indeed...when you ask Cosmo to sit by the back door he looks at you...then looks at the treat tin on top of thje fridge and checks out whether or not your hand looks like it's going towards it....

Now I call that smart.....

Bruce does what you ''ask'' (sorry don;t like the word tell) behaves wonderful, but when he is told to come in ....he runs to the biscuit barrell and pushes it to the edge of the worktop with his nose and barks at you....if it had a handle he'd fetch the bloody thing to me Skye and Reah sit underneath the work top....READY to catch

Brilliant!!!!!!

I'm afraid I agree.....

Collies say Yes!
Spaniels say Why!

Obvious not many people have met real working bred border collies-esoecially the hill dogs who often have to "disobey"a command when out of sight of the shepherd.

Working ESS have the instinct to flush the same way a working bred collie has to herd & in reality it is a form of prey drive.

Someone who even jokingly says that collies are thick & always say"yes", might work thei dogs in obedience, it doesn't mean that they have any in depth knowledge of collies. If collies were so very "easy"to train because they want to please & always do as they are told why do so many fall by the wayside both in Obedience & stock work despite having pedigrees that should mean that they have a high work/prey drive ?

No - I have never worked with hill farmers dogs.

I have worked with local farmers who work thier dogs on sheep and cattle. I have ownerd and lived with 10+ and worked with countless more, from rescue/ISDS/showing and obedience lines.

Not all of whom have been what I would call easy dogs.

But....in all the training I have done with the various dogs I have never met a BC who would outwit a Springer.

Most of the BC's I have worked with who have problems have been very difficult to solve, often more so that the other breeds. My opinions is that BCs tend to pick things up very quick, if that is the wrong thing, then it becomes very difficult to 'retrain' them out of the behaviour.

i know the comment wasnt meant to be offensive but it was rude & Breedist & shows a complete lack of understanding, collies arent easy to train & arent self training!!!!

Who was this trainer i will probaley know them as i know Ob peeps all over the country, & i will ask them if they really said collies are brainless

Sorry Mish but having trained up a fair few breeds I have to say in my experience, Collies are one of the easier breeds to train but as Taslle has said, theyu learn very quickly, be it bad things or good things/

Its nothing against the breed, they are my 'special' breed.

I adore BC's and would always have at least one if not more by choice.

I think you are reading into it a little too much. Different people have different opinions on the trainability of breeds. Some people probably think Labs are thick (some are!) but I couldn't give a monkeys -- who cares?