You need to understand Border Collies are pack animals that enjoy the company of others, whether it is of their own kind or the human kind. All pack animals need a pack leader, and if there is not someone for your Border Collie to look up to, it just may try and take on that role itself.
You are your Border Collie puppy’s pack and you must be its leader. It is your job to teach your Border Collie its place in your pack. So will your Border Collie follow you? Or has your Border Collie trained you to follow it?...
It is all about respect. You have to earn your Border Collie’s respect and you can do that without using aggression. In fact, if you use aggression, it is likely your Border Collie will have little or no respect for you at all.
You can be firm without instilling fear into your Border Collie puppy. Do not ever hit your puppy or dog. It makes no sense and your Border Collie has no understanding of why you did that. You Border Collie does not have the ability to link you hitting it with any behavior other than the immediate which is when it has come to you or let itself be caught.
Never get angry with your Border Collie puppy if you come home and it has pulled the washing off the line, for example. Your Border Collie puppy will have no understanding of why. Ignore the behaviour and your Border Collie while you go quietly about cleaning up the mess. Really, you should never have left the washing on the line for your Border Collie puppy to play with in the first place so you have learned a valuable lesson.
You need to catch your Border Collie in the act and then give it a good firm ‘no’ or ‘leave it’, and give it something positive to do or play with to distract its attention.
Border Collie’s want to be the centre of your attention so use this to your advantage when training. Make sure you spend time teaching your Border Collie puppy what you want from it.
Remember, a Border Collie puppy has had little life experience when it comes to you and it does not come pre-trained to sit, come, stay, or read your mind. The only thing a Border Collie puppy knows how to do is love you. It is up to you to teach your Border Collie the way of your pack because all it wants is to fit in and be loved in return.
Learn to read your Border Collie. Your Border Collie’s senses are finely to tuned to things we cannot hear or see. They live in a world ruled by their sense; their hearing, eyesight, and sense of smell is more acute than ours.
Your Border Collie hears in lower tones and higher pitches than us, and they have the most sensitive hearing.
We cannot see the world the way our Border Collie does, but it can alert you to danger or when friends approach when you think there is nothing there.