11 Tips for Achieving a Long, Happy Collie Life
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Pet treatment isn’t simply about reactionary medicine - it’s about being proactive and taking preventive measures to ensure your collie lives the longest, healthiest life as possible. By raising a loved collie that’s strong and happy, you can keep your beloved canine active and healthy for years to come. So, read on for 11 great tips to help ensure your collie’s life is long and active.
Lots of Attention
You should be providing your collie at least 30 minutes of undivided attention each day. Whether it’s play time, training time or grooming, that love and focus is critical to building a deep bond and fostering your animal’s mental health.
Get Regular Exercise
Make sure your collie gets plenty of exercise every day. It’s critical for a healthy body and a healthy temperament.
ID Tags
While technically not a health-related pet treatment, ensuring your collie wears a flat collar (or harness) and ID tag at all times, even inside, will help bring him home safely if he ever escapes or gets lost.
Practice Obedience
Obedience training doesn’t just produce a well-trained collie; it also helps your canine lead a disciplined and structured life, something that’s critical to their pack mentality. Obedience training also helps to keep the mind sharp.
Yearly Veterinarian Checkups
Visit your veterinarian on an annual basis. Have your collie examined, and be sure to discuss any potential health concerns.
Brush His Teeth
Most veterinarians recommend brushing your collie’s teeth every day. It’s difficult, cumbersome and not always fun, but it will keep gingivitis, tooth decay and disease at bay. Remember, you don’t have to brush forever - a few nightly swipes should do the trick.
Give Him a Bath
You should bathe your collie whenever he is itchy, smelly or dirty. Not too often, but enough to ensure he stays clean. Your collie can pick up a lot of parasites, dirt and bacteria when he’s out splashing in puddles or rolling around in the dirt. Just like with humans, good hygiene is critical for good health.
Don’t Leave Your Collie Alone
Dogs are social animals, which is why they live and travel in packs in the wild. If you plan to leave your collie home alone all day, then you should invest in a dog walking service, pet sitter, or possibly doggie daycare. Otherwise, your collie will become depressed, bored and possibly destructive.
Give Your Collie Some Room
Dogs need their own space, so give your collie a peaceful and comfortable place where he can go to lie down, have some quiet time and take a nap. When your collie is resting or relaxing, be sure to respect his space and need for rest.
Maintain a Healthy Diet
If you’re feeding your collie discount dog food, ask yourself why? Keep your dog healthy by investing in high quality, non-by-product food.
Heartworm Medicine
Probably the most important preventive pet treatment is to keep your collie on heartworm prevention medicine during mosquito season. Heartworm is a deadly disease that is excruciatingly painful, so keep your collie safe from it. Be especially careful with which medicine you give your collie, however, as they are known to have Ivermectin sensitivity (an ingredient found in medicines such as Heart Guard).
You love your collie, so provide the simple care he needs to live a long and healthy life with you.
About the Author:
Written by Trevor Price
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I recently bought a Collie and I had a lot of questions. Being a first time pet owner I just wasn’t sure how to do some things that many experienced pet owners take for granted as implicit knowledge. Thank you for helping me understand how to better take care of my Collie, she will be a happier dog because of it!
I’m glad to read that I’m doing everything right with my new rescued Collie! I was wondering if we would ever bond, but since I started off with daily brushing, walking, some basic obedience, and short car trips to special places I have seen a dramatic change in Princes attitude. He has actually begun looking back to see where I am when we go walkies! He has gone from being totally aloof, anxious and severely depressed to looking for me, more secure and confident and a very happy, happy Collie boy.
Thank you so much for providing all this Collie information.
I just wanted to add a comment to the important information you provided concerning good hygiene practices for your collie.
I think that some pet owners underestimate the power that grooming has for strengthening the bond between owner and pet.
Grooming provides an opportunity to interact with your collie in a loving, special way. If you’ve ever been to a salon or spa, you know how good it feels to be pampered. Dogs are no different. They really eat up the special attention…especially if its coming from someone they trust and love.
And it’s not just about being pampered. I believe that dogs instinctively know when their owner is providing for their health and well-being.
Thank you for this helpful post.
I got a Collie for my 14th birthday and had him up until he died from a heart attack a few years ago. He was the best dog I have ever had. I also had a St. Bernard and a White German Shepherd. Both the Collie and the St. Bernard are gone now, but I still have the Shepherd. My Collie was about 7 years older then the others. They’re all three smart breeds, but the Collie trumps them both.
The Collie was 6 weeks old and housebreaking “us” as he would go to the door and bark when he wanted out. If that did not work he would pull on your hand or put his leash in your lap. The dog could open sliding glass doors, trash can lids ( we had to get lids that would snap down ) I had a small forest like area behind my house and would go hide somewhere in a tree and he would search until he found me. The dog learned how to track just by playing hide and go seek with him like that. I could point out a track to him on the ground and he would stick his nose to the ground and take you to where that animal had been bedded down. ( I did not use him for hunting, just playing around as a kid. )
I taught him to do all the normal tricks, plus play dead when I would point at him and say “bang” I taught him to give me a hug or he taught himself. I would say: Give me a hug and he would put one paw on each of my shoulders and lay his head on my neck. When he got older and could no longer do it, he would just lay his head on my neck. Even when I didn’t tell him to, he had to come and give me a hug every night when I went to bed, then he would go to sleep.
If it was going to storm the dog would come and wake me up, then go back to bed himself once I was up. I used to take him to the park and got him to climb the ladder to the slide once. After going down the slide one time he was hooked. He would go up the ladder, slide down and then go stand in line behind the kids and bark at them to hurry up so he could go down the slide again. He played football with us, but he played defense for both teams. whoever had the ball was getting dropped, period. He knew to bulldoze right into the back of their legs and put them on the ground. The dog was so smart his favorite toy growing up was my skateboard. He would ride the thing around by standing on it with his front feet and pushing with his back. If he went into the grass he would pick it up and put it back on the driveway or sidewalk himself. I actually have an old VCR tape of him doing this as a puppy.
When I was about 14 someone broke into our house while I was at school. When I got home my collie was lying in the doorway to our side door/backdoor. I freaked out thinking somehow I had left it open and could have lost him. When I went inside however, I saw the bathroom door in the hall had be scratched/clawed up and knew someone had been in the house. My collie had been on his hind legs trying to scratch his way through the door to get to the person and there was blood on my side door by the handle where the person had grabbed it to get out.
When I was 15 I was attacked by a drunk guy. I managed to push him backwards and ended up falling on top of him. We were still fighting when we hit the ground, but not for long. Within seconds my Collie was on top of him. Those were the only two times he ever bit anyone and I’m glad he did in both cases. He was not a mean dog at all. In-fact the only time he ever showed aggression to anyone or anything was in protecting me or my home. Any other time he was a happy go lucky dog that just wanted to play with everyone.
When I was older and living on my own I got sick from a chemical I had been around at work. I thought I had a cold or was coming down with the flu, but it ended up being much worse then that. I went to bed that night and woke up 2 days later with a fever of 104. I may have not even gotten up then if my family had not figured out something was wrong and came looking for me. My aunt had gotten scared when no one had seen or heard from me and I had not answered my cellphone or home phone so she let herself into my house. My Collie had known and loved her his entire life. This woman was scared of dogs, but not him. She even bought him a toy box to keep all of his toys in and brought him a new toy every time she came over. Well, she said she knew something was really wrong when she let herself in and my Collie didn’t meet her at the front door so she went on in to where I was asleep. She said he was lying on my legs and wouldn’t get off of the couch to come to her even when she called him. After talking to him for a few minutes he got up and came to her, then went back and got on the couch with me and was once again on top of me. I think he was trying to keep me warm.
I can honestly say the dog was my best friend. I took him fishing with me, into the woods with me and even running around with me some when I was in my teenage years. Even my friends loved him and welcomed him right into their homes. They still to this day tell other people themselves how smart he was. I’m 30 years old now and have to say losing him was one of the hardest things I have ever gone through.
I could go on and on about him but I have probably bored people with this long post already. I still have my German Shepherd, but he is old now as well and having health problem. I do not know if he will be around much longer either. I’ve been thinking about getting another puppy and it has been long enough I think I could get another Collie, but I can’t even find Collie puppies here.
I would also like to say this is a very nice site, probably the best site I’ve ever seen for something like this.