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The Border Collie Rescue Assessment and Rehabilitation Centre in Yorkshire

Brief details and description

This centre is located in a quiet rural area off a private track on a private estate close to Stamford Bridge near York. The environment is ideal for Border Collies and provides a variety of short and long term accommodation facilities for dogs with special needs and those being assessed for various disciplines and working abilities.

We have 10 acres of meadow land divided into three fields, one of 6 acres, one of 2.5 acres and one of approximately 1.5 acres surrounding the holding on three sides. The smallest paddock is used for daily exercise, agility and flyball assessments with the middle sized field for initial working dog assessment around a small number of 'well dogged' sheep and for close training, penning, shedding Etc.

The largest 'L' shaped 6 acre field holds our main flock of around 50 Swaledale ewes and provides training space for potential sheepdogs. The fields and paddocks surround the centre on three sides.

On the fourth side, behind the Farmhouse, is a group of single story traditional brick and pantile outbuildings surrounding a covered fold yard extending over three bays, which provides an excellent all weather exercise and training area, approximately 100 foot by 100 foot with raised walkway on the South and West sides.

One of the ranges around the yard comprises of a block of four individual large loose boxes each of which is converted to accommodate dogs coming in from working environments or staying at the centre short term for assessment around livestock. We have built an enclosed corridor in front of this range for security.

On another side is a range that provides some dry equipment storage and a quarantine section where a small number of dogs can be held in isolation, short term, until fully vaccinated and cleared of any parasites. This has a separate external entrance and can be completely isolated from the rest of the site.

On the third side of the yard is a range divided into several rooms of varying size, giving us further storage, a workshop, an isolation / whelping room, equipment room, veterinary examination room with medical store and separate post-operative recovery room, a grooming facility with shower and bath and a utility / laundry room plus a dog kitchen attached to a bulk dry goods / food store near the entrance gate to the facility. We still have a lot of work to complete on this range.

Dogs are also accommodated in the farmhouse which has plenty of space for storage, offices and accommodation. A large reception room is used for small seminars and as a classroom and another holds our library while the final reception room is a visitors lounge / interview room. The original farm office is our duty office. There are also a couple of smaller storage rooms on the ground floor. There are four bedrooms to accommodate staff and visitors. Two of these are multi functional.

The centre is surrounded by farmland and forestry.

There is still a lot of work to be done to finally realise the plans we have for the unit. Much of this will be on a voluntary basis and anyone who is prepared to roll up their sleeves and join in will be welcomed with open arms. Food and refreshments will be supplied to all workers! Phone us on 0845 6044941 if you want to join in. Read on to find out more or use the link below to jump to the top of the page and select a link to another section.

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What we do at the centre and who is able to use the facilities.

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A day in the life - video about our work at the BCR centre.

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This is the first of many such rescue centres we would like to set up around the UK to deal with the ever increasing population of homeless and unwanted Border Collies that are the result of over breeding, indiscriminate and irresponsible selling of puppies and general ignorance and exploitation of the breed.

Our plan to open such a rescue centre was formulated around 12 years ago. We thought long and hard about how Border Collies should be accommodated in rescue care and decided that keeping them in foster homes was the best system of looking after them until they can be re-homed.

We decided that to keep them in kennel blocks was counter productive in the face of so many observations by established all breed rescue kennels that showed that Border Collies did not do well in kennels. Expressions like 'stir crazy' - 'extreme frustration' - 'bouncing off the walls' - were commonly used. They were all trying to get their Border Collies out of kennels and it was obvious that to set up a centre based on keeping them in kennels would only be convenient to the humans running it.

So at this point in 1993 we had decided that the idea of setting up a specialist breed rescue kennel block centre for Border Collies was against the interests of the breed and the welfare of individual members and there were better ways of dealing with this problem. No one with the interests of the breed at heart would want to set up a new centre specifically for Border Collies and keep them in kennel blocks.

So our system of accommodating dogs has always been different. Orientated for the convenience of the dogs rather than of the humans looking after them. Keeping them in environments that are more suited to the breed is obviously better for the dogs and therefore their eventual re-homing. Most of our foster homes are in rural locations as this is better for the breed. Most are in homes where there are a group of dogs living as a canine /human community as this is better for the breed. Many are farms or smallholdings as this is better for the breed. We have applied this approach to setting up the centre where dogs are to be re-habilitated and assessed.

There is little point in simply setting up kennel blocks but we are faced with the need to keep numbers of dogs in a single place and to do this we take advantage of the instincts and social attitudes inherent in dogs that enable them to form a social group and canine community. Our centres will be communities of dogs living together, with humans at the top of the social order and 'stooge' dogs forming the links between humans and the rest of the pack.

Dogs can learn from each other much faster than we can teach them ourselves. When they join a group the instinct to fit in inhibits past problem behavioural patterns and allows them to be receptive to learning new patterns - they want to learn and fit in. The 'stooge' dogs that head the packs quickly teach the incomers who is in charge. They look to us so the dogs beneath them in the pecking order follow their example. Subservient dogs support the stooge dogs in reinforcing the compliance of the incomers and we support the stooge dogs in controlling the group.

This enables us to keep a number of groups of dogs that maintain there own social order subject to our rules. To prevent problems of competition between the groups of dogs we make sure that the stooge dogs all integrate socially together so they all know each other and respect each other. As a social group themselves, the stooge dogs see us as their pack leaders and seek to please us and in doing so do not regard each other as competitors, they co-operate. This co-operation passes down through the ranks of each of the groups and they all live quietly together in their separate areas without the need to bark constantly at each other to defend their individual territories and claims.

This does not mean that we have to have permanent residential stooge dogs that can never be re-homed. There are one or two long-termers with little hope of finding a permanent home that perform the functions of stooge dogs for us, but these are the exception rather than the rule. Most of the stooge dogs do end up being re-homed to be replaced by another resident that we effectively 'appoint' to the position that carries on their work.

This is getting dogs to work for us and for each other and is the way the new centre is run and any others we set up in the future, but we acknowledge that we, like the dogs, are on a learning curve and we will continue to observe and adapt to improve.

If we can have 10 of these units around the UK we will be able to deal with most of the BC problems in existence in the UK today - either by taking in and re-homing the dogs or by helping their owners overcome problems, gain control and keep their dogs by using the facilities at the centres to help them assess and understand the dogs problems and learn how to train and control them.

There is more to it than simply taking in and re-homing dogs - that is part of what must be done to clean up the current mess but we have always wanted to prevent it in the first place. The centre, and future units, will be used to educate and inform and we will continue to seek measures to prevent the exploitation of the breed that is so rife at the moment. By persuasion, information and supporting appropriate legislation.

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