MH description of Smooth Collies

While Erik attended a wedding in Stockholm, I took our two Smooth Collies in a southern direction to Kungsbacka Brukshundsklubb in Halland. As an owner of two herding dogs / working dogs, it’s beneficial for the breed to get a mental description on as many dogs as possible. Especially if they are considered for breeding. Many people probably knows the Lassie movies that were aired in the old days, which made the Collie a very popular breed for decades. Unfortunately, this caused massive breeding on the Rough Collie on the expense of their temperament. Thus, the Swedish Collie Club is focused on improving the mentality of the collies. I totally support this effort and therefore brought my 15 month-old Jörfi, and 10 year-old Deli to the test site on this early Saturday morning. Jörfi was the first dog to be tested out of five – four Smooth Collies and one Malinois. There are 10 exercises and challenges to go through with your dog, and the whole drill takes around 45 minutes. The first exercises are the more fun ones, passing a group of people and testing the willingness to play, and the hunting skills. From then on, it’s more about testing the dog in more stressful or even frightening situations. How scared are they of sudden movements, odd-walking people, sounds, ghosts approaching you, and finally four riffle shots? Jörfi showed great willingness to play and to run after a lure. She reacted to the scary situations, but could overcome her fear and approach the ‘scary’ object. The ghosts were scary, but she didn’t react to the riffle shots, and we were able to play with her afterwards where she behaved normally again. Deli was completely cool and unaffected through the whole drill. She left me to greet the ghosts while she wandered off to examine some nice-smelling flowers nearby. The Disney movie about the bull Ferdinand came to mind :-). After having lived in Iceland, she is complexly unaffected by loud sound like riffle shots, fireworks, and thunder. And luckily, Jörfi appears to react the same way. This was such a fun and inspiring experience! I was high on energy and so proud of the dogs. Furthermore, it was great to meet other Smooth Collie owners. I highly recommend this test to other dog owners, who wants to get a mental description of their dog. Apparently, you can test almost any breed, but I guess it’s mainly focused on the working dogs. You can find a description of the MH test here (in Swedish from the Duck Tolling Retriever Club (Tollarklubben)): https://tollarklubben.se/mh-mentalbeskrivning-hund/