How To Keep a Border Collie Busy (9 Tips)

Border Collies are fantastic herding dogs, which makes them the perfect family pet. They’re brilliant, absolutely adorable, and full of energy, which is why you’re here. If you have no idea how to keep up with your lively border collie, you came to the right place.

Here are 9 tips on how to keep a border collie busy:

Teach your border collie to relax using reinforcement.
Go for a run with your border collie.
Teach your border collie to play dog sports.
Do a treasure hunt with your border collie.
Play fetch with your border collie.
Buy interactive dog toys for your border collie.
Teach your border collie new tricks.
Give your border collie a frozen lick mat.
Turn on your border collie’s favorite TV show.

By reading the whole article, you’ll learn some incredible ways to keep your border collie busy and become more relaxed. If your family has a tight schedule, these tips will come in handy.

1. Teach Your Border Collie To Relax Using Reinforcement

Border collies respond fabulously to positive reinforcement, even for relaxing activities. If you don’t teach your canine to chill, it might find joy in chewing your furniture. Despite their very high energy levels, this dog breed can be more relaxed than a cat if trained well.

The best way to teach your best friend to relax is to sit down on the bed with them. You can do this after an exhausting run because the border collie might be keener on the idea of laying down. Then, give them a treat but don’t say anything.

Here is a short step-by-step video that will help you by Dogs Trust Dog School:

Also, make sure to use different treats because a study about food preference shows that dogs love various treats instead of having the same one all the time. Fun treats will significantly stimulate the cognition of your intelligent border collie while also making relaxation an enjoyable activity. Click here to find training treats on Amazon and you’ll find quite the variety.

Utilize Calming Products

If giving out treats for doing (literally) nothing isn’t cutting it for your cheerful pooch, you can step it up a notch using some well-rated products for relaxation. They’re essential if your border collie has separation anxiety or creates a mess every time you’re not around.

Here are a few of the most popular products recommended by pet parents.

Adaptil Dog Calming Diffuser Kit

A diffuser kit like this one is a cheap yet effective way of reducing negative emotions in dogs. It contains safe compounds that are similar to the pheromones released by mother dogs.

This diffuser kit plugs into the wall and lasts for 30 days.

When the pheromones dry up, you can buy refills to save some money. Adaptil claims that it’s very effective for agitated dogs and relieves stress when bringing a new pet into the family.

PremiumCare Calming Treats

Here are some delicious duck-flavored chews that provide stress relief from vet visits, thunderstorms, and new environments. The chews contain organic ingredients that have a natural calming effect and restore emotional well-being.

The product has over 30,000 ratings, which tells you that it’s trendy and efficient. Moreover, you can kill two birds with one stone using these treats as a reward for when your border collie is relaxed.

Fedciory Calming Collar

Another popular product, this calming collar uses the same nursing pheromones as the diffuser kit. The difference here is that it doubles as a sleek collar, and it doesn’t have a range limit, meaning you can use it outdoors and indoors.

It has a 24.5 inches (62.23 cm) adjustable length, so it’s more than enough for a small border collie. You can even use it for a small puppy with separation anxiety.

Its efficacy is similar to other products that contain natural pheromones. If your pet has responded well to one of those, it’ll react brilliantly to this collar as well.

2. Go for a Run With Your Border Collie

Running and jogging are immensely beneficial both for you and your border collie. It’s an excellent form of aerobic exercise (which can quickly become anaerobic if you sprint instead), it’s great for your muscles and joints, and it even boosts mental health.

And you know that border collies have a very active mind. If you think you don’t have time to go for a quick jog, you might want to reconsider. Even a short 5-minute or 10-minute session can have a significant impact on your and your pet’s health. I usually take my dogs on a mile loop and jog 3-5 times for 1 minute each.

Border collies are easily satisfied, meaning a brief run in the park is often enough to keep them happy for hours. If you’re working from home or have many chores, tiring your border collie out beforehand is a great strategy to keep them relaxed for longer periods.

3. Teach Your Border Collie To Play Dog Sports

Border collies are excellent in dog sports, thanks to their high energy levels, intelligence, and athleticism. If there’s a local park where dog sports are frequent, you can ask for your border collie to participate. Just tell your dog to let the others have a chance at winning too!

In case you don’t know any dog sports, here are some examples that your border collie will love:

Herding
Treibball
Obedience trail
Carting
Bikejoring
Tracking trial
Disc dog
Flyball

Because collies are herding dogs, they’ll love herding sports. The best example of a modern herding sport is treibball, which you can learn more about below.

Play Treibball With Your Border Collie

Treibball is essentially soccer for dogs, the difference being that the ball is a massive exercise ball. Border collies are naturals in this sport because it’s similar to herding sheep and driving them into a pen. Instead of the sheep, you have the ball, and instead of the pen, you have a soccer goal. Amazon has several exercise balls, some made specifically for dogs.

You’ll need a larger outdoor area for treibball, but teaching your pooch to play it is easy. Just like any other training, use treats when it scores a goal. You can play against your collie by getting the ball into the goal yourself. This will help your pet figure out what it has to do precisely.

4. Do a Treasure Hunt With Your Border Collie

Treasure hunts are one of the most fun games for dogs. As a bonus, they’re easy to set up, and you don’t even have to be at home to play.

All you have to do is use a variety of small treats and hide them around the house. Make sure to hide the treats in dog-safe areas of the house so that your collie doesn’t damage anything or get hurt.

Your border collie has to use all its senses to find the treats, especially its sharp sense of smell.

Treasure hunts are a surefire way to keep your dog busy. Hide the treats in different spots from time to time to keep the game engaging and challenging.

5. Play Fetch With Your Border Collie

If there’s a fun game that all dogs love, it has to be fetch. You can use a tennis ball, frisbee, stick, toy, and pretty much everything else you can think of. I have some recommendations on my site.

Teaching your border collie to fetch is easy. Here is a step-by-step guide:

Teach your dog to hold an object in its mouth. Do this by holding the toy directly in front of the dog. If it tries to take it into its mouth or even sniffs it, give it a treat. Some dogs learn this very quickly. Others require a bit more patience.
Praise and treat your pet for taking the object into its mouth on its own. Eventually, your pet will show an instinctive interest in the toy. When this happens, it’ll try taking it into its mouth, which you should reward.
Move the object away, allow your dog to take it, and call your dog to bring it back. Your border collie has pretty much figured it out at this stage. To become a fetch pro, the two of you will have to practice a lot.
Continue increasing the distance by throwing the object. This step must be progressive. Don’t expect your border collie to run for a minute to fetch a stick if it learned how to play fetch yesterday.

6. Buy Interactive Dog Toys for Your Border Collie

You can choose from hundreds of different dog toys which are guaranteed to keep your pup busy. Here are some of my favorite toys that you can buy today.

Outward Hound Hide-A-Squirrel

This is a fun puzzle that comes with squeaky squirrels which go into the holes. Your border collie won’t stop until it finds the last squirrel and takes it out of the tree trunk.

It’s engaging, interactive, fun, and safe. The soft squirrels are great for both puppy and adult dogs.

Outward Hound Nina Ottosson Interactive Puzzle

There are four levels of this excellent puzzle toy, making it easy to pick something challenging enough.

The goal is to complete obstacles to get a treat. Your border collie will love this toy because it’s mentally challenging and, by the time it’s done with the toy, it’ll be exhausted and ready to sleep.

AWOOF Snuffle Mat

Did you know that snuffle mats are a thing? I didn’t, but it makes a lot of sense. Border collies love foraging, and this mat uses treats to teach them how to forage without destroying your favorite carpet.

Simply throw a few treats into this dog-safe mat and let the games begin. It only takes a few seconds to set up, but it’ll keep your pet busy for an hour or so.

7. Teach Your Border Collie New Tricks

Border collies learn tricks quickly, so teaching them a few dozen tricks is super easy. Sure, your best friend might know a few good old tricks like fetch, shake hands, and play dead, but there are hundreds of more challenging tricks that are guaranteed to impress your friends and family. Just remember to bring a bag of treats with you!

Here are some impressive new tricks that you can teach your border collie:

Roll over
Stand on hind legs
Kiss
Wave
Bow
Herding commands (find, cast, steady, etc.)
Spin
Bark
Fetch a specific toy

8. Give Your Border Collie a Frozen Lick Mat

One of the best and easiest ways to keep your dog both cool and busy during summer is to give them a cool lick mat with their favorite food spread all over it, such as peanut butter.

Dogs love to lick food because it reduces anxiety and stress, so lick mats are perfect. You can buy Lick Mat for Dogs (available on Amazon.com) and use it instead of the bowl. Put it in the fridge to make the treat last longer and more enjoyable. If it’s cold outside, you can warm the food up before spreading it instead.

9. Turn On Your Border Collie’s Favorite TV Show

Much like their human companions, dogs love watching TV. You probably know this already, but TV channels with 24/7 animal content seem to be the most interesting to dogs.

So, next time you need to go out but can’t bring your best friend with you, turn the TV on beforehand. Make sure that your TV is far from the ground and can’t be knocked over because your dog can’t tell the difference between a real cat and one on the screen.

Key Takeaways

Border collies are an extraordinary dog breed. They’re lively, friendly, very intelligent, adorable, and simply fantastic family pets. If you can’t keep up with your pet, there are a few things that you can do without having to jog for an hour every single day.

Some of these tips will do the trick:

Give your pet an interactive puzzle.
Play fetch with them while doing something else.
Teach them new tricks.
Reward them for being calm and relaxing.
Set up a treasure hunt when not at home.