Tavi Border Collie Rescue: Skye's Story

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Tavi Border Collie Rescue

Skye's Story

Our First Rescue

Skye, sitting, facing front Skye was relinquished to Border Collie Rescue (Ohio) from an Ohio animal shelter in December 1996. He had been surrendered to the shelter at age 1 1/2 because he didn't herd sheep on his own. His record stated that he had lived outside and was good with children. We are grateful to Charles Ufford for transporting Skye from BCRO in Ohio to us for fostering and rehabilitation.

Skye was unneutered and had tapeworms. He was not housebroken and didn't know how to play with toys, other than plastic bottles destined for recycling. Though he enjoyed people, he didn't quite understand how to interact with them other than running around. Skye needed to learn how to exercise both physically and mentally with people. His biggest problems were chewing and jumping (both on people and over barriers).

Skye was very affectionate and had wonderful eye contact and attention. Being petted was clearly his favorite activity. Herding was not -- the sheep just did not interest him. He had enough instinct to learn, though. Skye's love for people was the source of his jumping problem, and also the cure.

We cleared up Skye's worms, got him neutered, gave him basic training, and showed him how much fun a tennis ball could be. Skye showed us the joys and challenges of actually working with rescued dogs -- quite a step up from the phone referral and education work we'd been doing.

Skye, left side In February 1997, Skye flew to Wisconsin to meet his new family: a man and his young sons. The US Air crews were terrific and gave Skye the best of care. In his new family, Skye quickly became the center of the universe.

We extend special thanks to Val Maurer of BCRO for answering our many questions and finding Skye's new home, to Nick Carter for hosting Skye's description on the Border Collie Rescue Web site, and to Sue Honig for testing Skye on sheep.

Send questions and comments to Tavi@bcrescue.org or call 607 275-0282.

Updated September 3, 1998. TBCR is registered with Tompkins County, Ithaca, NY. All material ©1997, 1998 by Beth and Chuck Goelzer Lyons, Tavi@bcrescue.org. All text and photographs are copyrighted. All rights reserved.