Part of my time these last few days has been spent trying to come up with cheap, mentally stimulating and time consuming toys for Dolly. I had no idea how much energy one animal could have. I mean, yes my horse would have up days, but she didn't reside in the same living space. To dolly, EVERYTHING is a toy...The pillow, a shoe, the trash, your foot, anything that fits in her mouth. After doing some reading on how long this stage for a border collie/retriever mix would last I discovered that we would need some new and creative ideas for play toys. New things I learned.. 1. Herding dogs need time with people, if you are gone during the day have them sleep in the same room as you. Being in your presence even if you are sleeping counts as time together! 2. Border collies are very intelligent and the slight change in commands will through them off and confuse them. 3. Despite their intelligence, the small nipping they do is near impossible to rid them of. Supposedly they assume everyone has a furry coat or is like a fuzzy sheep. 4. Finally, the 'make-it-yourself' cheap toy of the week is: A juice/water bottle (cleaned out) with a few pieces of dog food rolled in peanut butter inside. If you can step on the mouth of the bottle to close it more it will last longer. This worked especially well on wood floors where she couldn't keep the bottle in one place very easily. 5. If you have any ideas, let me know! Emily