By the time Billy was seven months old his predatory chase behaviour had become a serious problem.
In all other respects he was a normal Border Collie puppy.
I tried various tactics, some more succesful than others.
One of my less than bright ideas - and I hereby make a public apology to Kim - was to tether him to another dog. Both wore a harness with a short lead between them. This meant that he could have a good run but he would have to come back when I called. I'm sure I read somewhere that this is how foxhounds are trained, by being tethered to an experienced hound and we did do this many years ago with a young Letitia, my Afghan hound and my daughter's German Shepherd Ash - and yes it was Ash that had the recall and Letitia that didn't.
Anyway all went well for a while, we stayed away from the woods end of the field and Billy ran along side Kim without any problems. About 5 minutes into the exercise Billy switched into prey drive and he was off running down the field towards the woods. I called Kim and bless him he tried so hard to turn and come back to me but Billy's drive had gathered monentum and Kim just couldn't turn him. They got to the fence into the woods and as I wasn't far behind I felt sure that if Billy did manage to get through the fence, he wouldn't get far on the other side. Sure enough he went straight through a fox run and as I got there poor Kim was just about holding his own on this side of the fence. It reminded me of one of those treasury tags that I use to keep my bank statements together. Poor Kim was being pulled against the fence. Before I got there and had a chance to take the lead from Kim and get Billy back throught the fence Kim was suddenly free and came running to me with an apologetic look on his face for not recalling and an empty harness in tow.
From then on Billy was on a 50ft trailing line when we were in the field. Kat & Fly both loved to chase and grab the line so as well as providing entertainment for them they were also very useful at stopping him for me. As long as we stayed well away from the woods end of the field, I was able to keep Billy with us and out of trouble.
On the line he was a little subdued, I guess because of the weight of it, especially when it was wet and would often just sit and wait for me to pick it up before moving so after a while, because he was being so good I reduced it to a 10 foot one, just enough for me to stand on should he decide to go.
A day or two later we were in the field as usual, well away from the woods, Kat & Fly on high alert to catch the end of the line if necessary when Billy switched into prey drive as he often did after a crow. He couldn't go far and would always turn and come back once the crow had exited our airspace. If he didn't then we'd catch him up within a few seconds where he would be sniffing in the hedge looking all sweet and innocent.
But Billy was nowhere to be seen this time. My heart was thumping as I suddenly realised that Billy had squeezed through the bars of the metal five-bar gate on to the road. Damn that crow for flying in a straight line.
Billy spent the next hour and a half running through the estate in front of our house, across the common, into the woods, even into our drive and back out again. He went in every direction except to go up the road towards the main road and that was the only reason that I forgave him for the incredible amount of stress and heartache he was causing me.
It was starting to get dark and all I could do was follow the sound of his barking until he eventually got tired enough to stop. I heard a dog barking on the estate and headed in that direction but then realised that it wasn't Billy's bark. I kept going that way though as by now I had no idea where he was. Imagine my relief when I saw that the owner of the dog I had heard had hold of Billy's line. Billy had gone into their garden to say hello to their dog and he had thankfully realised that he was a lost dog.
I thanked him profusely for catching him and then added as an afterthought "I need a good dog trainer. You don't know one do you?" To which he replied "Yes. There is one over there" and pointed to my house.
