progress update: July 09
Dooley has now moved to Derby!
Here he is with His Favourite New Toy:
progress update: 22nd Dec
‘Dooley walked in the house like it is his home.
Hasn’t growled or anything at my husband, has even been playing with him in the house.
The halti is great too.
He is a joy.
He made another border collie friend today.
He was even good with his owner.
I think he will be a great dog.’
Hazel
progress update: 21st Dec
After several visits to overcome his nerves Dooley will be off to stay permanently at his new home tomorrow !!!
progress update: 13th Dec
Dooley has gone off for the weekend to his potential new home with Hazel !!
progress update: 12th Nov
Thanks very much to Fiona Pendlebury for this article on Dooley !
progress update: 8th Nov
Dooley is in the Echo today!
( we will have a scan of his article here soon ! )
progress update: 27th Oct
Dooley was visited today by a photographer from the Echo,
who had heard how nonplussed Dooley felt at Rocco’s recent media stardom !
You can expect to see him in the Echo before long !!
progress update: 19th Sep
READY FOR REHOMING !!
Dooley has now been at the Rescue for several months ‘in rehab’.
He has made very good progress and is now no longer the very fearful dog he once was.
We are now looking for a permanent home for Dooley, one that will be able to continue to improve his confidence and recovery.
He is very used to other dogs at the Rescue, but he is still a little eccentric in some of his ways.
We will be looking for an extra special home for him, with someone who understands nervous collies and who has the patience to care for him.
It may be that Dooley is more suited to a home which is not a domestic family situation, since he needs to be worked and active to find a good use for all his nervous energy.
Like his fellow rehab dog Rocco, he needs someone who is prepared to visit him at the Rescue repeatedly until he gets used to them enough to build up a trust.
If you think that you may be able to help Dooley,
please contact Helen
for more details
–
Dooley is a young Collie who has suffered from a stimulus overload.
He is extremely nervous of new people but is gradually losing this fear.
As with a lot of Collies he is driven crazy by the fast motions of cars and feels that they must be herded into a tidy circle.
He will remain in his foster home whilst he is rehabilated.
He now goes for a walk off the lead and we will continue
with training to enable him to learn that his job is not to round up all moving things!
As he is conscientous and like many workoholics it may take him a while to ease up on his work load.
We will be looking for a home who has experience of Collies and where there are not young children.
He would also benefit from living with another dog as despite what we rather vain humans think he will learn far more from another calmer dog who already knows the social niceties!
Dooley showing how much he loves being outside and trying to round up Helen! =)
Dooley’s progress report: April 8th
He is settling in with new dogs much better and is becoming more socialised.
He goes off the lead all the time now and looks to check where I am.
He is far less nervous and gradually becoming more used to a busier household where people come and go.
He still feels he should give a bit of a bark just so not to let the side down and also not to lose face in front of the new dogs.
On Friday he met a lady out with her two dogs and ran up to them all quite keen to say hello.
Next week I will start to sit with him on a busy high street to get him used to traffic.
Dooley’s progress report: 21st April
Dooley’s latest update is that he went for a walk on the recreation
ground where there were more distractions.
He and Spike raced after a ball and Dooley saw a cyclist and ran off to round him up but an
improvement in his behaviour is that he stopped short of the cyclist and came back to me.
A massive step forward for Dooley!
He is also starting to come back to see where I am and today for the first time
came back straight away when I called him and sat to have his lead put on.
He also met two strange dogs and a man up the field and again came
back to my call.
The horses in the next field did too but this is by the way.
He has also given up barking all the way back home and only does this
for half the journey,
I think his association with barking and the car is possibly starting to ease off.
His next step is to get used to bikes
and my intention is to introduce him up close to mine first and then
start to walk him next to it and then to cycle slowly with him.
Dooley is still young and he will in time get over his obsessions.
At the moment after a close call with a newly painted door he is wearing the
latest doggy fashion of one painted ear!
Dooley’s progress report: 30th April
Dooley has improved beyond expectation, he is walked regularly at
places with the distractions of people, runners, bikes and other dogs.
What a star he is, today he ignored and came back when called from two
cyclists and a pair of runners.
A friend of mine Brian who is a behaviourist quoted once to me “If a
dog doesn’t have a job, he will find one himself”
and Dooley had found himself several jobs previously to coming to the rescue.
I have always taken the attitude that if you run the hind legs of an
overactive or problem dog as the first part of training
then and only then are they in a state of mind to learn.
Dooley has since being with us had very long walks and this week he was ready to
take his exercise in more public places.
His new job is to race after a
ball and try to get it before the other dogs do.
He barely looks at
anything else whilst doing this.
He would with more training make a
great agility or flyball dog!
