h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I miss my Border Collie! She's at home with my parents. She's really old now, perhaps nine I think. Even so, she's still full of pernash and perzazz and so on, though her joints have a worrying tendancy to click.

My mum's family used to breed collies, so she's always known how to look after Gwen (our collie, good stereotypical name eh?). She's taken out three times a day, we've got three huge commons in front of our house so she gets plenty of exercise (as do we!). We're careful what to feed her, keeping her lean (I've seen other people's dogs get so overweight when they're spoiled, but it's really unhealthy for dogs to get like that, and I actually think it's cruel!). She has always been COMPLETELY obsessed with her ball. She must have had twenty rubber balls by now. She's always into and under everything, posting her ball under tables and dropping it in the bin at any oppertunity, as this is a way she can garuantee us giving her attention (collies aren't just intelligent, they're caniving!). When she was a puppy she was an absolute terror. She'd eat everything (such as wellington boots, which she would soon sick up again) and find any way to escape and go on adventures (but she always came back - eventually). She was very easy to train, and is now very well behaved (I would have said sensible, but as soon as the hoover is turned on she becomes very immature, makes an odd wailing noise and tries to bite the nozzle end of the hoover, perhaps imagining it to be some kind of snake). She is also inxeplicably petrified of my mother's briefcase, which snaps shut, and probably looks like a giant mouth - just opening it in her presence sends her running for cover in her bed. Oh, but she does attack the post as it comes through the letterbox, as it once dropped on her from above when she was sleeping beneath it.

All in all, border collies are great! And nearly all of them have white tips to their tails.

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I completely agree that border collies are meant to be working dogs! We had one once, she was extremely intelligent, and a dear dog, but she eventually got a bit crazy from having too little to do - no sheep to herd at all! (I live in Norway, no one warned us about that). So we had to take her to the vet one day, after she took to biting kids without warning. Terribly sad. The policy of no sheep - no border collie is probably a good idea.

As there is no picture with the article,
I am curious how the border collie differs
from other types of collies.

When I was a kid, one of our neighbors had
sheep, and another had a collie. I am not sure
if the one with sheep ever used the collie
for herding the sheep.

The dog was a bit of a pest, and tended to
roam quite a bit. One time it fell into
an uncovered well at a third neighbor's house.
We heard it barking for a day or two.
Finally it was rescued, without apparent
ill effect.