Anyone have a Blue Heeler (cattle dog)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

We adopted a heeler/border collie mix a few months ago. He’s 5 and was surrendered by a family who could no longer care for him properly. He came to us about 15 pounds overweight, and we’ve helped him (through diet foot and exercise) drop 11 of those pounds so far. Slow and steady. He’s much more active and happier than when we got him.

Our previous dog (passed at 17) was a Husky/Beagle mix. Our new dog (Elwood) is VERY different. Cribbed from a heeler post I was just sent:

If my heeler could talk:

Dog: WAT DOING?
Me: Nothing, I just stood up
Dog: WHERE GO?
Me: I am literally just walking across the room.
DOG: CAN I COME
Me: Well sure, but I’m simply going…
DOG: I COME TOO
DOG: WAT DOING
Me: I’m opening the door to the bathroom
DOG: I HALP
Me: You’re standing in front of the door. I can’t open it.
DOG: I HALP
Me: Whatever
DOG: WHERE GOING
Me: I’m going back to sit in the exact same place I came from.
DOG: CAN I COME
Me: Yes, absolutely.

Anyone else have some heeler/cattle dog stories and or tips for this Velcro Dog?

2

heh mom had a miniature Queensland heeler he deicided to help momma cat herd kittens …she wasn’t impressed at first but decided he was fine s a babysitter … it wasn’t unusual to see him carrying kittens by the neck through the house when it was “roll call”

3

Me: I’m just going to water the garden
DOG: I COME TOO
Me: No, I think you can…
DOG I FOLLOW
Me: OK, just stay right…
DOG: I HALP
Me: Not a good plan
DOG: I HALP
Me: (turns on hose)
DOG: BAD WATER! BITE WATER! I HALP!
Me: Stop that!
DOG: BITE WATER! BITE WATER!
Me: I’ll just get to the garden later.

4

These are very active and social dogs, they are not the sort of dog that is going to be happy just sitting around, as your “if my heeler could talk” indicates. They are herd dogs, for cattle or sheep, and need that constant activity.

I hope you have property or at least some space outside for it to run. And time to spend interacting with the dog. Some dogs are fine left alone in an appartment for hours, this breed will go insane. This is not an indoor type of animal. Very smart, intelligent, active, and needs something to do. A couple acres of land, hobby farm, people who are often around, if you can’t spend A LOT of time with this dog and do not have outside room, consider always keeping an eye out for someone that has a setting that the dog will do well in.

Probably why the animal was over weight and why the previous owners couldn’t take proper care of it.

5

I have a heeler named Crocodile, who I got as a puppy. He’s 19 months old now and a real handful of a dog. I thought I knew what I was getting into because I had a black lab, but this dog is like a lab turned up to eleven.

6

Yep, he’s currently on one acre of property. We have also been taking him to weekly agility classes, that he loves. No apartment living for us.

He also loves hours long hikes. We could never take our previous dog off leash on trails. She would get on a scent and simply leave for an hour to investigate. Nose on, brain off.

Elwood? A pleasure to hike with. Goes on ahead, stays on the trail and then waits for you with a goofy expression.

He’s with one of us pretty much 24/7, and that’s how we like it. I’ve had border collie mixes in the past with my family, so I came into this with eyes open!

We figure that there was some kind of change in his previous owner’s lifestyle. His vet records show yearly weight of 28 pounds, 44 pounds, 45 pounds, 45 pounds, 60 pounds. Something happened in year 4-5. He came to us quite well trained though.

7

I’m kind of glad we got Elwood at age 5, and avoided the puppy stage. I have heard stories! He’s actually pretty mellow for a cattle dog cross.

I have heard that if you take the love that a lab has for all kinds of people, and focus, FOCUS it down and concentrate it exclusively on one or two people… that’s a cattle dog.

Our previous dog loved, LOVED everyone, and really enjoyed greeting strangers. Elwood looks at strangers, looks at us, looks at stranger, looks at us. And then we give him permission to “say hello”, he will go over and politely sniff and accept ONE (1) pat on the head before coming back to us.

8

Croc loves me and tolerates the rest of the world. He’s had puppy and adult obedience classes and did quite wellbut he can’t get his Canine Good Citizen cert until he gets over his separation anxiety.

9

Do they ever get over this?

10

We had two blue heelers that just passed away, brother and sister. I thought they were supposed to be smart but they were the dumbest dogs on the planet.

11

A friend of mine adopted a Queensland Heeler (or cattledog depending on your preference), and she was an awesome dog. That herding instinct is something you need to address. I talked to a co-worker who used to train Shelties for herding competitions about the Heeler (Sadie). She told me that herding dogs are 1) intelligent, 2) active, 3) need a “task”. Sadie loved to retrieve (tennis balls were her favorite, but anything thrown), and she explained that this constituted a “task”. They live to fulfill their tasks. So you need to be thinking about tasks, like retrieving or herding, to give her “purpose”.

12

I doubt it. I think hes’s decided that I’m his prize sheep and must be guarded at all costs. I can’t be out of his sight for longer than a bathroom break, if that. They don’t call 'em “Velcro Dogs” for nothing!

13

We’d tie a biscuit in an old t-shirt for our border collie when we had to leave - multiple knots, as tight as we could make them. She could untie one in about a half hour. Leave a couple around the house, and she was fine for a few hours, between the time to solve the puzzle and the time to feel proud of completing her task.

14

My neighbor has a blue heeler that she went a long way to get. That dog is beautiful, graceful, smart, and in need of constant attention. Now, my neighbor loves that dog to pieces and vice versa. But - the neighbor is away from the dog for looong hours in the summer as a manager at an amusement park. In the winter, her hours are part-time so she picks up a second job. This I understand.

But that poor dog of hers must be so lonely during the day.

15

No kidding. Mine is currently staring at me… As we’ve “only” been for a 2 hour walk and beach romp so far today. I’m waiting for the cooler evening to head out again, but he’s all like “come on mate! It’s only 33 degrees out! I can handle 40 degrees in the outback! Let’s go!”

16

Relevant story.

A very long time ago I had a girlfriend whose family had a blue heeler (and yes they lived in the Queensland outback). The dog’s favourite game was the “ball over the fence” game. To play the game, you took an old tennis ball and tennis racquet and went outside their side boundary fence. The dog would follow you. You hit the ball over the fence into their back yard, which was quite large. The dog would tear off at full speed about 20 yards or so to the front gate, 20 yards or so back into their back yard, and then find the ball, then run 20 yards to the front gate, 20 yards back to you, and drop the ball.

My girlfriend’s family were bored of the “ball over the fence” game and so the dog had some difficulty persuading the family to play but because I was new to the game, I was more willing - which the dog quickly learned, so whenever I was there it was:

Dog: [drops ball at my feet] WE PLAY?
Me: OK but I’m having lunch now, wait a bit
[three seconds later]
Dog: [picks up ball and drops at my feet again] WE PLAY?
Me: Hold on, hold on, still eating
Dog: [picks up ball and drops at my feet again] WE PLAY?

and so on. Till I eventually went and played the “ball over the fence” game for a while. After which I had approximately zero seconds break before:

Dog: [drops ball at my feet] WE PLAY?
Me: OK but we just finished, wait half an hour
[three seconds later]
Dog: [picks up ball and drops at my feet again] WE PLAY?
Me: Hold on, hold on
Dog: [picks up ball and drops at my feet again] WE PLAY?

The family wisdom was that the dog simply never got bored of the game and would play until the end of time, as long as someone was willing to keep hitting the ball over the fence.

I was staying with the girlfriend’s family one weekend. It was in the low 40’s Celsius (around 110 F) and I decided to test the family wisdom by just continuing to play the game until either the dog or I melted. Needless to say all I had to do was stand on the spot (in the shade of a tree) and hit a ball with a tennis racquet occasionally while the dog had to scream around in the extreme heat, so I undoubtedly had the easier task.

I’d say the dog lasted maybe 45 minutes to an hour before it finally collapsed exhausted under the shady tree, giving me a slightly sheepish look, as if it was letting me down by giving up so easily (!). But it was probably only half an hour later before:

Dog: [drops ball at my feet] WE PLAY?

I was tempted to repeat the experiment but my girlfriend told me I was being mean by “requiring” the dog to keep running around in the heat - and she was probably right although it was the dog that wanted to keep playing, not me!

17

I have heard that one has to use judgement with heelers when it comes to things they see as their “job”. They will go and go and go, even when injured or have heat stroke. It’s your(the human’s) job to tell them when to stop.

18

Another blue heeler story - when I was in my teens I had a friend whose family had a blue heeler. They lived in a semi-rural area that backed onto a large bush reserve, which sometimes had dingoes.

It was not always the most amenable of dogs - it got pretty aggressive with me before it came to know me.

They learned to lock the dog in the garage at night because if dingoes came by in the night - no matter how outnumbered it was - it would try to fight them and while it probably gave as good as it got, it still ended up pretty badly bitten a few times before my friend’s father could hear the noise, get out of bed and come to the rescue.

19

Our last dog was a heeler/beagle mix. As a youngster she was a handful, but calmed down when she got older. She loved playing ball, and would try to guide us to the tennis court so she could see if any tennis balls had gone over the fence. She was devoted to one of the cats, and would go get him if he bolted out the door. She also liked to steal things from the counter and hide them; I remember our son sending us a text that read, “dog hid bagels in couch.” She mostly had a beagle temperament, though. Unlike any beagle I’ve known, though, she was very intelligent. We miss that numbskully dog.

20

I guess the reality wasn’t as grim as the above sentence sounds.