Adopted April 19, 2008
Rescue Date: 3/15/2008
From: Merced
Breed: Border Collie
Size: Med. 35 - 40 lbs
Color: Black - With White
Sex: Male
Age: Adult
Energy: Companion/ Lap Dog (3/10)
Jack is:
good with dogs
good with kids
up to date with shots
house broken
Jack is an extreemly well rounded dog, as close to the perfect ready made dog as you can get. He came into the merced animal shelter 2/26/2008 as an owner surrender and his owners did not give a reason as to why they were turning him in, he became one of the two most urgent pulls of the day. Jack is a very loving low energy border collie who wants to be a 46lb lap dog.
Jack appears to have had training sometime during his past. When I took him to class as an observer, he was very intent on watching the other dogs perform and started to mimic them. He walks flawlessly on leash and has done well on leash with cats and children and hasn't shown much herding or prey drive. He is reserved with strangers but quickly warms up for pets, if the stranger has food that cuts down the warm up time down to nil.
Jack is good with other dogs and has been a role model for the other dogs in the house. He has a tendency to being a submissive male. He has shown he like to rough house with the other dogs and sometimes forgets that rough housing is supposed to happen out side. Jack did great helping my other foster work through his initial bully phase and reacted perfectly to all of his growls or overly assertive behaviors. He is initially reserved with stranger dogs but after the first sniffs is ready to bond and play.
In the house Jack hasn't shown negative behaviors like barking, chewing and he appears house broken. He is eager to please and responds well to minimal verbal corrections if he makes the rare,m mistake. Jack has a fear of getting in the car and it takes major coaxing to get in most of the time, often I have to actually pick him up to put him in the car. Once inside the car he rides perfectly and is very well behaved.
4/19/2009
Hi Mike! Can you believe it's been a whole year since Jack adopted us? :) Here's our latest news...
We're still doing obedience classes, the latest one involves off-leash performance at a distance and lots of distraction training. After this class we have one where we go to all different locations to practice with real-world distractions. Jack can heel off leash around other dogs, food on the floor, toys, etc. and does great with out-of-sight stays. He won lots of toys at our K9 fun night event because he is the fastest to sit and down.
Our agility classes are going well, Jack hopes I'll be a decent handler yet. I don't think we can fit one more piece of practice equipment in our yard! We did three runs at an agility pay & play at a local training place in March and that went pretty well for a first time. We practice off leash in our friends' unfenced yard on weekends and he never attempts to take off, even with the horses and cats around there. He and his friend Gracie tear around there like crazy, it's cute to watch. We've been taking video of our practices and I put them up on youtube, if you want to take a peek it's www.youtube.com/webwoman85.
On the days we don't have class or practice, we go for walks with Jack's sister Timber. She is in better shape at 14 than she's ever been thanks to her athletic brother! Lady can't go for long walks at age 15 but she does her best to romp with Jack before breakfast every day.
10/30/2008
Jack is such a pretty, sweet boy. :-) We graduated from our intermediate manners class last Tuesday, and we'll be taking the advanced class in January. After that there's an "out and about" class where we go to different places to practice with distractions. Jack has the best stays and recalls in our class. His heeling is absolutely beautiful. He is so smart and eager to learn, it's a pleasure to work with him. We may take an agility class that our manners trainer teaches too, if we can get in.
Yesterday Jack and I had a play date with our agility friends, Patti and Gracie. They have horses, so Jack got to meet them up close and personal. He didn't know what to think at first, the younger horse was really curious about him and wanted to sniff his head. That startled him, so she sneaked around behind him to try again. lol He did great, didn't try to chase them, and just laid down in the corral once he figured out they were harmless.
Hope your holiday season is off to a good start. Jack is getting agility equipment for Christmas, maybe a pause table or teeter. We have weave poles for him inside the house, who needs furniture? lol Good thing he isn't spoiled!!
7/23/2008
Here are a couple pics from the agility field trip. It went great, Jack made lots of new friends. Our trainer worked with him on the course and she was so proud of him! Then they turned on the sprinklers and the kids and dogs all got soaked. I think that was Jack's favorite part. :) He slept all the way home.
7/19/2008
Hey Mike, just wanted to let you know Jack passed his CGC (Canine Good Citizen) [1] test with flying colors this morning! The evaluator kept saying what a nice, well-behaved dog he is. She encouraged us to take as many advanced classes as we can.
We're still doing agility. Jack knows the obstacle names and can do many of them off leash with total confidence. His recall on the course is getting better all the time. Next week we're going to participate in an agility day for our trainer's kids camp. Jack will be handled by one of the camp's teen staff on the agility course, so I'll be taking pictures. If I get some good shots I'll send you one.
5/21/2008
Hi Mike, I just wanted to let you know that after about a month of having Jack with us, we adore him more than ever. He is a sweet boy, and VERY smart. He's completely crate trained and has learned to fetch a ball, although we're still working on the "bring it all the way back" part. He even got my oldest dog to play a little, and that's very unusual. Even with all his enthusiasm, he hasn't been rough with my old girls at all, and he really likes the younger of the two. They explored the dog park together on Sunday and got courage from each other. All the other dog moms commented on how well behaved he is. :) He goes on long walks with us and sits automatically when we stop to wait for traffic. He learns anything we try to teach him very quickly. We start obedience training next week, and I know he's going to do great.
A cute story, I have a webcam in the house so I can watch the dogs from work during the day. One day I saw Jack run into the room with "something" in his mouth. I finally figured out it was one of my slippers! I called home and told him NO! over the answering machine and he put the slipper down and looked around...then put his head down on it and didn't chew on it anymore. LOL He was still snuggling with it when I got home.
I can't believe anyone would surrender such a nice, beautiful dog to the shelter! I'm so glad you found him. He is definitely the dog we were looking for. You do a great job of matching dogs with people. I check your site every few days to see who's been placed.
