Well what can I say about Ollie?!
He really is quite a character!
After losing Moss, our first Border Collie, we were devastated.
We had decided that we didn't want another dog. Having Jake, our other dog, was enough. Besides we could never replace Moss. (You can also read about Moss and Jake on this blog and of course our cat, Suzy)......and now our latest addition, Kaya!
But Jake grieved as much as we did...he lost his usual smiling face and would just sit around looking sad, so after some debate, we decided to get another brother for him...and yes, it HAD to be a Border Collie!
After phoning round several animal rescue centres only to be told that there were no Border Collies available for re-homing, we started to trawl the internet.
We saw a photograph of a tiny, gorgeous, fluffy, tri-coloured, most adorable looking Border Collie puppy up for sale! Like a little ball of fur with eyes and ears!
And we immediately thought...
"He's the one! We must have him!"
On arriving at the house we were greeted by a mother Border Collie and 2 of her puppies...a pretty female called Dorca, who the owner had decided to keep, and an odd looking scrawny thing, with a very long face, long gangly legs, short fur and an extremely long thin black tail, which was that far under his legs that it almost touched his chin!
THIS WAS NOT THE CUTE LITTLE FUR BALL WE HAD SEEN IN THE PICTURE!!
We were told by his owner that he had never been socialised, had lived outside and that he had never even stroked him, in fear of bonding with him! (Stupid man!) So at almost 5 months old this poor little pup hadn't had any human contact....huge, huge, HUGE mistake! (Which we were to find out to our cost in the coming months) Fido, as he was then called, was the last of a litter of 5 that were up for re-homing.
The guy told us he had always known that he would keep one of the female pups, so of course Dorca was friendly as she had been stroked and loved.
He said a couple of people had already been to see this funny looking male pup, but had decided that he wasn't the dog for them.....I'm guessing that this was because, not only was he NOT the puppy advertised online, but he also ticked every box in the list of "Reasons why NOT to choose this particular puppy"
Whilst chatting with the guy, who was rather odd to say the least, this scrawny looking creature hid from us trembling. He peed every time we looked at him...
What a pitiful animal he was....
So yes! We brought him home with us and changed his name to Ollie.
(There was no possible way we could leave him there!)
And even though, unlike all our other dogs, he wasn't a typical 'Rescue' dog....we really did feel like we were rescuing him!
And so began a life of chaos!!
Looking back I have no idea how we managed!
I lost count of the number of times we held our head in our hands saying.....
"What on earth have we gotten ourselves into?"
He completely destroyed our home! He chewed through the walls, right through to the bricks, he chewed the banister rail from top to bottom, went through countless cushions, a very expensive rug, 7 pairs of shoes, a remote control, my battery charger for my laptop and my phone and smashed and totally destroyed my brand new lap top!
He would steal food from the kitchen worktops, eat the contents of the cat's litter tray like it was the tastiest treat ever and...well! You get the picture!
House training him was a nightmare!...and so the list goes on...and on....
He was petrified of visitors...in fact he was petrified of everything!
He suffered Separation anxiety and had phobias of just about everything!
He would completely go to pieces every time I left the house and go into 'destruction mode'
We started off not leaving him for any longer than an hour and then slowly built it up to 4 hours, even now we won't leave either of our dogs home alone for longer than 4 hours.
I would dread coming home and seeing what he had destroyed this time!!
We did try crate training him, for our home's safety, as well as his! But he broke free time after time! He was perfectly happy in there whilst we were home with him and would go in there himself to play and sleep...But it seemed he just didn't like being left alone in an empty house in there. We even tried padlocks but he still broke free and cut his poor little nose quite badly in the process, so we gave up on that.
To this day he is still a bit of an escape artist. You can't shut him in or out of a room because he jumps up, pulls the handle down and opens the door. We have to make sure that we always lock our front door, because he went through a phase of letting himself and our other dog, Jake, out whenever he pleased! Plus if anybody rang our doorbell they would get the fright of their life when the door came flying open and they were greeted by 2 dogs barking their heads off!
Initially, whilst he bonded with us immediately, he would cower in the corner hiding, shaking and peeing every time we had a visitor Then once we built his confidence up he would charge, growling and snapping, at any strangers that we came across, either in our home or out on walks.
'Fear aggression' was now added to his list of emotional problems!
And so 6 months of Intensive Confidence building, Socialising and muzzle training began....
I'm a great believer in positive reinforcement training...ie ignore the bad behaviour and praise the good....Trust me! This wasn't always easy! Many of his antics were very difficult to ignore!! But I'm pretty sure he picked up on our disappointment through our body language alone....It was very difficult not to sigh after walking in the house and finding bits of furniture or pieces of brick chewed up and spread around the house lol.
It wasn't just the bad behaviour we ignored, if we returned home or got up in the morning to find he had chewed something then we ignored HIM too, we ignored those big brown eyes, little wet nose and waggy tail.
And oh! how he hated being ignored!!
Good behaviour, obviously, resulted in lots of praise, cuddles and treats!! Which, of course, he loved! Even through the most difficult times, the one thing that Ollie always wanted to do was to please us and make us happy.
Eventually it seemed to 'click' with him that when he was ignored it was always following behaviour that we found unacceptable and when he was good, we were happy and he got treats and extra attention.
And now, several nervous breakdowns later (on our part!), HEAPS of love and even more patience! He has grown into a marvelous family member. His fur has grown, he now has a splendid tail! And is now quite handsome.
He is intelligent, incredibly well behaved, extremely loving and loyal and every day he does something that makes me smile. He is my baby.
He still has a few issues, is still a nervous dog, but is much happier around strangers now and no longer needs to be muzzled....he will go up to them wagging his tail and sniff them, but won't allow them to stroke him.....No growling though, he just backs away.
We are getting there!! And are very proud (and grateful!) for what we have achieved with him so far. He still gets a few things wrong....like peeing on the cat for instance, because she hisses at him every time he looks at her! (We are very fortunate to have a cat that likes being bathed! lol)
24th Decamber 2013 - Update..
Just back from the Vets, took Ollie for his booster jab. I was really proud of him...he greeted everyone that came in and wagged his tail, no growling or snapping at everyone! He saw a Vet, that was also an animal behaviourist, that he had never seen before and the first thing she said to him was "What a lovely sociable dog you are" Which really made me smile. When she read his records she said that we should be really proud of what we have achieved, because most people would have just given up on him and had him put to sleep.
The previous animal behaviourist I had spoken to several months earlier had said that he needed either 6 months of regular intensive training at £90 a session (which we just couldn't afford!) or should be put to sleep, she said there was no way we would be able to get the aggression out of him on our own and that his behaviour would only get worse.
Don't you just love proving people wrong!
He really is quite a character!
After losing Moss, our first Border Collie, we were devastated.
We had decided that we didn't want another dog. Having Jake, our other dog, was enough. Besides we could never replace Moss. (You can also read about Moss and Jake on this blog and of course our cat, Suzy)......and now our latest addition, Kaya!
But Jake grieved as much as we did...he lost his usual smiling face and would just sit around looking sad, so after some debate, we decided to get another brother for him...and yes, it HAD to be a Border Collie!
After phoning round several animal rescue centres only to be told that there were no Border Collies available for re-homing, we started to trawl the internet.
We saw a photograph of a tiny, gorgeous, fluffy, tri-coloured, most adorable looking Border Collie puppy up for sale! Like a little ball of fur with eyes and ears!
And we immediately thought...
"He's the one! We must have him!"
On arriving at the house we were greeted by a mother Border Collie and 2 of her puppies...a pretty female called Dorca, who the owner had decided to keep, and an odd looking scrawny thing, with a very long face, long gangly legs, short fur and an extremely long thin black tail, which was that far under his legs that it almost touched his chin!
THIS WAS NOT THE CUTE LITTLE FUR BALL WE HAD SEEN IN THE PICTURE!!
We were told by his owner that he had never been socialised, had lived outside and that he had never even stroked him, in fear of bonding with him! (Stupid man!) So at almost 5 months old this poor little pup hadn't had any human contact....huge, huge, HUGE mistake! (Which we were to find out to our cost in the coming months) Fido, as he was then called, was the last of a litter of 5 that were up for re-homing.
The guy told us he had always known that he would keep one of the female pups, so of course Dorca was friendly as she had been stroked and loved.
He said a couple of people had already been to see this funny looking male pup, but had decided that he wasn't the dog for them.....I'm guessing that this was because, not only was he NOT the puppy advertised online, but he also ticked every box in the list of "Reasons why NOT to choose this particular puppy"
Whilst chatting with the guy, who was rather odd to say the least, this scrawny looking creature hid from us trembling. He peed every time we looked at him...
What a pitiful animal he was....
So yes! We brought him home with us and changed his name to Ollie.
(There was no possible way we could leave him there!)
And even though, unlike all our other dogs, he wasn't a typical 'Rescue' dog....we really did feel like we were rescuing him!
And so began a life of chaos!!
Looking back I have no idea how we managed!
I lost count of the number of times we held our head in our hands saying.....
"What on earth have we gotten ourselves into?"
He completely destroyed our home! He chewed through the walls, right through to the bricks, he chewed the banister rail from top to bottom, went through countless cushions, a very expensive rug, 7 pairs of shoes, a remote control, my battery charger for my laptop and my phone and smashed and totally destroyed my brand new lap top!
He would steal food from the kitchen worktops, eat the contents of the cat's litter tray like it was the tastiest treat ever and...well! You get the picture!
House training him was a nightmare!...and so the list goes on...and on....
He was petrified of visitors...in fact he was petrified of everything!
He suffered Separation anxiety and had phobias of just about everything!
He would completely go to pieces every time I left the house and go into 'destruction mode'
We started off not leaving him for any longer than an hour and then slowly built it up to 4 hours, even now we won't leave either of our dogs home alone for longer than 4 hours.
I would dread coming home and seeing what he had destroyed this time!!
We did try crate training him, for our home's safety, as well as his! But he broke free time after time! He was perfectly happy in there whilst we were home with him and would go in there himself to play and sleep...But it seemed he just didn't like being left alone in an empty house in there. We even tried padlocks but he still broke free and cut his poor little nose quite badly in the process, so we gave up on that.
To this day he is still a bit of an escape artist. You can't shut him in or out of a room because he jumps up, pulls the handle down and opens the door. We have to make sure that we always lock our front door, because he went through a phase of letting himself and our other dog, Jake, out whenever he pleased! Plus if anybody rang our doorbell they would get the fright of their life when the door came flying open and they were greeted by 2 dogs barking their heads off!
Initially, whilst he bonded with us immediately, he would cower in the corner hiding, shaking and peeing every time we had a visitor Then once we built his confidence up he would charge, growling and snapping, at any strangers that we came across, either in our home or out on walks.
'Fear aggression' was now added to his list of emotional problems!
And so 6 months of Intensive Confidence building, Socialising and muzzle training began....
I'm a great believer in positive reinforcement training...ie ignore the bad behaviour and praise the good....Trust me! This wasn't always easy! Many of his antics were very difficult to ignore!! But I'm pretty sure he picked up on our disappointment through our body language alone....It was very difficult not to sigh after walking in the house and finding bits of furniture or pieces of brick chewed up and spread around the house lol.
It wasn't just the bad behaviour we ignored, if we returned home or got up in the morning to find he had chewed something then we ignored HIM too, we ignored those big brown eyes, little wet nose and waggy tail.
And oh! how he hated being ignored!!
Good behaviour, obviously, resulted in lots of praise, cuddles and treats!! Which, of course, he loved! Even through the most difficult times, the one thing that Ollie always wanted to do was to please us and make us happy.
Eventually it seemed to 'click' with him that when he was ignored it was always following behaviour that we found unacceptable and when he was good, we were happy and he got treats and extra attention.
And now, several nervous breakdowns later (on our part!), HEAPS of love and even more patience! He has grown into a marvelous family member. His fur has grown, he now has a splendid tail! And is now quite handsome.
He is intelligent, incredibly well behaved, extremely loving and loyal and every day he does something that makes me smile. He is my baby.
He still has a few issues, is still a nervous dog, but is much happier around strangers now and no longer needs to be muzzled....he will go up to them wagging his tail and sniff them, but won't allow them to stroke him.....No growling though, he just backs away.
We are getting there!! And are very proud (and grateful!) for what we have achieved with him so far. He still gets a few things wrong....like peeing on the cat for instance, because she hisses at him every time he looks at her! (We are very fortunate to have a cat that likes being bathed! lol)
24th Decamber 2013 - Update..
Just back from the Vets, took Ollie for his booster jab. I was really proud of him...he greeted everyone that came in and wagged his tail, no growling or snapping at everyone! He saw a Vet, that was also an animal behaviourist, that he had never seen before and the first thing she said to him was "What a lovely sociable dog you are" Which really made me smile. When she read his records she said that we should be really proud of what we have achieved, because most people would have just given up on him and had him put to sleep.
The previous animal behaviourist I had spoken to several months earlier had said that he needed either 6 months of regular intensive training at £90 a session (which we just couldn't afford!) or should be put to sleep, she said there was no way we would be able to get the aggression out of him on our own and that his behaviour would only get worse.
Don't you just love proving people wrong!
OLLIE'S FIRST DAY WITH US
NOT EVEN MY UNDERWEAR WAS SAFE!
AND OLLIE NOW!
