Utah Collie Rescue, Inc.

Sasha Needs Everyone’s Help

Cynthia — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 20:47:33 +0000

On December 10, 2008 we picked up a rough sable collie girl from the Utah Humane Society. She’d been there for about three weeks. Her former people dropped her off because they could no longer pay for her care.

Sasha Needs Help

This is becoming a bigger problem as the economy worsens. We do ask you, however, please do not give away your best friends in these hard economic times! They give just as much love now as ever.

Sasha also has a skin problem. We have had her into the vet, but we don’t yet know what the issue is. If you would like to read more about what it might be, please visit Cynthia’s personal blog, Tip Tail, and read the post about Sasha’s Possible Conditions.

Utah Collie Rescue is not sure we have enough funds to pay for all of Sasha’s medical care. She is going to go in to the vet for a teeth cleaning (her teeth are in very, very bad shape) on December 23rd. And at that time she will have her nose, eyes, and ears biopsied to determine which of the three options it is that is amiss with her. Hopefully it will be easily manageable and Sasha will come through with flying colors.

Sasha is a gorgeous collie with an amazing personality! She is loving and sweet and very friendly. She loves to rub her nose on her foster people for attention and love. She will fetch a toy and run around with it in her mouth. She plays with her sisters and brothers very well in her foster home. She will most likely be moving to a new foster home with new collie brothers and sisters. But we hope to get regular updates of her progress. If you would like to read all about her and how she’s doing, follow her posts on Tip Tail about Sasha.

Utah Collie Rescue has started a fund raiser to help with Sasha’s medical bills. All of the donations received are tax deductible as UCR is a 501c3 non-profit organization. We appreciate all the help we can get. To make it easier for you… please click on the ChipIn meter below! Thank you!

Limited Services

Cynthia — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 19:38:42 +0000

We are having some personal issues and our ability to do collie rescue for the next little while is going to be extremely limted. If you are willing to foster a collie for us, we would greatly appreciate it.

Since we are very low on foster homes, and we can’t take all the rescue collies into our own home… and because of some downturns in our job situation, we have to limit our rescue program.

If you would be able to volunteer please let us know, we can use the help! Thanks!

Snow Play

Cynthia — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 19:56:05 +0000

It snowed yesterday… and as you see, these collies love the snow! Tony is the big sable boy, and Tatum is the small sable girl, in the picture. Angel is our adopted smooth blue collie you also see.

Tatum is such a joy and full of spirit. And Tony also loves the snow. He has been known to go outside and play with Tatum, even. I got a new digital SLR camera a couple of days ago.. and a Flickr account, so hopefully I’ll be posting more pictures! Tatum is quite cute in this.. mid leap!

The camera’s battery seems to last a long time, maybe it will take nimh batteries, to charge it up!

I really do want to get more pictures of Tony up. He is such a sweet boy. He’s right here now, laying at my feet as I sit on the couch, looking around, being aware of things, and also being nice and calm. He is such a lover boy.

Limiting Rescue

Cynthia — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 21:42:15 +0000

Due to some personal circumstances, unexpected, that have come up in the last month we are going to have to severely limit the collies we are able to foster in our own home. Fortunately for us here in Utah, there are not very many locally that end up in rescue. Hopefully we can rely on our friend rescues to help get any collies that we do find in shelters, into foster homes.

The more foster homes we have, the more we can do. We have a couple of potential foster homes coming online soon and that should help out. And we are seriously looking for a foster for Tony, as having him in another home where he can get the attention he needs, would also help us out a great deal.

So if you are interested in fostering a collie, or a sheltie for our friends at sheltie rescue, please let us know! collierescue@utahdogs.com

Collies in Herding

Cynthia — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 23:12:13 +0000

Herding adds another aspect to dog sports that the person cannot completely control. The sheep. Not only does the handler have to be clear and precise in movement and cue, and have a good relationship with the dog, there is also the added random effect of the sheep. Of course skill and practice are the most important things about herding, but sometimes the sheep will throw you for a loop, just like the dogs will.

Herding is a great exercise for collies. Most of them love it. You may get a collie that has little herding instinct, or maybe more prey drive than herding, but a lot of the time collies will be good herders, as it is what they were bred to do. If you want to do a fun, rewarding sport with your collie, finding a herding instructor in your area would be a great thing to do with your dog.

And if you get involved in the club and become the secretary, you might need some budgeting software to help you through!

Collies in Agility

Cynthia — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 01:50:07 +0000

If you go to an agility trial you may not see very many collies competing. There are a number of them across the country, but they seem to be spread very thin. Only at collie nationals will you see a lot of collies having a lot of fun doing agility.

The herding breeds are great at agility, and collies are no exception. They are fast learners and they can clear jumps 24 to 26 inches high, depending on the height of your collie and the venue you are competing in.

Going over jumps, through tunnels, onto contact obstacles, collies can do them all. Collies may not be as fast as Border Collies or Australian Shepherds, but they have just as much fun, and are just as much fun to run.

So if you have a collie and you are looking for something fun to do with her, consider agility! Find yourself a positive trainer in your area and I bet you will have a ton of fun!

You could try Ping Golf when you want to do something without your dog, and you can try agility for something to do with your dog!

Collies and PR

Cynthia — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 21:58:42 +0000

What is PR you may ask? PR is short for Positive Reinforcement. Positive Reinforcement training is sweeping the country, and it’s been a long time in coming, too. Instead of painful leash pops, ear pinches, hitting or slapping, Positive Reinforcement is focused entirely on getting a dog to do what you what in a positive, happy, playful way.

This type of training is much more pleasant for both the dog and the trainer. One excellent way to do this type of training is to incorporate clicker training into your repertoire of training skills. Clicker training is very precise, and it marks exactly what you want to do, when the dog does it. Dogs sometimes get confused when you reward a behavior if you are not very precise as to what you are rewarding. Clicker training allows you to ‘mark’, with the clicker, the exact thing the dog is doing. And that click signals the dog that the behavior is what is desired, and that they will get a treat only a second or two thereafter.

Marking doesn’t only work with dogs. It also works with dolphins and other sea mammal training. As well as horses and cats. Yes, cats! Clicker training is a great way to train cats because they, well, they can be a bit stubborn and they only do what they know gets them what they want.

Collies are a very sensitive breed of dog. Using correction training on a collie will only get you a very sad, very scared collie. They need a soft hand and a soft voice, and a lot of encouragement, praise, and reward.

If you are interested in Clicker Training, please visit www.clickertraining.com/ for more information!