What to do?

[Rnd210]

I had my husband check under our house two days ago, because I kept hearing some whineing, panting, barking and howling that didn't belong to any of our dogs. He checked and found a female miniture border collie (tail is clipped) she appears to be a pure bred. She had a collar on and part a leash was still attached. She chewed through her leash, so we think that maybe some had her tied up to something useing just a cloth leash and she chew through it to run a way. She is very thin and not eating much, we have tried to locate owner, no tags, called the code inforcement office to see if anyone has reported their dog missing and with the way she is acting I don't feel like she should go back to her owners anyway. She was probably abused or mistreated by the way she is acting. The code inforcement told that we could keep and try to locate the owner but he said that after 5 days they consider us (the finders) as the owner of the animal. I have no problem with this but I do have a few concerns.  She is going to the vet tomorrow cause we think she may be sick and has a slight fever and to get her her shots if she is old enough and then to schedule her to be spayed in Jan. or Feb. since I have unaltered males that she is in contack with plus I don't know how old she is and I don't want puppies. She has been in my house now for 2 days, but yet she was in my hard and under my house for about 4 days, or maybe longer. We have named her based on what she does and we had to have something to call her. So we named her Hiedi, she mostly hides when poeple look at her or if they move. She is skittish, timid and cowards but mostly runs and hides. She is not house broken, but that is not too big of an issue, cause that can happen later after she adjust to her new home.   1. Get her healthy 2. Show her good attention. (she doesn't grawl or bite)  Will she ever get over being skittish, timid, or cowarding? I hope so, but at this point she will be staying with us for a long time, cause finding her a new home with the way she acts (unsocialized) will be impossible. I am starting to feel like we are running a rescue cause with Heidi now that makes us (family) have 5 dogs and 3 guinea pigs.  Am I right to feel that Hiedi was probably abused or neglected in her previous home and should I continue to look for her owners, or just let it go and give her the best home that we can now and hopefully forever?

[Peggysu]

Bordie collies tend to be skitish in nature. My border collie mix was super skittish when I got him. He took quite a bit of work to socialize him. But because he is super smart he was a SO easy to train.

I also want to suggest that maybe you should neuter all your dogs. Having unaltered dogs is just plain irresponsible.

[Rnd210]

I am not going to put the 2 unnuetared dogs through a surgery at their age, My vet agrees that with their ages I should just leave them the way they are. They are 10 + in human years old, They are senior dogs. One of the one's that is 10 1/2 years old has a life expectancy of 9-12 years. And the other one is only 10-15 years. So yeah I feel that they are too old to be nuetering them at this point in their life.

[ilovemiguinea]

Most likely her being that small she was unatended too, I think you guys should keep her and meet her needs. If you treat her really good she will get over it and realize she is loved. Good luck.

[blackarrow]

I'm not sure what you mean by her tail being clipped - do you mean the fur was shaved, or that her tail is docked?

There really isn't any such thing as a purebred miniature border collie. I'm an intake coordinator for a very major BC rescue - can you post a photo?

I also would not be too certain she's been mistreated in some way - that you were able to catch her at all is a sign she can trust strangers, which is a good sign. BCs are often very sound sensitive and skittish and it could well be that something frightened her, she took off, and has been freaked out ever since. It doesn't take a dog being "on the lam" very long for them to become very thin and raggedy looking.

I would strongly suggest looking for a breed rescue in your area if she is a purebred. This is a VERY demanding breed.

[Rnd210]

I am not opposed to taking care of high demanding dogs, I do have 2 purebred Cocker Spaniels.

Here are 3 pics of her and when I was looking up miniture border collies, I came across something else that leads to think that maybe she is a Sheltie which is still part of the border collie relations.

Her tail is docked.

My father inlaw is holding her.

[blackarrow]

She's very cute. She's neither a border collie nor a Sheltie. Possibly a Papillon mix? I have no idea why her tail is docked, that would not be traditional for any of those breeds.

She actually looks like she's in very good condition to me.

[Rnd210]

My husband thought she was an Australian Shepherd (they do have docked tails), but I thought they were bigger.

We had to brush her and get a lot of thorns off of her.

[blackarrow]

Yes, much bigger. There are people who are trying to make a "mini" Aussie but they are likely Aussie/Papillon crosses and the like. She's much too fine-boned for me to suspect she has significant Aussie in her either (they tend to be bigger-boned than BCs are).

I would imagine someone's missing her. If a dog with fur like that was running wild for ten minutes I would expect her to be full of burdocks. For her to have been mistreated/neglected I would expect mats so bad she'd have had large areas which needed to be shaved.

[Rnd210]

I came across this picture of an Austrailian Sheperd and she does look similar. http://www.slashrsranch.com/SlickDec07.jpg Her hair is longer and thicker does it also help to say that after brushing her hair it feels like silk.

[blackarrow]

Not really! She's just not an Aussie. She's a very pretty dog, though, for sure. I could believe a Phalene who had an accident which required a tail dock.

[Rnd210]

That looks similar too, anyway, she goes to the vet tomorrow to make sure she is ok, maybe he will know what breed and about how old she is.

Maybe someone is missing her but like I said I have already contacted the code inforcement Officer and he hasn't had any reports of a missing dog in my town. We have asked all of our neighbors and no one is coming forward and we are not turning her over to the code inforcement officer to put in the pound. We were adviced at that time that if no one claims in 5 days that she is our resposibility since we refused to put her in the pound. It has been 2 days since we got her out from under our house but she has been under there fore atleast 5 days previous to that eating my other dogs food cause he shares nicely with anything smaller then him, including cats.

[Shahbazin]

She looks way too fine boned to be a mini Aussie (they're also called North American Shepherds) - I think the Phalene idea has merit. Definitely have the vet check to see if she's microchipped. Did you take her temperature? (Normal dog temp. is usually 101 F) Cute little girl!

[blackarrow]

No, I certainly wouldn't send her to the pound either. That said it is possible someone has been coming to the pound looking for her, or thinks she is dead because it's winter and she's small and has been gone quite a while. When I came across a lost small dog I had him scanned for a microchip (there was none) and took photos of him that I posted all over the town nearest where I found him and within two hours I had a very grateful owner who had him in her arms.

[Rnd210]

My husband did and it was 102.3, she was also shivering she has blanket and seems to be doing a bit better but not really doing anything more then just laying around covered up with her blanket.

The code inforcement officer here runs the pound so he would know if someone was looking for her. I live in a very small town, so the vet may know who her owner is too, if she has ever been to the vet that is.

[eburmeister]

She is very cute but like blackarrow said not an aussie. I have one and I think they are the best dogs in the world. My little girl is only 39 lb and just makes breed standard. Yours looks a lot smaller than that. If you can not find her owners I think you have a new very cute little dog.