There is much to love about the highly intelligent, energetic and keen-to-please nature of working dog breeds.
Herding livestock, understanding phrases and reasoning to the level of a young child. It's easy to see how watching working dogs on TV can inspire a rush to adopt the starring breed as pets.
After the 2011 release of the Australian film Red Dog, the Australian Working Dog Rescue group, a national organisation dedicated to re-homing working dogs, reported a 600-per-cent increase in requests for a red kelpie.
And with border collies set to star in the next season of the ABC TV series Muster Dogs, some breeders and trainers are concerned about urban-dwellers rushing to adopt their own.
But what should non-rural folk know before they adopt a working dog breed for themselves?
Ball obsessed
Tasmanian breeder Merry Conway trains her border collies to live to urban homes as companion animals.
She said working dogs had distinct needs that extended further than playing fetch at the beach or dog park.
"It's easy to fall into the habit that doesn't suit this breed, like endless ball throwing," she said.
Ms Conway said many dogs could become "ball obsessed" by an activity that did not meet their intellectual needs.
"It really can become an OCD-type behaviour. They can injure themselves with excessive exercise on their joints and … it's what I call lazy exercise."
Ms Conway said activities such as a "sniffari" where dogs were taken out on a long lead so they could explore a world of smells were more suitable.
Much more than companion animals
Brisbane couple Sophie Shackcloth and her partner both grew up with border collies, and while they feel the breed matches their active lifestyle, having one as a pet in suburbia has come with challenges.
The couple live with a border collie named Bunjie, who they adopted from a farm as a puppy.
Ms Shackcloth said Bunjie's ingrained herding instincts became obvious when he began herding traffic in the street.
"It's pretty hard, really. If he just does it in the moment he can be quite forceful and could potentially get hit by a truck or a car or a bus," she said.
"It's definitely something that our trainer warned us about. We probably didn't do enough training as we should have in the earlier stages."
Ms Shackcloth said watching the first Muster Dogs series helped her and her partner understand Bunjie's natural traits.
"Some of the cues they used, it was almost as if Bunjie instinctively, naturally knew what they meant," she said.
"Things like 'get back' or 'go round'. We started saying those things after watching the show and he just picked them up instantly, so that was pretty crazy."
For those wanting a working dog, Ms Shackcloth recommends research and training.
"Definitely do your research. Even though we both had border collie breeds when we were younger, we still wanted to research and make sure we could provide everything that he would need."
Dogs with an off switch
ABC TV series Muster Dogs head trainer Neil McDonald said a dog's natural tendency to work varied with the litter.
"Some are quite feverish workers and some are slack-a-tack lazy things. Quite often it's the lazy ones that are given away to homes as pets, rehomed which is mighty fine," he said.
"It's when you've got something that's desperate to do work and then it's probably desperate to do anything to keep itself active, whether it's going round and round on the lawn or trying to rip a sheet off the line."
Ms Conway has bred border collies as companion animals for about 12 years. Even so, she said working dog instincts were innate and an important consideration.
"There's no such thing as a border collie with no herding instinct," she said.
"We just focused on choosing ones that were healthy and less interested in sheep or cattle work and had what I call an 'off switch' so they could be calm."
While Ms Conway said a working dog could live in an urban environment, she wouldn't "place a dog in a home where the owners are out all day at work or study".
"It's not a good environment for probably any dog to be honest, but it's certainly not a good environment for a working dog," she said.
"Space is not the issue. It's what you're doing with your dog. They want company, they'll either bark all day, attempt to get out, or wreck everything, or they'll start chewing because they've got anxiety."
Mr McDonald said the next series of Muster Dogs could "quite possibly" create a demand for border collie ownership.
"Done wrong, it could create more trouble for working dogs. But if people understand it, the next series could bring a better life for some of those rehomed dogs."
Watch the past series of Muster Dogs on iview.
