u/Round-Jury6132

My rough collie intact boy has just turned 1 and is generally very sweet, calm and gentle. He does experience some reactivity towards bikes/runners/people behaving strangely etc but we are working on this and it tends to just manifest in barking and lunging sometimes. He hasn't experienced any dog reactivity, he is actually regularly praised on how gentle and respectful he is with dogs. When reactive dogs we pass have barked at him he has always ignored it and carried on with his walk.

Today however we met two boxers on a very narrow path, they barked quite aggressively from a distance but the owner kept striding forward so I (stupidly) thought they must just be very vocal, all the dogs were on the lead. When we got closer they were lunging so I pulled my dog to the side, the man did the same and asked me to pass by him. I took my dog by the collar to just get passed quickly but suddenly my dog started growling, lunging and barking at them, because I was restraining him, he started to redirect onto me. Once we got past, the man struggled to pull the boxers away and they kept pulling towards my dog, barking. My dog recovered quickly and on the same narrow path bumped into 3 more dogs 30 seconds later who he was very happy, calm and social with - as normal.

I bumped into the guy out in the open and pulled my dog away quickly, before he started barking properly. I apologised to the man, who said not to worry and it was probably because he had two dogs, they were all on the lead and my dog probably just wanted to protect me. Upon reflection I think I only apologised to start a conversation, hoping he would tell me his dogs were just very dog reactive and that must have sparked it, but he didn't.

I am so shaken by all of this. My boy is large and he was a handful, especially when he started redirecting. I don't know if this could be the beginning of dog reactivity or if my dog simply felt trapped on a narrow path and these two dogs gave off particularly aggressive body language. It was obvious that the boxers were reactive but I ended up worrying my boy did something wrong even though he only gave back what they gave him. We haven't had any altercations with dogs before, apart from a couple of (fairly polite) corrections both given and received. I was wondering if anyone has any better insight into this?

Does anyone have any success stories dealing with their Collie's reactivity? My 13 month old is reactive to movement/shows unwanted herding behaviour towards children/runner/cyclists. He is currently kept on lead unless in a private field. He has never shown any aggression (never growled or snapped at anyone), his reactivity seems to be movement based - perhaps frustration. We work on him disengaging from the trigger and he has made progress but at the moment it feels like he's barking at everything and I'm looking out for triggers like a meerkat. This started around 6/7 months, before that he was a golden boy. Does anyone know if this could just be the fear period + adolescents? Has anyone actually cured their Collies reactivity or is it just a case of management?

Hi everyone we were hoping someone might have some tips on how to deal with our teenage boy. He is a very loving and sweet boy who just turned one. We've had difficulties letting him off lead as he gets very excited and rushes up to people and occasionally jumps up. I now don't let him off but my husband still does, we live semi rurally so it tends to be quiet. Does anyone know if this is normal teenage behaviour? Will he grow out of it? I have raised lots of other dogs before but this is my first rough collie. Thank you

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for some advice because I'm feeling a bit out of my depth with our 1-year-old Rough Collie.

He is genuinely a lovely dog. He has never shown aggression towards us or anyone else - he's never growled, snarled or bitten aggressively, only play nips. He absolutely adores other dogs and gets on well with pretty much every dog he meets. He also loves people perhaps a little too much.

When we first started letting him off lead (we're in the UK), he was fantastic. His recall was excellent, he wasn't especially interested in strangers, and he was polite around other dogs.

At around 6 months old, something seemed to change almost overnight. I wondered if it was a fear period because he suddenly started barking and lunging at people while on lead. Around the same time, he chased a couple of runners and cyclists and nipped at their clothing. That obviously scared us, so we stopped letting him off lead and started working with him.

We've done a lot of desensitisation and counter-conditioning, and he's improved massively. On lead now, he rarely barks at people and is generally very calm. The problem is off lead.

My husband is currently the only one who lets him off because I'm too anxious. If he sees people, he often wants to run over to them. Sometimes he just says hello politely, sometimes he'll bark, and occasionally he'll jump up. My husband has worked really hard on a solid "down" command, and most of the time it works, but it's not 100% reliable. Every now and then he'll still run up *at speed* and jump at someone before we can stop him.

I feel like I'm constantly waiting for something to go wrong. Even though he's friendly, I know that a large dog running up to strangers is unacceptable, and I'm terrified he'll knock someone over or end up nipping again if he gets overexcited.

Has anyone experienced something similar with an adolescent Collie? Is this something they can mature out of with consistent training, or does it sound like there's something more going on? Most of the advice I find is about fearful or aggressive dogs, whereas he seems to be somewhere between over-friendly, over-aroused and occasionally reactive.

I'd really appreciate any advice, training ideas, or even hearing from people who've been through something similar. I grew up with terriers, so Collies are completely new to me, and I feel like I'm missing something and I can only find advice regarding border collies and rough collie's have a completely different nature.

Thanks so much.