Border Heeler looking for loving family

Boulder CO

Description

We are fostering a Border Collie / Blue Heeler that is looking for a loving home! This is along post but i do ask that you read it because it will indeed answer all your questions. Since we took her in, she has done absolutely fantastic, and it makes us sad to post this, but we can see that she would be happier in a larger home now. She is a dream. first of all, she is getting VERY GOOD with her commands. I almost have her trained on hand signals only, but for now she typically needs the vocal "sit" "lay down" "up" commands to be spoken for her to play along. She is very food focused. I feed her three times daily (7am/1pm/7pm) and she will remind you if you forget with a short drum solo on her food plate. This feeding schedule allows for maximum focus when she is being trained with TREATS! She LOVES treats! A big bag of training treats will run around $10 and have around 250 little nibbles for her. I will really be looking for someone that seems to appreciate how incredibly trainable this breed is. The mix of Border Collie and Blue Heeler makes for an incredibly smart dog, and I have put a good amount of training into her already :) At home, she never barks. Knock at the door, noise outside, whatever... she will not bark. She only gets vocal when she requires your attention. When this happens, she will not bark... she will do the husky thing and give you a "rawwrr rawwrrrrr"... In my home we affectionately refer to this as "talking shit". She will "talk shit" at you for quite a while before letting out a frustrated "bark". She will queue you for a potty break if she needs one, and will pace around the door. If this doesn't work she will run to you, "talk shit" for a moment, and run back to the door. She is a very smart dog. She is crate trained, and loves her crate. She knows that when you stand by the crate and say her name, she gets to run it and get a good girl treat! She will go in her crate for us around 9pm and we'll let her out about 6am with zero issues. The crate is never ever used for punishment for this reason. Really, she is not "punished". She has been trained with 100% positive reinforcement so please consider this when inquiring. We take 4 walks a day at least to keep her from going crazy. 7am/11am/3pm/7pm. This is mostly because we do not have a yard for her and we know that she NEEDs stimulation. Even this is not quite enough for her all the time which is why we will require the family taking her to have a yard with a fence. We go to the dog park frequently, and she is a perfect angel there. She really isn't into playing with other dogs, and spends most of the time sniffing the perimeter of the park fence. She REALLY enjoys being near the water, and when we spend any amount of time near the pond with the other dogs, it seems to loosen her up. She has never shown an ounce of aggression toward another dog or human when loose. Sometimes when we walk her on a leash, in the real world, she "go crazy" and try to say HI to another dog on a leash nearby, but only if THAT OTHER dog decides to "go crazy" first. Even so it's quite manageable; you just walk her away. Even with that, its never aggression, just excitedness. She has an appointment to be spayed in early FEB 2022 with SPCA in BOULDER which we can inform her new family about, or you can reschedule with your own vet. As of now she is in tact; not spayed yet. When we adopted her we were assured she had all her vaccines but we were going to probably have those redone in Boulder County also. Here is what we will be looking for in an adopting family: A YARD, and a FENCE. This is an active dog, and she will need to have an area where she can go to prance around, sniff, and play. I am an experienced dog trainer with years of training lots of different breeds, and even with my active lifestyle, I cannot keep her happy without a yard to set her loose in. I can absolutely appreciate that there are fantastic and loving families that can TOTALLY keep a dog happy living in an apartment, but this is simply not that dog. I will absolutely not adopt out this dog to a family that does not meet this need; It's nothing personal I just know what this specific doggo needs. She will come with: - Large Wire Crate and her blankie - KONG super strong leash with belt (for handsfree walking) and pouch - Gentle Lead Bridle (attaches to head and prevents her pulling) - Dog training buttons, she presses them and they play commands to tell us what she wants (we are button training her; she is beginning to get "outside" but still working on others) - Dog Sweater (she likes clothes, sometimes...) - Any toys and socks that she's acquired here We will be asking for a rehoming fee of $400. This is a remarkable and wonderful dog. She'd do best with a family with a stay at home parent, and I would not recommend her living in a home where no one is home during work hours. She does best with someone with her pretty much always. not to say she cannot handle a day in the crate when needed, but she will be miserable if that is the norm. If you've read through all this and would like more info, please feel free to reach out. I'm happy to respond to friendly and serious inquires. - -