The "Cute Factor"

People always say that there is no such thing as an ugly baby. I call it the "Cute Factor". It is what makes everyone say, "AWWWW!" whenever there is an immature human or animal displayed in pictures or film. Marketers capitalize on this and use it in advertizing while selling everything from toilet paper to tires. It's just good business and never fails to produce the involuntary response of mature humans to immature humans. I think what we find adorable is their tiny size, their playful nature and the limitless sense of wonderment.

Humans retain the "cute factor" until about 4 years old when they start developing language skills and start questioning the status quo. Give a child of 4 a glass of juice and suddenly he is a food critic. Grandson Carter(age 3) : "This tastes like water!" My husband: "Wow, he's good." He said this because my husband is a cheap skate. He uses only 1/2 of the drink mix suggested for an 8 oz cup of water because it will last longer that way. I have to agree, it does last longer but that is usually because the only person that can stand to drink watered down crappy juice drinks IS my husband. And we won't even discuss how discriminating 6 year old granddaughter Caitlin is. That kid is like having the inspector general visiting every 2 weeks. Nothing gets by her....and she is usually right.

I'm guessing the "cute factor" doesn't last long for border collie puppies. Our puppies came to us at 4 months old. That is much older than I normally like to take a puppy for training. Puppies at age 8 weeks are making a transition from the litter being his "dog pack" of friends to accepting humans as their leaders and "human pack". Left with the "dog pack" longer than 4 months greatly reduces their adjustment to "human leadership". In other words, the longer they stay with their littermates, they start absorbing more dog pack behavior and it makes it harder to adjust to the home environment. Taking in a 4 month old pup guarantees that you have some work to do. The good news is that at 4 months old you can put more training time in before the puppy gets distracted by butterflies, but even at 4 months old the attention span is only about 10 minutes long. So our training sessions are multiple times each day for only about 10 minutes each time. Which is about the length of time it takes for one puppy to either learn a new command or totally wreck a kitchen.

There is a very limited "CUTE FACTOR" with a 4 month old border collie puppy. The "cute factor" must be about 4 weeks long with border collie puppies. They never really go through nursery school, kindergarten, elementary school, middle school and high school. These puppies go straight to the science fair entry, high school debate team and high school honor society. I'm sure that while we are sleeping Alice is on this very laptop, searching for doggie items, funny YouTube videos and good recipes for deer poop. (That seems to be a personal favorite of the puppies when you take them for a walk.....if you live in the city and own a cat, just substitute the phrase "cat poop" and you will understand. While we are on that subject, all my dogs think that "cat poop" is shown on the food pyramid right under dog chow, items of clothing and the corner of any stationary item of furniture).

Alice has discovered that while you are driving, you can't be training puppies. She understands the concept of "no control" while she is in the back seat of the car.Alice knows that while the car is moving, I am concentrating on driving. Much like when you answer the phone and your children start an impromptu audition for "kids gone wild". I've watched "The Dog Whisperer". I know how this goes. It is something that we just need to train for. So we train. We practice riding in the car. Alice understands when we are training (sitting in the carport) and when we are actually driving down the road. The other 3 dogs all load up, look for a seat, sit down and wait for the ride to start. The most comforting aspect is that when Alice begins to eat the seat belts, the other dogs actually stare at her in amazement.That's how I know I'm not crazy. The dogs even think she is crazy. It is like she is violating the "dog penal code of conduct". I can look in the rear view mirror and call her name. She will look at me as if to say, "Hey, you are driving. Better watch where you are going!" as I veer off the road and onto the shoulder narrowly missing one of the older ladies from town as she is taking her walk at the local state park because it is safe to walk here. Little did she know.