Any advice? A BC afraid of and lunging at cars.

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Blueski

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Hi All,

About a month ago I adopted a 5 year old border collie bitch that needed a new home :) she is absolutely lovely and has settled right in with our existing border collie dog who is now 10 years old :eek: (where did the time go?).

My problem is that she has a bit of an issue with cars! It isn't a huge problem on a day to day basis as we only have to go a few meters from the house before we are off the road but I would dearly love to improve the situation so we don't have to avoid roads forever lol.

The behavior is as follows: She hears/sees a car coming and lies down immediately, she is licking her lips and it is very difficult at that point to get her attention. When the car passes she either just watches it intently or she will lunge at it. The more cars that go past the more anxious she gets.

She is not afraid to get in a car or of travelling.

So far I have just been trying to improve her overall recall, attention training etc and try to keep her attention on me when we are on the road. Does anyone have any similar experiences or training tips I could try?
 
Here's a recent thread on the same topic and a helpful link first posted by Goya :)

http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=592818

http://www.agilitynet.co.uk/training...ewindeatt.html

Because they are very sensitive to movement, any fast movement that they cannot control can be very disturbing to them. No wonder so many Border Collies hate traffic.

Collies need to have very acute hearing to hear and interpret a shepherd's signals at a great distance, but sheep farms are generally quiet places and their sensitive hearing does not cause them problems. Urban and domestic life bombards our dogs with noise and this can cause them extreme stress. Be aware of this and if necessary protect your dog from excessive noise. Speak quietly to your Collie, he doesn't need you to shout at him.
 
My BC is like this, but is getting much better. He reacts more if cars are going faster, and worse if they are coming towards him. We have 2 dogs so I did spend some time with walking just him, and kept his attention on me, which worked for most of the time. He tends to ignore traffic for most of the walk and then will suddenly start lunging and creeping down the road, but forget about it after a few mins?!

Probably just practise with walking around roads is helpful, rather than trying to avoid them. I noticed that I would start to tense up when I saw him take an interest in the cars, which probably didn't help, so I try to give him the benefit of the doubt if I can as sometimes he will just look and not actually do anything.
 
Thanks CaveCanem I will look through that thread and see what tips I can pick up :) tbh my other collie likes to chase cars/bikes/scooters/wheelbarrows but because I have had him since he was a pup I made sure he knew he shouldn't... although he will use any excuse ;) but he isn't afraid of them.

And thank you Rockafella - good to know you have made some progress :)
 
my collie cross was like this and luckily she is very obedient to the sit command so i used to walk next to the road and as soon as i saw a car in the distance i got her to sit and concentrate on me and this seemed to work as she is not frightened of cars now.. i think in her case she was just scared and wanted to chase them away...good luck with yours
 
..this may not be the case with yours, but just to warn you, there are some collies that are wired as such (explained in the link cavecanem posted) that no matter what you do, they will never be 100% reliable if they hear a car.
It is a HUGE weight of responsibility:(
 
Very good advice above. My 3 year old BC is still work in progress. He wants to work traffic and also horses and I would never have him off lead anywhere near either. When I first got him at 6 months he would lunge and leap and back flip onto the floor and then bite the lead in frustration. Many sessions of standing/loitering on street corners and getting him to focus on me and a treat plus walking back and forth on the same bit of pavement has worked so that we can now walk on busy streets without too much hassle and I can even lead another dog on the other side. He still watches the traffic, especially at night with headlights but he is calmer and more controlled.
It is frustrating but calmly and quietly is the way forward. If things get too stressful it is better to go home rather than battle - there is always another day. I would advise keeping a diary of progress - it helps to remind you how far you have come when things are going wrong and you feel you are going backwards! They are fabulous dogs and well worth the effort but they are driven and focussed. Good Luck you will get there but it won't be quick!
 
My working type collie used to do this. I walk several dogs at nce so can't have him lunging it's not safe for me or him. I went with his insticts and everytime he felt the need to lunge I would put him in a down stay just before and wait for the car to pass, your timing has to be spot on tho. He kinda grew ou of the lunging and will only very occasionally go into a down (usually if he hasn't had a long enough run and sill hyped up).
 
Thank you all for your replies :) I will try all the ideas in turn and see which ones get the best response...

I did try a different tack this evening and when a car came towards us I just kept walking and after a little bit of tugging :o she did get up and come with me instead of lying down until it had gone past, so a little progress :D I will try this again tomorrow!

I have put her on a harness btw as I was worried about hurting her on her lead when she was pulling or lunging... plus it gives me a bit more control. Luckily we have about 15 meters of quiet village road before we can walk for miles without seeing any cars so we can do a little training everytime we go out without it becoming a big issue :)

Apart from the cars she is very responsive and has obviously had a really good start to her training :) I have had a number of collies and collie Xs in the past but this is the first one I haven't had as a puppy... love her already :D

Good luck to all the rest of you having similar problems X
 
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