Well, thanks all for the warm welcome back. For the folks that don't know me, I spent three years working at PetsMart in Indianapolis (Castleton) and was an obedience instructor there for two of those years. Prior to that, I spent 7 years working with 4-Hers on Dog Obedience and trained my first "officially obedience trained" dog over 13 years ago.

Yorkster, I just glanced at your original message and another thing struck me: your dog is Border Collie/Lab mix???? From what I have seen over the years, Border Collies are argueably (?) the most intelligent breed in existance. This is not to disparage the other breeds, but working with sheep herders in the Highlands of Scotland, they had to be bred to work sometimes totally alone and to figure out what they were supposed to do with the sheep they rounded up. At best, they still had to work at some distance from the handler and were frequently "directed" through the use of whistling. A similar situation is true of the field breeds like the Lab. You're working with one SMART dog, here. So, some long-range suggestions: first, obedience school. Very important to help establish who gets to tell whom what to do. Then, I would consider getting into agility or flyball with her as she is going to need a lot of activity that makes her use that mind. You might also look into taking her to herding trials, although AKC will not allow her to title in them, since she's a mix. However, if she clearly favors one part of the mix over the other (i.e., she looks like a Border Collie more than a Lab), you might be able to get an ILP (Indefinate Listing Privilege) number from the AKC which will require that she be spayed. Is she? Then, you would be elegible to compete for titles in everything except conformation. I'm bringing all this up because she needs a more active lifestyle to help her accept you as the leader of the pack and to socialize her and help her understand her place in this world and your home.

Daisy's Mom: Is that a picture of Daisy? How utterly adorable.

Anyway, it is really nice to be back online and back with the doggie people on this site (and the cat people, too -- can't forget the other members of the family). Hope all this helps. How big did you say that crate was?