Border Collies: Good Family Pets?

It is well established that border collies are the smartest dog.  I have heard many people say that they are equivalent in intellect to a five-year-old.

The question is, “Do border collies make good family pets?”

Before answering that let me talk a little about our two-year-old border collie.  She is sweet, affectionate, brilliant and nuts.

It has been said of border collies if you don’t find something for them to do they will find something to do and you may not like what they find.

Actually our son bought the dog when he thought he was going to be living “out a ways” but he had to move back home and so we have the dog and we love her but the question remains is she a good family dog?

For our family it is a “pass with a push.”  The reason is we are all adults and can take turns exercising her and letting her run and I assure you border collies need to run.  Literally, if they don’t get enough energy burned they will just start bouncing off walls running from one end of the house to the other.

For the regular family with smaller kids a border collie is not a great idea.

Most houses are not set up to get the collie the exercise they need and parents with smaller kids won’t get the dog well-run.

Border collies have tempers.  That doesn’t mean they will viciously attack.  What they will do is go to the bathroom on the floor and then go hide under the bed.  And, this is a trained dog.  They just are very smart and they are very stubborn so they will pull that stuff.

Border collies like to be the center of attention.  If a child is the center of attention or a baby or another dog they will bug and run in and around the situation.  They can be very annoying.

Border collies are very territorial and do not take well to strangers.  It takes a long time for them to settle down when you have visitors.

There are many dogs that are much more orientated to the family.

There are many dogs that are much lower key, dogs that are less hyper-kinetic.

Some examples are labs and even some mutts are easier on the blood pressure.

On the other hand if you were come to our house and offer us money for our border collie; we would have to say “no.”