About Koa

Koa is a very intelligent and beautiful purebred 34 lb. female border collie who is playful, loving, and super intelligent. She also is submissive and fearful. She has the ability to learn tricks or new words extremely quickly. She loves all her numerous toys and will never confuse them for your personal items. She could play catch for hours at the park or in the living room and spends hours chomping down on her favorite ball every day! Her favorite game besides catch is 'hide and seek' and she will playfully run through the house looking for you (when you yell 'ready') until she finds you! She does a perfect sit, stay, down, come, spin, off, watch, here, wait, leave it, take it, and bed command. She's learned the boundaries of her home and does not run away. She loves car rides and will stay put on the floor for the whole ride. She's clicker trained, knows a couple hand signals, and gives paw, hugs, and high fives. She has an extensive vocabulary so she understands when you talk to her and ask her to get her ball, get in the car, get inside, go potty, etc. She can retrieve certain toys by name and has also had a little agility training. She's eager to learn new tricks and words, has a lot of love, affection, and playfulness to share and needs the right adult home with an experienced patient dog lover that will understand her super border collie sensitive needs. Now for some of the issues she has; With her super intelligence comes behavior issues including showing her teeth, growling and biting. She's extremely sensitive and submissive. She's fearful and scared of garbage trucks and rolling garbage cans so on garbage day she struggles to go outside. She's very protective of her home and sleeping quarters. On the plus side she always has perfect manners when out in public places as she's had a lot of exposure to parks and walks since the beginning of her life. When in public, she adores all children and adults too (sometimes slightly weary of men). She loves playing with other dogs and once she establishes a friendship with another dog, she really enjoys and loves the playfulness and companionship of other dogs. Although sometimes hesitant and fearful to go outside by herself in the back yard, she enjoys daily walks and car rides. She goes potty outside with the 'go potty' command. She has perfect manners in the kitchen as she has never puts her paws on the counter-top or kitchen table for food. She's never stolen anyone's food nor begged for it. She does not chew or destroy things in the house. We can leave her food out for her all day and she will just eat when needed without over eating. She would NOT do well crated (and is not needed) as she doesn't like to come out of the crate when asked. She enjoys finding a place to curl up in the house and does not like to be removed from her safe spot. This is a dog for someone experienced with submissive herding dogs and not for a novice dog owner or a family with young children as she has guarding tendencies, fearfulness and she will bite. There is a lot of love in her current home for this dog as she really is special, extremely intelligent, easy to train new tricks, wants to please, and is a lot of fun. We are looking for the right owner who understands the extreme side of sensitivity and fearfulness in border collies.

Lake County
Gurnee, Illinois