What a Border Collie weekly diary needs to capture
A weekly care diary for a Border Collie works when it records work, not just walks. For each week note total exercise, the split between physical activity such as hill walks or fetch and mental work such as scent games, training sessions and problem-solving toys, plus rest days. A Border Collie can be physically tired and mentally restless, or the reverse, and only a diary that separates the two explains a week of unsettled evenings.
Add food amounts, treats used in training, water intake changes on hot or high-work days, and a weekly weight. Note sleep quality and where the dog settled. Border Collies who are under-worked often show it first in broken rest, dawn waking and inventing jobs, such as herding children or shadowing the household, and a dated note of that behaviour beside the week's workload makes the link provable rather than guessed.
Record training cues, herding moments and reactivity in the diary
Give each Border Collie week a short training block. Write which cues were practised, such as stop, recall away from movement, settle on a mat and loose-lead walking near livestock or traffic, how reliable each was and what distracted the dog. Record herding-style moments factually: chasing bikes, rounding up other dogs at the park, staring and crouching at joggers, and what you did that worked.
Note social entries too, including visitors, new environments and other dogs met. A Border Collie who is fine at home but overwhelmed at a busy show ground needs that contrast in writing. Over months, the diary becomes the training plan's evidence, showing which distractions have genuinely improved and which situations still need distance, rather than relying on a hopeful general impression.
Use the weekly diary to spot workload, stiffness and health drift
A Border Collie will often work through discomfort, so note stiffness after rest, reluctance to jump into the car, paw licking, appetite changes and recovery time after long outings. Record them the week they happen with the workload beside them. That pairing is what makes the diary worth showing a vet. Stiffness that follows only the longest fell day reads differently from stiffness appearing after ordinary walks. A weekly rhythm catches slow drift that daily notes would bury in detail.
How long to keep Border Collie diary entries
Keep Border Collie diary entries for the whole of the dog's life if storage allows, and at minimum keep the most recent couple of years in full. The first year's entries are the baseline for normal weight, normal recovery and normal behaviour, and they become more valuable as the dog ages, not less. When a senior Border Collie's exercise tolerance changes, the comparison that matters is against their own younger pattern, which only a kept diary can supply.
Prune sensibly rather than deleting history. Duplicate photos and shopping lists can go, but keep one summary line per week even if you compress detail: workload, weight, health notes and training stage. Seasonal comparisons also need old entries, because a Collie's coat, energy and stiffness often follow the working and weather year, and last winter's entries predict this winter's needs.
Keep the diary where future you and your vet can use it
A Border Collie diary kept in scattered notebooks loses its main advantage, which is comparison across time. Keep it in one place, write the weekly entry on the same day each week, and review it monthly to adjust workload before frustration or stiffness builds. Share relevant stretches with trainers and vets rather than handing over everything, choosing the weeks around the change you are asking about.
Back the diary up so a lost phone does not erase years of baseline. When a Border Collie's weekly diary lives in KinsLe alongside its Pet Passport, the exercise, weight and behaviour history stays attached to the dog's core records, ready for the conversations where long memory matters most.