Originally Posted by borderjackleospringer

Hello

In June we got a Border Collie puppy from a reliable breeder (she breeds champion dogs and has had Border Collies all her life - she realy knows them!). The puppy is now 4 months old. All the time that she was "house-bound" ie. hadn't had her vaccinations, she was wonderful and sociable with anyone who came in the house and any vaccinated dogs that she met (ours, friends ect.). However the problem started soon after she first started going out in public - she barks and snaps and growls at literally everythingperson or dog that she sees. Her ears go flat and her barking is the threatening aggresive type, not playful. She is perfectly friendly with the 4 people in our household (two adults, two daughters) and our other 3 dogs (a leonburger, springer and jack russel - all good natured and have never had aggression problems or anything). When the puppy tries to attack other dogs, these dogs don't try to attack her back or bark back at her - they just walk on and ignore her. We have been told by lots of people that Border Collies are generally hard work and snappy anyway, but shouldn't be this aggresive this young. The puppy is actually owned by our youngest daughter who is 11 - she trained her well and wants to do agility with her (it's been her life-long dream). We did think that maybe the puppy was protecting our daughter, but soon realised that the aggresion and attacking happens even when our daughter isn't around. Another person suggested that it might be some form of jelousy. We have met up with the breeder a few times, and the puppy has gone for her too, and she knows how to handle Border Collies better than anyone we know! We have tryed taking the puppy out everywhere to get it used to people and other dogs, but as soon as she sees someone she launches herself at them, barking and snapping and growling. She has bitten a few people already (thankfully they were dog people and honestly didn't mind), but we dont know what we'll do when she bites someone who does mind. We're at a complete loss at what to do, we've bought hundreds of puppy help book and border collie books and gone to training classes and everything, but nothing seems to be changing her. The last thing we want to do is have to get rid of her.

Does anyone have any ideas or experienced this before?


Ella