My collie is in heat. Just discovered it when I came home. I kind of freaked, as she'd been outside a few hours with a chain link fence. Ugh! She was all wet back there. Please tell me that's just part of being in heat? In my defense before anyone bashes me. I lost my 15 yr old in December. She was one of his babies. His chihuahua is fixed.

Worrying about my dog in heat has not been on the radar. And her having misfit pups is not something I need right now.

Any suggestions welcome!! Be easy on me, please!

She won't be unattended during outside time for the next month, at least.

Thanks in Advance!

My pup Callisto is 17 weeks and insanely social. It isn’t too difficult to navigate around people, since he gets to meet so many, greetings aren’t as high value and it’s not longer an issue redirecting him back to me. Dogs, though… I’m really struggling. I’ve tried to redirect, have him sit and watch, and even just walk away and he acts out a ton. He’s been the easiest puppy to train outside of this, but his attention is glued solely on the dog to the point he just flops down on the floor trying to shimmy his way over to them, and I’m not sure how to train better leash manners when dogs are around. He’s had playdates, the one with the Doberman just yesterday, but I’ve been told to avoid leash interactions by vets and other people.

"Whhhhaaaat are you eating huuman?"

This is what it looks like when you sacrifice the use of a functional fireplace in order to have a couch large enough to accommodate all your collies

We go for walks twice a day, try to keep her busy with Kong's, raw bones, starting to do some sniffing work with treats.

Bought a snuffle toy from Amazon just waiting for it to arrive.

Thinking of getting a treadmill for those in-between walk times

So I plan on getting a dog some time in the future, not super soon but maybe in a year or so. This will be my first dog of my own, but I grew up with family dogs all my childhood. I have a very strong preference for medium to medium-large breeds. Also have a mild neurological disability and while I'm not quite in need of a service dog at this point (and certainly couldn't afford one anyway), I'm particularly drawn to collies as being part of the fab four since I think a dog with high biddability and owner attachment would still work better with my lifestyle, being more reliable once the foundations of training are set.

But one of my concerns is... how are they with new people? The reason I ask is cause the last family dog we had was a golden retriever. Textbook golden, very biddable and sweet, BUT the main struggle with her was that she had absolutely no chill around strangers and especially children. All training just went out the window as she was so happy to meet a stranger she just completely lost her shit. Now ofc this is endearing and cute at first but also extremely frustrating and somewhat embarrassing when it becomes a regular occurrence. And almost every golden I've ever met was like this. Nothing against goldens, she was still a great dog, but it's just something I'd like to avoid in the future. So I was wondering, are collies at all like this typically? I know every individual dog is gonna be different, but just wondering if it's a common trait like with goldens.

Almost five months and looking very lanky!

Left is Wren and right is Spanky, who is a smooth border collie (he's an honorary rough collie).

Wren is obsessed with Spanky, but Spanky couldn't care less about Wren. It's a one way relationship.

Picked her up this past weekend, had to fly to get her and everybody at the airport thought she was an aussie and had no idea what a rough collie was until I said Lassie. Well, except one guy who thought she was a dachshund, to be fair only her pointy face and floppy ears were sticking out of the carrier. Girl we gotta get your ears up.