Crap, I Really Shouldn't Foster Border Collies

Zipper, who I'm pretty darn sure is full Border Collie, was adopted from TG not quite a year ago now, and is back in rescue due to no fault of his own. His dad was in a serious accident. So Zipper came back to TG, and to my place for foster.

Now, kind of an ironic story. We had Jinks all of 2-4 weeks before Zipper became available for adoption. After I looked for over two months for a young, pretty close to full-breed, border collie in BC and went out of province to adopt, he popped up with my main rescue. I kicked myself for months that I didn't just wait, especially since Jinks was more than a handful behaviourally.

Now we've had Shane two months and he pops back into rescue. Now don't get me wrong, Shane is a gem wouldn't trade that pup for the world, but it's like Zipper just keeps TAUNTING me, showing up when I know I can't have him. And now that he's here I really think someone else should have fostered him.

I LOVE this dog. The way he moves, the intensity in his actions, how you can watch his mind work figuring stuff out. He is ball-addicted, greeted over 12 dogs on the ferry and here without a hitch in his step, was a little reserved with strangers but not shy or scared -typical herding dog-. He has a few simple things to clean up -walking on leash the biggest- but this guy is going to make a fantastic sports dog, he would probably even settle for a large yard and lots of ball playing. The potential in him makes me excited to start working with him. I'm going to see if we can try him out on sheep to see if he has a natural instinct. The way he moves it's like he's herding all the time so my gut says he has some instinct.

So yeah, REALLY hoping I can find this guy a home with someone I know or someone into dog sports. He's going to be one of those dogs I need to find the AMAZING home for. Not just GREAT, or AWESOME, but 100% amazing. There's only been a handful of them, but the kind of home you kind of put up against yourself. If they can't give him as much or more than what I could I'd feel like I cheated him.

Trunk, Truffle, Penny were the only three so far I've felt like that. Zipper might be harder.

On the bright side, I'm feeling totally relieved after the last foster experience. Wan-Dou has been assessed by a trainer highly experienced in aggression and found to have not just dog aggression, but people aggression as well -basically general aggression to anything he doesn't like or is uncertain about. He has low thresholds (meaning the point that he goes from being okay to not okay), gives (almost) no warnings and does not hesitate to use his teeth. Using his teeth is how he copes. This is something truly genetic especially in a dog this young.

Dogs (and people too) do one of 4 things when under too much stress (stress is subjective to the individual). They flee, they ignore/avoid, they stick their head in the sand and play dumb, or they fight. If one doesn't work they might go to another mode of coping, but the initial pattern is set somewhere in the genes. Beckett -and Shane too- are complete avoiders. They are dogs that think if they stay really, really still everything will just calm down/go away. This is what we want to be able to teach most dogs in terms of coping and we have to spend a long time raising thresholds (basically slowly making it so that less and less creates stress) and then alongside that we have to teach how to react to stress (with avoidance). It's a long process.

So I'm glad to report Wan-Dou is going to be spending an intensive two months with a trainer and her apprentice. With the initial report Wan-Dou would have had about a 30% success rate to be adopted, even to an experienced home. (Success meaning he would not hurt or injure a dog or person in his lifetime.) With the training, placing him in an experienced home who will follow up on the training he should be approx. 80-90% successful.

Not quite sure who would knowingly take on that much of a project dog, but I'm glad rescue is doing what is best for Wan-Dou and giving him the best chance he has at a normal dog life. It must be no fun having so much stress you out! Good luck Wan-Dou. It might be scary at first but you will be okay. :)

Some pictures and videos of Zipper soon.

Emily Out