What does it mean to be a responsible dog owner in the hills with an enthusiastic young dog? Wildlife Guide Lucy Wallace is finding out.
Meet Nuis… a yearling border collie with a big heart. He is officially a Good Boy, but there are two things that he finds really tricky: walking nicely on the lead (more on that shortly), and not chasing stuff.
Nuis will chase everything. This includes (but is not limited to) bikes, balls, deer, other dogs, cars, leaves, cats, squirrels, birds, people and I’m sure if he could get the chance, sheep. He’s fun loving, impulsive, and easily distracted.
It’s all very cute, except actually, it isn’t.
Even before I met him, I had dreams for the two of us. I named him for Beinn Nuis, a beautiful pyramid of granite on my home island- Arran. I was longing for a companion for my wanderings, a kindred spirit who would enjoy the wild hills as much as me. I was filled with hope as my friend Kirstie and I went to collect him from a rescue centre on the mainland. Kirstie, an experienced search dog handler, was there to help me make one of the biggest decisions of my life. The deal was done in seconds. Human and dog eyes connected through cage bars in a dimly lit barn. His tail wagged gently, and I promised him freedom, the world, and more.
Nuis had spent the first months of his life locked up in a crate in an urban flat. He had sores on his body from lying in his own filth. I brought him home in this sorry state to my husband Wally but we didn’t initially understand quite how little life experience he had. He couldn’t even walk the length of the village without needing a lie down. The pads on his paws were softer than my hands. Every sight and sound was completely new and would send him in to a frenzy of fear and excitement. His innocence showed in funny ways, such as being afraid of traffic cones or trying to bite the sea. He had so little depth perception that he would fall off the kerb as we crossed the road.
Fast-forward five months, and there is a puppy’s curiosity that still burns within him but is now in the paws of a powerful, fit dog. He has an impressive turn of speed, can bounce from boulder to boulder, and knows the scent of deer at 1000m. We are at a tricky stage, Nuis and I, as we try to negotiate the big hills, their dangers, and what it means to be a responsible dog owner.
When things are going well, walking with him is the best feeling ever, but the journey continues to be full of pitfalls and disappointments. My husband Wally has a natural way with him; an “alpha” type presence and years of dog experience, but dog training is as new to me as it is to Nuis. Nevertheless, I’m determined that my dog and I will one day have full enjoyment of the hills, and simultaneously, he will not be a problem for people, livestock or wildlife.
Read on, for a warts and all appraisal of our journey so far.
Who is walking whom?
Lead walking is our nemesis. I am told that it is a hard skill for some border collies to learn, which is weird, as I’m also told that you can teach a border collie anything. As I’ve got to know Nuis, I’ve realised that he only learns things with obvious rewards, and although it’s an essential part of our walks, behaving nicely on the lead doesn’t fit into this category. When we set off, he will pull hard to race as fast as he can to the next lamppost or tree to sniff, dragging me, stressed and annoyed behind him. “Who is walking whom?” laugh the neighbours as I stumble past in the wake of my dog.
We’ve tried quite a few training aids, including clickers and harnesses. Standard rear attachment harnesses are hopeless for any dog that pulls- it just teaches dogs that pulling is fun (think huskies). Front attachment harnesses do work, but Nuis hates his and I think it hurts him, as he hides if I get his harness out. Certainly the chafing in his “legpits” from long days on the hill didn’t look too comfy.
I do have a couple of lead walking hacks that are seeing gradual progress. Firstly, as soon as the lead goes tight- I stop dead. We only move if the lead is slack. This can be quite effective if he is concentrating, but all it takes is a new smell, a passer by or another dog, and his doggy mind goes AWOL, and he starts pulling again. We look comical on our walks, three steps forward and two steps back, stop-start through the village. It’s very slow, no good for long walks, and so if we have any distance to cover, I’ve taken to looping his lead under a front leg, so that it pulls downwards if he tugs on the lead. This slows him down with a body check, has none of the chafing issues of harnesses, but he clearly hates it so I use only when I have lost patience for all else.
The lead is always rewarded with a treat- which I hope means he will never dread it (even if I do). As a wildlife lover, I understand the huge dangers that loose dogs on beaches and moors present in the breeding season to ground nesting birds. Uncontrolled dogs are also a problem around seals and otters, and in winter they add pressure to already stressed wildfowl. There will be times in our lives when Nuis will always be on the lead. Once covid restrictions are over, I can see some professional help will be in order, for my sanity if not his.
Perfect recall?
As soon as I got him home we started working on our recall. At first, on a long line, and then later, running free. I use a gesture at the same time as the verbal command: “come!” It’s a great command if he is focused on me already- for example in a sit-stay, and is always rewarded. It can be made even more powerful if I start moving away from him- as the instinct to chase overrides everything else.
Unfortunately my verbal recall is next to useless if he is already chasing something else, as my voice just doesn’t cut through the blood pumping in his ears. For that, I have a whistle, and I’m pleased to say that it has not failed me yet. The whistle carries on the wind, and is a neutral sound, not laden with anxiety or anger. Again, I use it sparingly, and when he returns on the whistle, I give him a special squeaky toy (a trick I learned from SARDA handlers who train their dogs to search this way). Thankfully, there is only one thing he loves more than chasing stuff, and that’s his squeaky toy. If he’s been naughty and run off, it can be hard for me to feel light hearted, but I make an effort to praise him and play with him all the same. All he hears is “Good Boy” and not the curses in between!
Oh Deer!
The whistle is effective, and I wouldn’t let him off the lead without it, but it isn’t fail-safe, because there’s a weak point: me. Deer especially hold a worrying fascination for him, and he can detect them long before I do. I watch his behaviour very carefully, as soon as his head goes up in a certain way; I know his nose is tasting the wind. At this point my hand subconsciously goes to my whistle, but I’m also thinking about getting him on the lead to preempt any trouble. I don’t always get it right- and on one occasion, high on a rocky ridge, he managed to get away from me before I realised what was happening. Within seconds, he’d made it into the corrie below, hot on the heels of a red deer hind. The whistle brought him back fairly quickly too, all floppy tongued and exhausted, but not before he and the deer had covered hundreds of metres in a frighteningly short space of time.
The potential horror of this happening to us with sheep is beyond comprehension. There is simply no way I would let him off the lead anywhere near livestock at the moment. I’m honestly wondering if I ever will. This is not his fault- these are natural instincts that any dog has deep within them. It is my job as a dog owner to prevent him from expressing them- either by physical control or superb training. We plan to start some livestock training later this year, and have had an offer of help from a local farmer.
Hunger is a good teacher
Not all border collies are motivated by food but my Nuis is a glutton, so we walk hungry and work hard for food. I fill my pockets with dog biscuits and gradually feed him his breakfast piece by piece throughout the day. He has to come to me to take it, curbing his roaming instincts. This is especially useful when we meet people and other dogs, as I can get him in close to me and under control quite quickly with the offer of food. I’m resigned to the life of a dog owner; my expensive Gore-Tex jackets filled with poo bags and dog biscuit crumbs.
Without bribes, I’d have to keep him on the lead all the time around people. He likes bounding up to strangers, tail up, ears cocked, wet nose ready to push into a willing hand. No matter how sweet he is, not everybody (human or dog) wants to be sniffed by an enthusiastic young collie. This is a work in progress; we are not perfect and try to avoid busy places. I cringe at a particular incident, in Glen Rosa, on a quiet afternoon. I thought we had the place to ourselves, but I came around a corner to see him eye to eye with a toddler by the side of the track. The boy was holding a half eaten apple aloft, trying to keep it out of reach of my slobbering dog. Nuis thought it was a ball, and was hoping that the poor kid would throw it. I was ashamed, and I felt even worse when the mother told me how her boy was afraid of dogs after a huge labrador had once stolen his best stick.
On the flip side, I get frustrated with passers by who call Nuis over without my permission, and worse, encourage him to jump up. If this is you, please know that you may love my “adorable dog”, but I need to teach him that he only greets people with my permission, and that jumping up is never acceptable. Every time you do this, you waste my hours of patient training.
Are we having fun yet?
Nuis likes to have fun; in fact this is primary motivation in life. Chasing stuff is fun, sniffing stuff is fun, and so is eating stuff (biscuits, poo, other peoples lunch).
He’s a basic dog.
I try to harness these motivations to my own ends, and we play a lot of games together as we walk. He loves it when I splash in puddles, and waits for me by the deep ones with a look of anticipation on his face. Snowballs are obviously brilliant; icicles are for crunching, trees are for hiding behind (me not him). I hide toys and treats when we stop for breaks to keep him focused. When the walk stops being fun, he will start looking for bad fun, which inevitably ends up with time on the lead.
Getting angry with him is hopeless. If I shout or get stressed, he gets upset, but it doesn’t really make any impact on his behaviour, in fact I think it makes him worse. My angry voice may cut through for a brief couple of seconds, but it is useless as a training tool as he is soon back to doing whatever I am cross about, and more likely to run off as I have stopped being fun. What’s more, being angry makes me feel like a terrible person.
It’s a dog’s life
I have a wry smile when I look back on my dreams of relaxed, mindful journeys in the hills with my faithful hound at my side. Doggy dreams and doggy reality are very different things. I’m not the Zen dog owner I imagined, I’m the idiot jumping in the burns and throwing snowballs.
My search dog handler friend Kirstie tells me that I’m doing great. He’s a young dog and will settle down in time. And this is true, he’s now 16 months old, but has only a few months of proper life experience. When I look back I can see how far we have come. We’ve worked hard, and it is paying off. Despite distractions, he trusts me, he loves me, and he wants to please me. He’s a smart dog, and I am getting wiser. Both he and I have learned so much.
And we do get in to our local hills often. I love to watch how he covers the ground in his new strong body, so confidently and efficiently, like a coyote. He trots up and down the path, tail held high, nose in every trough and puddle. He’ll stop at a bend in the path and turn to look for me; pink tongue flopped out to one side of his hilarious jowly face. If I gesture, he will come back for a biscuit before bounding away again, ever onwards to the next sniff. My heart bursts with pride and happiness in these moments, and I am filled with hope for days of companionship to come.