help. this CANNOT go on.

[cali]

ok Happy is normally a very good dog and outside the house she is perfect, I can call her away from anything at all, and she happy and loves to learn. BUT inside the house she now completly resistant to learning anything whatsoever, she has become completly obbessed with the small animals in the basment, she has broken through every single barrier we have out up to keep her out of the basment, she climbs over gates, squeezes under, opens doors, opens high gates or climbs them, she can smash through pressured gates, she can squeeze through a space as small as one inch, how is beyond me considering her size but she does it all the time. she refuses to learn to stay out of the basement, she is completly unresponsive to food, toys, praise or punishment. the obbession is going farther then just staring, in the last week she has been cought inside the guinea pigs cages, attacked the bird, and smashed the rabbit pen twice this has gone way to far and is can NOT go on, she is just so focased on getting what she wants that she cares about NOTHING else, when she attacked the bird(she had him in her mouth) she got yelled at, smacked, and booted from the room, she response? she smiled, turned around and opened my door and walked right back in and continued on as though nothing had happend.

[finn's mom]

Can she get through a locked door? Or maybe get a stronger door or something leading to the basement...sounds like she may have to go back to square one in training if she's able to break through a door! Tie her to your hip, or have her leashed with you when you're home...crate her when you're not. If she's able to squeeze through an inch (no offense, but that's almost unbelievable!), she may need to be leashed all the time until she stops with the behavior. Or if that's not an option, for the safety of the small animals, maybe rehoming them? Bleh, I don't like suggesting that, but, it doesn't sound like Happy is controllable inside with the small animals there, she'll end up killing them. That's a crappy situation, I'm sorry that you're faced with it.

[bckrazy]

Gonzo got somewhat obsessed when I had bunnies too... he never smashed their cages, but he started to constantly want into my room to watch them. Border Collies are the greatest, but they're freakin insane sometimes !!

What I would do is just cut off her access to them completely ~ try getting a lock on the door and just locking it, OR if you can do so, move the animals to a different room which is easier to secure and that Happy can never be allowed into. Don't react when she's pacing in front of the door... it will just feed her obsessiveness. Hitting her will also make her even more obsessive. Try teaching her a very, very solid "leave it" command, and use that when she's pacing. When she leaves the door, reward her with a treat and play with her outside. When she's acting high-strung and really reactive, a bunch of exercise and training might also help calm her down. Some people would say desensitize her to the aniamls, but it sounds like she's beyond that and she has too much instinct to safely be around the animals. I think she'll just forget about them if they're completely kept away from her for long enough

[finn's mom]

. I think she'll just forget about them if they're completely kept away from her for long enough

I hope you're right, you gave much better advice than I did!

[cali]

the main problem is that she is incredably smart yet completly resistant to training. she is only willing to use her brain on her own terms, if she dont wanna, she wont. I remeber teaching Misty to hide, but putting tape above her eye, and Mitsy would swip in off with her paw, perfect, makes great traing for Misty. I tryed the same thing with Happy. know what she did? she walked up to me and looked at me as if to say "hey I can live with it, if you cant take it off youself". I cant do "repeat after me" games with her, no other dog no matter how smart they seem has been able to compare, I have yet to meet another dog that can repeat a drum sequence EXACTLY the way I show her like nothing, if I hit the drum going "right, left, left, right, left, right" and she is facing opposite me she will repeat the sequence in perfect order right down to using the correct paws, this was NEVER taught, she just did it. she can find something is a very large area with only a physical description of the object. THIS is the kind of intelligence we are dealing with here, she figer out how to squeeze through teeny spaces because if she only opens the barriers a little bit we wont be able to hear her, she learned not to bark no matter how exited she is, because again, we will hear her and know where she is. other dogs TRY to sneak off somewhere but they are always caught, Happy is so quiet and so sneaky that one minute she is laying on your lap and the next she has broken through a gate and 2 doors without a peep, and half the time you dont even notice she is gone, I dont know how she does it, I swear she holds her nails up in the air or something so we dont her the clicking on the wood floor.

[.sarah]

What breed is she?

[cali]

Happy is a border collie.

the only problem Erica is that Happy sleeps in my room, the bird HAS to be in my room, no if's and or but's. I just muzzle her now when the bird is out. there is no place to put my rabbit and Blizzard, the cage is literally built into my room, she is trained to stay behind a barrier when I am there but I cant enforce that when she sneaks into my room, the piggie room door does not close properly, the ground shifted and now because the doorframe is essentially freestanding, the room is compilcated, bascily the basment used to be one large space, but we moved the bar to divide off half the basment, then build a short wall on top of the bar, because of the shape of the bar the doorfram is mostly freestanding, and we had to build seperate frames to fill in the open spaces, because of this design the only way to fix the door is get a new door entirly, something we cant afford. the critters are all in the basment, where they are protected from the dogs not allowed down there, but Happy and Misty are my dogs and therefore sleep in my room, misty is no problem at all, she is very willing to learn new things, she used to be a danger to the bird, after one lesson she wont even look at the bird, and happily pretends he does not exist, I only wish Happy would lern from her. but because as far as she is concerned this type of training does not benifite her wants, she turnes a deaf ear.

[poofy]

that kind of smarts is downright scary..

[Karen]

You have to rig some way - rope, weights, some way that Happy cannot get through the door when you're not there. If necessary, also put a bell rope on the door so you can instantly hear if she budges it even a bit. Wedge a chair under the doorknob if you have to - it's up to you to be smarter than she is, and block her from access to them unsupervised. And if you cannot trust her in the room with them when you're asleep - well, she'll have to not sleep in your room.

A dog with a strong prey drive is not going to "learn" it away. There is just no easy way to contradict her very nature.

My very first best dog in the whole wide world had an incredible prey drive - if it wasn't human or canine, and wasn't fast enough to get away by flying or climbing a tree, it was dead. There were no woodchucks in our neighborhood for years after she died, she had cleared them out of a wide radius - which all the gardeners loved. But all the cats in the neighborhood were quick and knew at any given moment where the nearest tree was, for their own safety. I loved my Sheba, and still do to this day, but we had no other animals when we had her, for that reason.

[cali]

I think I might make some sort of noisy collar, so I can always hear her... she has no inetion of actually hurting the critters her herding insticts is just so strong that she gets wound up and jumps at the cages, she cant touch the bird, I muzzle her now when he is out, and his cage is to high for her to care, the muzzle is just homemade right now, I will be getting her a basket muzzle as she get pretty wound up and works herself into a frenzy when she can barly open her mouth while running back and forth. but I have had to search and gather up way to many rodents lately that she has broken out of their cages.

[cali]

well, I have tied bells to her collar and decided that if she wants a boring job so ad I will give her one. from her on out EVERYTHING is obedience work, this serves a double purpose, as her obedience have been seriously suffering, her stay used to be so strong I could leave her on top of a hill and go play with another dog, and people would always ask if she was tied up there lol, I usuaed to be able to leave her in a strange building, put her in a stay, leave, come back a while later she she would not have budged, she could have been waliing away and I could say "stay" and she would freeze in her tracks. latly though I tell her "stay" and 2 second later she is walking away, when Mistys stay became better then Happys, there was a problem lol she has even pottied in the house a few times when she has refused to leave the gate or the basement long enugh to potty.

[slleipnir]

Josie was like that when I first brought a cat in the house. I had to lock her out of my room (even though she sleeps there...) and after time (in her case...a month or more) she got use to her, and now she is fine with the cats....

[bckrazy]

Definitely, I'm sure she still KNOWS how to stay but because it isn't exercised as strictly anymore it's not a big deal. That totally happens with Obedience

Personally, I'd get a nice solid crate for Happy and have her sleep in there so there's no danger of her attacking the birds. I really hate muzzles, but that's just me.

[K9karen]

This totally convinced me. As much as I LOVE Border Collies, and I mean I'm in awe of them...never to get one! They're way too smart for me and I mean that as a height of compliment. Nothing you said surprises me. C'mon, despite your problem, you have to give her credit for tiptoeing in to the room and squeezing between and under a gate to get to her prey! I'm not making light of the situation, just commenting how clever she is! Sounds like she'd make a terrific agility dog.

[cali]

lol oh ya I definatly have to give her credit for using her brain like that

I know she still knows stay lol but she likes to interpret my commands in her own way, I forgot she did that sometimes till last night I put her in a sit stay...so she stayed in a sit, she still moved around she just remained in the sit I mean in all technicality she DID listen, I did not say stay put, I just said to stay in a sit, perhaps I should have clarified? I mean what was I supposed to do? she did what I asked, just not what I meant lol there is a reason most BC websites tell you that if you want a BC you cant be afraid of your being being smarter then you