In a household with children, both children and adults need to be educated on how to deal with the peculiarities of a household pet with intense herding instinct. To a Border Collie, a child is a sheep, and when a child runs, it streaks in front of it to cut off its escape. A natural reaction for a child is to become frightened and run faster to escape the dog. The Border Collie perceives the child/sheep as being uncooperative, and escalates its herding efforts.

The herding instinct cannot be “trained” out of a Border Collie. Children need to be taught not to run from the dog. This is successful with older children, but may prove difficult with a younger child.