Border Collies are widely popular home pets. Most families want to own one to have an additional family member who can give extra love to them. But before that, they were widely used in herding animals such as sheep and chickens. This led them to evolve into what they are now – very cooperative with humans.
Most people ask, can Border Collies Make for good service dogs? Let’s find out below.
What is a Service Dog?
First of all, you must know what a service dog is. A service dog is a dog specifically trained to help or assist people in order to improve their loves. Most service dogs cater to people with physical and/or mental disabilities. They perform tasks to help people and can also provide them with emotional comfort.
Service dogs can be good companies to people with mental illnesses that exhibit self-harem behavior. They interrupt those actions so that their owners won’t harm themselves. Other service dogs do physical support to people with physical disabilities. Big dogs like German Shepherds are usually categorized into this kind.
Many sizes and breeds of dogs can be trained to become excellent service dogs. However, there are some specific sizes or breeds that are highly recommended for certain living conditions, financial situation, or type of disability a person has.
[box type=”shadow” align=”” class=”” width=””]Do Border Collies Make Good Service Dogs?
Although Border Collies are medium in stature, they have lots of energy. They are also extremely smart and highly trainable. Because of this, they make for good service dogs. Border Collies can also provide physical assistance to people with diabetes, anxiety disorder, ADHD, PTSD, autism, and other related illnesses.
This breed always provide affection to its owners and people around it. This is innate to Border Collies and would not require emotional stimulation. They, however, may tend to be distant to strangers and focus only on their owners. But this is a good thing as a service dog because they should give their attention to their owners most or all of the time.
Border Collies also make for great friends to people with diabetes, epilepsy, and sleeping disorders primarily because they are sensitive to sounds and stimuli changes.[/box]
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Characteristics of Border Collies
As mentioned earlier, Border Collies were widely used as herders back in the days. Some people still practice this but they are very small in number. As herders, they were able to develop certain characteristics that makes them highly fitting to become excellent service dogs.
They Are Highly Intelligent
Border Collies are highly intelligent. They are highly trainable and can easily learn various skills such as cues, words, whistles, and hand gestures. They are also good at memorizing scents and items. For example, if you order them to find a certain object in a pile of things, they can easily find that.
They Are Quite Sensitive
Border Collies are sensitive in terms of detecting small changes. This developed from their job of detecting changes in flocks while herding. They can also easily detect emotional changes, which make them good service dogs for people with mental illnesses like depression, PTSD, and anxiety. Border Collies are also keen in detecting the mood of their masters/owners. They can easily see if their owner raises an eyebrow or does certain hand signals.
They Are Protective
As herders, Border Collies developed an extreme sense of protectiveness. They are unrelentless when it comes to protecting their flocks, owners, family, and even their home. This makes them a good company to kids. It also makes them stellar guard dogs. But this protectiveness must be leveled or maintained. They should be trained to be protective in the right way so that they would cause no harm to other people or animals because of being protective.
They Work Hard
Also as herders, Border Collies were able to become hard workers. With their seemingly infinite level of stamina, they would not complain no matter how long or hard is the job given to them.
They Are Very Energetic
Border Collies have a seemingly infinite level of energy. They make great companies to children, even those with autism. The challenge here is playtime. You might get surprised as to how your Border Collie is not getting tired even after a long session of playtime in the dog pool or the dog agility tunnel. Also because of its energy, it will be extremely thrilled to see you offering it its most favorite delicious treats.
How to Train a Border Collie?
Border Collies are highly trainable. They can be turned into excellent service dogs. Hence, if you want to make your Border Collie a service dog, you can opt to train it yourself or hire a professional dog trainer. The latter, however, may cost you some money. In addition, experts actually recommend people to train their own dogs to develop a special kind of bond and understanding of each other.
But of course, if you don’t have the time or you are really not capable of training your own dog, then hiring a trainer would be your only option.
If you do decide to train your Border Collie, make sure to walk and exercise with it every day. This way, you will be able to let it spend its energy, which is needed.
Conclusion:
And with that, you now know that Border Collies can make for excellent service dogs. Apart from being highly trainable, they are also extremely smart, energetic, hardworking, sensitive, and protective. Hence, if you are thinking of getting a Border Collie as a service dog, you are on the right track.
