A selection of videos about our work

This is a light hearted video of some pups having fun and freedom to run in the fields around our Assessment and Re-habilitation centre.
 These pups were born at the centre and this film shows them going out for one of their many daily walks together.
Our own 10+ acres of land at the centre was supplemented by several hundred acres of surrounding arable farmland and farm tracks in remote
countryside, allowing plenty of freedom to run and play together.

This was the first video we made using a borrowed Sony camera from Ted Wray, a supporter of BCR who made wedding videos

At Border Collie Rescue we assess every Border Collie we take in around sheep to understand the degree of their herding drive and ability.
Those who need to work livestock are re-homed to be a sheepdog and those who don't can go as companions.
To keep the sheep in order while untrained or new dogs are being assessed (or trained) we use a trained dog we call a 'control dog'.

This video is of Gael, being trained to become our new control dog.
Dot, who you will see in the background is one of our existing 'control dogs'  and is helping Gael learn the ropes.

The progress of Gaels training was also filmed for Project Puppy, a documentary made by Orion TV for Animal Planet.
To see information, photo's and videos relating to Project Puppy and Gael's training and to view our documentary series - Nice Work- Click here

Border Collie Rescue offers long term care and support for some dogs that are difficult to re-home or need more constant care.
Pan - a blind Border Collie is one of these.
Initially, she was found a permanent home but the couple split up. Not wishing her to have to risk such an occurrence again, it was decided that she should be permanently fostered and remain under our close supervision.

She was initially trained by Nicki Oliver and this training has been maintained by our foster carers, ensuring that she is very obedient.
A high degree of verbal control has enabled us to give her more freedom.

It's not just people who help train and rehabilitate rescued dogs.

Here at Border Collie Rescue, we enroll the assistance of well balanced dogs to help us get through to the less fortunate dogs we take in.
These willing helpers are all dogs we have rescued who have found permanent homes (and jobs) helping within the organisation.
They are just as important to our work as any other volunteer.
This video is to introduce them to you and show you where they work, rest and play.
It is dedicated to those that went before and areno longer with us.

Those of you who met Meg and Mr. Tod will know why.
Music - 'Little me' by Esquimau - www.eskimomusic.com

In the Foot and Mouth epidemic of 2001/2002, Border Collie Rescue ran a unique scheme with government approval to rescue Border Collies and sheepdogs from infected farms in the UK.

Working under license with MAFF (later DEFRA), we attended farms all over England, Wales and Scotland that had been devastated by the disease where we washed down and  disinfected dogs that were made jobless by the cull, placed them in quarantine for three weeks then assessed them and re-homed them to working farms and smallholdings where they could continue to herd livestock and live the lifestyle they preferred.

In a routine Border Collie Rescue sheepdog assessment, Jamie, a young red merle rescued Border Collie, is shown sheep for the first time.
This is the first stage of our assessment process for all the dogs we take in.
Because the Border Collie is first and foremost a sheepdog breed, when a dog comes into rescue for re-homing it is only right we should go to the trouble of finding out if it is happier working or happier as a pet. Otherwise the dog, and its new owner, may be in for a lot of trouble.

In Jamie's case, his decision and preference was fairly clear from the beginning. Sheep were aliens, maybe fascinating but also frightening.
Jamie had come in with a bunch of other dogs from a domestic home where his owner, an animal hoarder, had recently died.
Very poorly socialised but very soft and gentle he found himself out of his depth just being outside.
His agoraphobia eventually faded and he went on to be re-homed as a companion to a couple on Shetland.

A short interview with Carol Dulson, a Border Collie Rescue volunteer who helped out, with her husband Brian, at the Border Collie Rescue Assessment and Rehabilitation Centre for several years.
Carol tells how they got involved and what it is like helping out at the centre.

Later Carol went on to become the charities treasurer and also took charge of the York area fundraising team running stalls at events and fairs.

A short interview with Border Collie Rescue volunteer, Carolyn Dowd, who talks about her work at the Border Collie Rescue Assessment and
Rehabilitation Centre and her involvement and interest in Border Collies and dog training..

A Border Collie Rescue video short where we try to cram a whole day at the Border Collie Rescue Assessment and Rehab Centre into a 10 minute film.
Forgive us if we missed something out!

Blue was one of a litter of pups born on the Island of Taransay during the making of the original BBC TV series 'Castaway'.
He came into Border Collie Rescue care after the end of the filming of the series at 6 months old and was 7 years old at the time this film was made.
During assessments he showed himself to be a keen and eager herder and was rehomed to be trained as a sheepdog.

When the BBC started filming a new documentary about what had happened to the people and the dogs from the Castaway series we were contacted and asked about Blue's progress and invited to participate, so with the agreement of his old owner, Ron Copsey and new owner David Calvert we were able to make his case public as a short piece about his new home was broadcast in the program.

Border Collie Rescue took Natalia in from the RSPCA in February 2008.
This Border Collie had been seized by the RSPCA, along with another dog, after a tip off.  She was in poor physical condition when we took here in but her psychological damage was far worse and the RSPCA had considered euthanasia but decided to seek our opinion before making any decision.
She was with us for a long time before she was fit to re-home and during that time she became a close companion to another dog who was a great help in her rehabilitation. We were lucky in that we found a home where they could both be re-homed together.

The husband and wife who confined their two pet dogs to the kitchen for two years, with Natalia running round in circles for so long she had worn a circular groove in the linoleum,were banned for life from keeping animals.
Magistrates at Harrogate heard how the couple caused unnecessary suffering to Charmaine, a tan coloured Doberman who was starved to the point of death and neglected Natalia, a Border collie which as well as constant circling had tried to claw her way through the kitchen door to freedom.

Each pleaded guilty to four charges brought by the RSPCA under the 2006 Animal Welfare Act.

This film is a Border Collie Rescue tribute to our late friend Cap who died in November 2008, aged 16 .
This is also a tribute to all the other Border Collies we have rescued and either re-homed or provided lifetime sanctuary.

Cap came into rescue as a 16 week old Border Collie pup. We were the first humans he had ever met.
He was born in a hill barn in Arkengarthdale, North Yorkshire. The litter was not discovered until the pups were 16 weeks. The farmer noticed his working bitch diving off into a barn with a rabbit in her mouth. He had no idea she had been pregnant, given birth, raising up a litter of pups in complete isolation.
She never stopped working, took a day off or was not there when he called her. She was a spirited, independent creature and Cap inherited some of that.

The tale of how Nicki Oliver got them out of the barn and over five miles of open moorland, back to our home, in a blizzard is another story, but she did what was need to be done and all the pups were rescued. The other pups all socialised well and were re-homed, but Cap was different.
Although he got used to some people in BCR, he never trusted strangers and was inclined to nip, thus earning himself the Nickname 'Snappy Cap'.

He was a natural sheepdog and forgot all his fears and distrust when working. Then he was anyone's friend, if they worked him with sheep.
We need good sheepdogs in BCR, so he found a home as 'One of the Crew', holding top sheepdog position until Dot came along in 2001, whereupon he gracefully took 2nd place. He was brilliant with puppies and until a couple of months before he died would play rough and tumble with the best of them.
 
He brought many a pup up, licked them into shape and treated them like a playful uncle.
He trusted us and so they did as well. In all he was a good, good friend. Loyal, protective and kind to those he took to his heart; and he had a big heart.

It is important we remember our friends. That's what this video is all about. Friends. There are over 125 different friends featured in this video.
All are dogs we have taken in and rescued. Some we knew better than others, but we knew them all - and hundreds more.
Too many to count since the organisation started.

This is "Little Jilly" on her last assessment around our sheep the day before she was due to be rehomed.
Jilly was 2 yrs old, fully grown and weighed around 11kg, making her one of the smallest Border Collies we have had through the rescue.
She had always shown a great desire to herd, strong instincts and drive, keen eye, boundless energy and great spirit and sweet nature.
Although very friendly she was initially a little nervous of strangers but her confidence grew.
She was rehomed onto a working farm where she worked with another dog adopted from us.

Tess spent just over 4 months, from September 09 to February 2010, as a stray, running wild on Staney Hill overlooking Lerwick on the Shetland Islands.
We understand she had been kept on a farm to be trained as a sheepdog but did not show any interest in herding so in September 2009, she had been given away to a lad to be kept as a family pet. Within a week of him taking her home, she had run off and would not come back to him.

In spite of efforts of dog wardens and many local people, Tess vanished and remained out of human contact for long periods of time.
On the odd occasions she was sighted, she stayed well out of reach, running away if people approached her.
That winter had been particularly bad on Shetland, with heavy, prolonged, snowfall and temperatures down below -15c on some occasions.
On the odd occasions when there was a sighting, Ian Taylor, the Assistant Environmental Health Officer for Shetland Council would drive up into the hills in his pick up, sometimes alone and sometimes with others, to try and coax her in.
She showed the will & ability to survive, gaining the respect of people who also had to cope with the harsh Shetland conditions. Eventually she was trapped and came down to Yorkshire to stay with us.

This film tells her story on Shetland and covers the first two weeks of her time with Border Collie Rescue .

This is the continuation and conclusion of the Shetland Tess rescue story.
Picking up from where part one ended, this film shows her finally settled in her new home.

Pip came to us as a stray.
A smooth coated BC - this type are the racers and chasers of the Border Collie breed.
She had been hit by a car (who drove off) and picked up and taken to a vet by the driver in the car following. The Council would not take her into the pound as her hind leg was shattered so the vets asked us to help her by contributing a bit towards the cost of the operation to amputate her leg.

We put in some money (so did the council) and the vets staff had a whip round to raise enough to cover the cost of the materials and drugs needed.
The vets worked for free. Pip stayed with one of the vet nurses until her stitches were out, then came to us to convalesce.

Being a lean, mean chasing machine we wondered if her close encounter with mechanical death was due to her chasing the cars rather than running innocently in front of them. As soon as she was fit and strong, we took her to sheep, introduced her, then let her loose.
This video is what happened then.

She was fast - we have not speeded it up.
She is a natural sheepdog with strong instincts and drive to work. She knew what she was doing, just needed training to work of the rough edges.
She was rehomed to a smallholding with a few sheep and a lot of chickens to keep her busy.  She lives in the house and is also a well loved companion.
She would be off chasing cars again if she had no work, but too much work would wear out her good legs and later in life she would regret it.
This is a good compromise. She is a happy dog.

"Nice Work" is a sixty minute documentary about the work of Border Collie Rescue which looks at some of the dogs the organisation has rehomed over a period of 10 years through interviews with their owners.
Edited into 6 x 10 minute episodes for YouTube, "NICE WORK!"  also takes a look at how we work at the Border Collie Rescue Assessment and Re-habilitation centre and follows the progress of Gael, one of 8 working dogs featured in the 13 part Animal Planet series 'PROJECT PUPPY' as she was being trained to take over the position of lead dog at the centre.

Amongst other dogs featured is Bryn, one of the dogs assessed and rehomed by Border Collie Rescue as a Police sniffer dog for drugs and firearms, Molly - one of several dogs assessed and re-homed for Search and Rescue Work, Meg who works cattle and sheep, Flash, one of Sally's pups now working as a sheepdog and Rab and Fly, selected to be re-homed as a pair so they could use their qualities to help each other overcome the problems that were responsible for them ending up in rescue care.
 
Directed by Scottish filmmaker, Jim Closs, "NICE WORK!" is all about Border Collies - from unwanted pets to RSPCA cruelty cases handed over to BCR
for care, re-habilitation and re-homing. The film gives viewers insight into the ideals and workings of the organisation - but mainly.....it's about the dogs!

Click Here for more about Project Puppy and to view all six short episodes of Nice Work