Temperament Theory - About the Authors

Fifteen years ago, a veterinarian told Val Maurer the best hope for her blind terrier was to find a Border Collie to lead him around. So Val bought Moss, and the discovery that a Border Collie was a lot more than just another dog changed the course of her life.

Val's exploration of the Border Collie psyche began as she attempted to understand the strong, determined pup Moss was. The struggle turned into a love affair with the breed, and bit by bit (and sometimes bite by bite) Val wound up devoting her life to understanding the Border Collie mind and helping other people to do so as well. Attending seminars, clinics, and classes to further her education about dogs in general and then testing this information for its relevance to Border Collies in particular has always been part of Val's philosophy.

Seven years ago, she founded BCRO (Border Collie Rescue Organization). Her direction of this organization led her down some strange paths, gave impetus to BC rescue efforts in the United States, provided her with a pool of Border Collies exhibiting every imaginable behavior problem, and -- certainly not least of all -- found good homes for hundreds of BCs who needed help. She wound up personally re-training approximately 600 Border Collies, Border Collie mixes and a few other breeds, as well as specializing in the most difficult behavior cases from other rescuers.

As a result of her work with these dogs, her expertise about Border Collies has been acknowledged by articles in Dog Fancy, Dog World, and Smithsonian magazines, the most recent being an August 2000 Dog World cover story. Her own articles have been published in Working Border Collie, Turf (a magazine for golf course supervisors), and BCSA's Borderlines. She's given seminars on manners, rescue and goose-control work.

She was a goose-control liaison for the Ohio Department of Wildlife, coordinated the herding demonstrations and the Border Collie education awareness program at the 1998 APDT national conference in Pennsylvania and was in charge of the rescue education booth at the 1999 USBCHA National Herding Trials in Virginia. She coordinated the Border Collie Society of America's (BCSA) rescue awareness efforts until BCSA adopted the Rescue Liaison format. Her latest project was a fund-raiser for USBCC to continue the "Living with Border Collies" pamphlet project.

It was Val who put together the "Living with Border Collies" pamphlet in 1994, and she has refined and edited until 2001, when she gave the pamphlet copyright to USBCC. In September 2000, she completed her work on adapting the hug therapy system used for children into a form of hug therapy for dogs and presented it on a website. She answered questions (and learned a thing or two billion as well) about Border Collies through the toll-free phone number 888-THATLDO and its companion Web site.

Val closed BCRO in January of 2000 and retired from active rescue. She has used the time since then to consolidate some the lessons she learned from BCRO volunteers, adopters, and all the Border Collies she's known. The result of her recent thinking is this temperament theory website.

Lisa Ochoa and human and dog families. Photo by Tom Schaefges.

Lisa Ochoa has been involved with dogs all her life. A childhood spent showing in conformation and obedience led to a commitment to rescue in 1980. She adopted her first Border Collie from a local shelter in 1994, and, hooked on the breed, has focused her rescue efforts on BCs ever since. She is a founding member of Illini Border Collie Rescue and, with that group in addition to her work as an independent rescuer, she has rescued and placed well over 200 dogs.

She has been director of training for her local dog training club since 1998, and has taught many classes there. She also volunteers as trial secretary or trial chair for many of her club's obedience and agility trials and tracking tests. She also enjoys flyball, tracking, and whippet racing with her dogs, and allows kind friends to take her dogs out to see sheep at every opportunity. (Her dogs especially appreciate this, as Lisa has impaired vision and is unable to take them herding herself.)

She has chaired benefits for rescued Border Collies at all four Border Collie Society of America (BCSA) national specialties, presented seminars on clicker training at two of them, and presented a seminar describing this temperament theory at another. She is a member of the BCSA Rescue committee and also the chair of the BCSA General Education Committee, and is a frequent contributor of articles for BCSA's Borderlines. She is also on the Board of Directors for the Continental Whippet Alliance.

Although she loves training and showing her own dogs, Lisa doesn't feel that training dogs at sports such as obedience and agility is her particular strength. She believes her talent is in working with dogs with major behavior problems and rehabilitating them so that they can have productive, enjoyable lives. Her specialties in this area lie in working with extremely shy, withdrawn dogs and in the use of the clicker to solve behavior problems.

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BORDER COLLIE BEHAVIORS:
A TEMPERAMENT THEORY
About the Authors

This site hosted by NetPets. Check them out!

This site sponsored by the Border Collie Society of America.

BORDER COLLIE BEHAVIORS: A TEMPERAMENT THEORY About the Authors

This site hosted by NetPets. Check them out!

This site sponsored by the Border Collie Society of America.

BORDER COLLIE BEHAVIORS:
A TEMPERAMENT THEORY
About the Authors