She is very tolerant of humans, especially young ones. Ellie loves
children- whether they belong to her or not. She is very gentle.
Ellie herds, but only works the livestock when needed. Ellie is somewhere in the middle. She is very keyed into the stock especially if their movements change- they start running, etc... However we leave her out unsupervised a great deal and she doesn’t cause major problems. It seems the more freedom we give her the less likely she is to herd the animals on her own. This behavior becomes stronger if she has been confined or if she is bored.
Ellie herds in a crouching position,and uses “eye” to control the stock.
Ellie shows gentle/protective behavior toward children. She knows the limits of her territory and stays there. She resents the intrusion of strange dogs into her territory. She announces the arrival of strangers. We don’t have too much trouble with neighboring dogs/stray dogs. On the couple of occasions where other dogs have come on our property, Ellie had lit after them to chase them off.
Ellie barks when she has treed prey and remains there for a period of time barking periodically until someone goes to her. She is not easily distracted from the treed prey uless something more important demands her attention. She has treed more that one coon and in one instance she had one cornered by the creek. She continued to bark until we went to see what was up.
Ellie is a very willing fighter even when faced with larger than normal or viscious prey. I have seen Elllie go after possums and coons and have watched her kill a possum.
Ellie is moderately active-lots of energy when needed, but content to lie around otherwise. For a border collie her activity level is unusual. She is not a nervous pacer. She’s happy to lie at my feet in the house or sleep in the shade outside.
Ellie is very “soft”. She is very biddable and wants very much to please. She is smart and easily trained, but requires a gentle hand.
Ellie generally gets along well with other dogs.
She is very tolerant of humans, especially young ones. Ellie loves
children- whether they belong to her or not. She is very gentle.
