neck. “Next up are the mixed breeds,” came the announcement. “All the best to both of you,” Dustin said. “Knock ‘em dead, you two,” Bob said and patted Oliver’s head. “Go strut your stuff.” Annabel started off with Oliver to her left, and since she was at the front, she led the pack as everyone else

Dream are just Dream

But if your calling is to make things, then you still have to make things in order to live out your highest creative potential—and also in order to remain sane. Possessing a creative mind, after all, is something like having a border collie for a pet: It needs to work, or else it will cause you an outrageous amount of trouble. Give your mind a job to do, or else it will find a job to do, and you might not like the job it invents (eating the couch, digging a hole through the living room floor, biting the mailman, etc.). It has taken me years to learn this, but it does seem to be the case that if I am not actively creating something, then I am probably actively destroying something (myself, a relationship, or my own peace of mind).

Possessing a creative mind, after all, is something like having a border collie for a pet: It needs to work, or else it will cause you an outrageous amount of trouble. Give your mind a job to do, or else it will find a job to do, and you might not like the job it invents (eating the couch, digging a hole through the living room floor, biting the mailman, etc.). It has taken me years to learn this, but it does seem to be the case that if I am not actively creating something, then I am probably actively destroying something (myself, a relationship, or my own peace of mind). I firmly believe that we all need to find something to do in our lives that stops us from eating the couch.

The Poodle was ranked in second place, just behind the Border Collie. While the Schnauzer didn’t do quite so well, it still ranked very high—the Miniature, Standard and Giant Schnauzers are respectively listed at the 12th, 18th and 28th places on the listing.

A Collie who learns to chase a ball before he learns how to control his enthusiasm can become ball-obsessed. A Collie who learns how to invent his own game with a ball, before running to retrieve one, will be less obsessive, and will be able to amuse himself without getting over-excited.

Tess’s genes carry tri-colour, semi-erect ears and a blue eye, but her breed lines were checked carefully for compatibility. She is sensitive, full of fun and loves to learn.

Hope was tri-coloured with softly pricked ears and a medium coat, and he came from a strong working line. He lived to be fifteen years old and as a youngster was a very strong-willed dog with a dominant nature. He worked sheep and lived in the house and, as he grew older, he found his way into the bedroom and on to the bed. Training Hope as a puppy and as a young dog was challenging as he was both wilful and stubborn, but as he matured he became one of the most gentle and loyal companions anyone could wish for. With a lovely mature dog it’s easy to forget the amount of time and patience given to creating the relationship that made that dog so special.

Settling for a confident dog who feels secure on local walks and occasional trips away, rather than a dog who is unhappy at being taken into situations he isn’t comfortable with, may mean a few unrealized dreams but this will be more than compensated for by the relationship gained with a happy and trusting dog.

If a person is very active, either jogging or walking for miles on a regular basis, then a Collie may be the perfect companion, but the more exercise they are given, the more they will expect, as their stamina levels increase. However, a Border Collie can be just as happy with less strenuous exercise, providing this is balanced with an abundance of quality time with his guardian or within the family unit.

Border Collies are the masters of ‘downtime’ but if they are always kept on the go they will forget how to switch off. Quiet and calm quality time with your dog is an essential part of forming a bond between you.

She was wearing skinny jeggings, a very low-cut top and so much hooped gold jewellery that she looked like an agility course laid out for a very tiny border collie.

Collies learn things quickly but they can also pick up bad habits just as quickly. A simple Border Collie ‘task’ of digging for a bug or a worm can soon turn into a massive excavation.

A young dog under pressure will make mistakes and pressure on a dog is usually caused by an impatient handler.

Border Collies need stability, but they don’t have to have routine – in fact, once in a routine they can become quite demanding

They need some form of exercise every day but it doesn’t have to be at the same time, or for the same length of time, or for the same distance.

Not having a strict routine allows for some changes in day-to-day patterns, but Border Collies love companionship and do not cope with being left alone for long and regular periods of time.

I’m really more of a Border collie woman, to be honest,

Since then I’ve said no to but still ended up owning: Neville, a rescue border collie with a penchant for daytime television; May-Kate and Ashley, two black cats that, even though it’s been three years since we rescued them, I still cannot tell apart; and our latest adoption, Beryl, a pig that can’t decide if she’s a dog or a cat, but definitely believes she’s not a pig.

In the postage-stamp yard, the border collie reverted to herding things—squirrels, snow motes, fence posts—anything to convince the humans that she was still worthy of love.

Possessing a creative mind, after all, is something like having a border collie for a pet: It needs to work, or else it will cause you an outrageous amount of trouble. Give your mind a job to do, or else it will find a job to do, and you might not like the job it invents (eating the couch, digging a hole through the living room floor, biting the mailman, etc.). It has taken me years to learn this, but it does seem to be the case that if I am not actively creating something, then I am probably actively destroying something (myself, a relationship, or my own peace of mind). I firmly believe that we all need to find something to do in our lives that stops us from eating the couch. Whether we make a profession out of it or not, we all need an activity that is beyond the mundane and that takes us out of our established and limiting roles in society (mother, employee, neighbor, brother, boss, etc.). We all need something that helps us to forget ourselves for a while—to momentarily forget our age, our gender, our socioeconomic background, our duties, our failures, and all that we have lost and screwed up. We need something that takes us so far out of ourselves that we forget to eat, forget to pee, forget to mow the lawn, forget to resent our enemies, forget to brood over our insecurities. Prayer can do that for us, community service can do it, sex can do it, exercise can do it, and substance abuse can most certainly do it (albeit with god-awful consequences)—but creative living can do it, too. Perhaps creativity’s greatest mercy is this: By completely absorbing our attention for a short and magical spell, it can relieve us temporarily from the dreadful burden of being who we are. Best of all, at the end of your creative adventure, you have a souvenir—something that you made, something to remind you forever of your brief but transformative encounter with inspiration.

Possessing a creative mind, after all, is something like having a border collie as a pet: It needs to work, or else it will cause you an outrageous amount of trouble.

McKenzie gave the MRI her best border collie stare. Despite the susurrations of the cryogen pump, McKenzie soon realized that the magnet was not alive and could not be herded.