Hi Kat,
A Border Collies ‘eye’ is said to be what separates this amazing breed from other herding dogs, but what exactly is it?
With some types of eye, it may cause a dog to stand still and not walk up on sheep yet, eye in another dog may cause him to keep moving and actually boar in on the sheep.
It can make a dog very direct or conversely, cause a dog to wear, flipping back and forth behind the sheep. It can be the reason a dog’s head is held down low to the ground yet, it can cause another dog’s head to be held up high.
Eye may cause your dog look at the sheep and be tight and or it may result in your dog looking away from the sheep and be wide. The list of contradictions goes on and on… Perhaps the famous supreme court justice said it best, “ I can’t define it, but I know it when i see it”.
Eye is certainly a paradox. You can generally tell how much eye your dog will have after he comes with his outrun. That said certainly your dog can develop more eye based on how you work him and on the Academy we have exercises to help reduce eye. While we know quite a bit about it and how it manifests, because eye is so complex, it doesn’t fit in a neat box that allows us to provide a simple explanation. If you have a specific question about it, please let us know.
As it relates to your dog, happy to schedule a virtual lesson to assess your dogs eye for you if you like. Lesson information can be found here,
some exercises specific to helping reduce eye can be found here,
