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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
For helpful information about pet supplies – please visit petsuppliestips.com – a popular site about needs for your beloved pet – such as pet treatment - pet lover gifts - and many more!
Collies: How to Take Care of Them and to Understand Them (Complete Pet Owners Manual)Here's in-depth information on one of the world's most popular large dogs, including how-to advice on choosing a puppy, feeding, health, grooming, training, and presenting a collie. More than 30 striking, full-color photos. Paperback / 64 Pages / 6 1/2 x 7 7/8 / 1994
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7 Responses to 11 Tips for Achieving a Long, Happy Collie Life
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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.
Wonderful! So much like all my experiences with the Collies that have graced my life over the years. Find your next Collie – there are resources to find them but it can be a little frustrating. We found the breeders are somewhat ‘quiet’. We take that as ‘discriminating’.
Thank you for your wonderful story. I love animals and we just bought a rough collie pup. We are soooo excited to bring her home in a few weeks and live our lives with her and have these wonderful experiences.
You can never replace a lost animal but if you love collies that much, getting a new pup will be like getting a completely different personality that you might need in your life.
Thanx again for sharing your story.
I’ve got to say, that was probably the coolest Collie story I’ve ever read! It brought multiple smiles to my face, as I kept thinking how cool it would be if my Collie could do half of those things with me!
Having separated parents was tough, I never had the chance to own my own pet, as going from one house to another made it rough to always be there for the animals sake. My mom was always a cat person, she liked dogs, just preferred cats more. My father had a Sheltie, before I was born and while I was growing up, I was 14 when she passed, but she was the coolest dog. She listened to every command that my father gave her. Some weren’t even commands, more like conversation! She was a lot of fun, at times, when my father was busy with something else, she used to play fetch and run around with me… but if my father called for her, she was gone!
I’m now 27 and just had the chance to buy my first dog. I had spent the majority of my years trying to figure out what kind of dog was right for me. Until one day it clicked… a Collie! After remembering how much fun it was to have a Sheltie in the family, it just made sense that a Collie was right up the same alley. I looked everywhere, couldn’t find one to save my life. Until I came upon a website called The Collie House. It’s in north eastern Ohio, for anyone’s reference. Great people, but not my intention to advertise, just wanted to let people know a good place to look for their next Collie. *Hint Hint*
I’ve owned my (big boy) Sable for four months now and let me tell you, he is a blast. We spend at least a half hour everyday playing and running around the backyard. It’s hard now with the winter being so cold up in Western NY, but we do the best we can. This summer I’m looking forward to taking him out with me on the 16 acres my Aunt has, to drive the four wheelers and dirtbikes. He used to run like that at The Collie House, so I’m sure it’ll be like riding a bike. I’m doing my best over the winter to create that lifelong bond with him, to really make sure he knows that he is in great hands! I think it’s working.
I do want to warn some Collie owners, don’t trust everything Breeders or Vets say. You need to believe in yourself and do as much research as possible before you change something in your pups daily routine (bathing, feeding, ect.). After finding out that Purina isn’t the best dog food to feed my boy, I realized that the potential for pushing a product by a Breeder or Vet, has more to do with the kickbacks they receive, than the benefits the dog is getting from the food. This is not to say that Vets or Breeders don’t know what they are talking about, just take what they say with a grain of salt. Pounding a puppy with flee and tick meds, along with heart worm meds at the end of Fall, when he’s only 9 weeks old, probably isn’t the best idea. It put a huge strain on his system causing him to have irregular bowels and a suppressed appetite. The crappy (cheapo) Purina Puppy Chow wasn’t helping either. Now that I have him on much better food (Nature’s Variety) he is doing so much better and seems to have come alive! Please check food labels and be aware of what you’re giving them, they are notorious for sensitive stomachs and personalities!
I’d like to take a second to thank the creator of this website. The information that can be collected, by people’s posts and responses can work miracles for new Collie owners and give them a good source of trustworthy information. Please post often, as I’ll be keeping an eye out on Facebook! I’m sure I’ll be posting frequently, myself!