Dogs on the farm – Part 2
Dogs on the Farm Part 1 Click here
I went back to a friend of mine who had an Australian shepherd to find out why she said she would never get another one. Come to find out that she did like hers quite all right, but it was just too intelligent.
She told me that she felt the dog understood the English language as well any human. Teaching the dog new tricks was a snap, such as roll over, play dead, etc, and it only took about 3 minutes for her Australian shepherd to get the hang of it. Of course, the dog expected the treats for its labor, and so if he felt they weren’t coming fast enough he would do a roll over, play dead, sit up and beg and etc all in 5 seconds just to get the treat to come faster. He met his obligation, right?
He would learn any game they cared to teach him. He would play fetch and catch with a ball, but you had better throw it back to him. If you started to lapse in paying attention to the catch ball game, you would get bonged between the eyes with the ball by the Australian shepherd. He never missed, neither.
He would be great to bring on a hike to the woods in say Colorado, as he would protect you against any wild animals, but forget the bike path. He might not get out of the way for the bikers, even perhaps knocking some of them down. It all has to do with perspective. He might be thinking the bikers would be coming to do his masters some kind of harm. She said they are aggressive dogs.
So, she felt that the Australian shepherd being so intelligent needed too much attention. My thought is that you need to look at the parents. If the mom and dad Australian shepherds were mellow and easy going, so would be the pups. And the opposite would be true as well. So that’s how you pick’em. I think. Since I have never had one, I welcome all comments telling me if I’m right or not.
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