Calla

About Calla:

Calla, Cali or Cal as we call her is the biggest lover. She loves to cuddle and be petted. In fact, when you stop she will continue to nudge your hand or paw your hand until you start again. She is learning not to paw and demand for your love. Over all she is a mellow 1.5 to 2 year old Border Collie. She spends most of the time quietly laying by you chewing on nylon bones. She will occasionally play with the resident dogs but she is still new to our home so I bet this will change and as she becomes more comfortable she will play more. Calla has a very strong herding drive. Her favorite thing isn’t chasing the ball its chasing and nipping at the heels of the other dog that is chasing the ball. For this strong herding drive its strongly recommended no young kids, NO CATS or other smaller farm animals like ducks, goats, chickens. She when first came she did well trying to herd my farm animals but as time progresses she gets more rough in her herding style and began to lunge at them so she has never been loose with them. She did catch one of my ducks and didn’t actually leave any bite marks but I have no doubt that if I didn’t pull her away she would have accidently killed it. This behavior isn’t that uncommon for a border collie that wasn’t trained as a puppy to be with livestock. She has the drive to herd but doesn’t know how to do it properly.

She is by no means a push over and will stand her ground when it comes to other dogs. A few growls over food bowls were exchanged but that is the most that has ever happened since she has been here. She does get along well with the other three dogs in our house but is reactive to other dogs when your hiking a trail and pass another dog. Her reaction to other dogs can be worked through with training. She mainly just barks and maybe will growl but mostly barks. She also reacts to strangers by barking when you’re on a trail or they walk into your front yard by barking. We are working on this barking behavior. She just has stranger danger and often doesn’t make a good impression at first but once she realizes they are okay she’s is fine. It is odd because if you take her in a store like Petco, Tractor Supply or Lowes she is perfectly fine with people and exhibits no barking behavior just at home or on a trail.

Calla really LOVES to be outside. She enjoys hiking and swimming. She isn’t great yet at swimming too far off short but I think will start to enjoy it more as she is taken more. She walks well on a leash but if she sees a rabbit or deer will pull really hard so she will need a little more training in that aspect. The only downside to traveling with Calla is she gets car sick and anxious and pukes. I plan to continue to take her for rides so I’m hoping I can get her other this before she is adopted.

Calla is doing great with her house training. I have only had three accidents in the three weeks she has been here and she is crate trained. She at first barked like crazy but now sleeps in her crate no problem. She also prefers to lay in it during a storm. I already am able to leave her out roaming free in my house with our dogs during the day while we are gone. She doesn’t tare anything up BUT will counter surf if you leave something too close to the edge. She is also learning new commands like sit, stay, lay down and come. For the first two weeks she didn’t care about treats so she was impossible to train but now that she has adjusted she LOVES them and is starting to learn commands.