Chinese Crested Party

After having the two Border Collies (Kix and Fusion) I really wanted to have a small dog.

I was looking for a tiny, but very crazy little companion who would defy gravity in his tricks the way that only small dogs seem to be able to do, and that I could take along under the seat of a plane when heading to seminars.

I was not sure how a small dog would agree with our lifestyle and my being used to the big ones, so I fostered small dogs on and off for almost a year before making the final decision that yes, I was going to have a little one of my own!

The breed question was a tough one. Basically I wanted a Border Collie, just shrunk. I did not want a Terrier or anything with too thin of a coat (we spend a lot of time outside, no matter the weather).

I kept looking until a friend pointed me to a Chinese Crested litter that had been born in Texas. The dam was notorious for being off-the-walls crazy and the little puppies seemed to follow suit. One puppy in particular stood out in his wildness, a black and white (perfectly Border-Collie-marked) male Powderpuff.

This was exactly what I was looking for!

I flew out to get little Party in July 2018. He was an incredibly easy puppy in many ways. At night I would just take the little fluffy bundle and put him on the top of my pillow, where he instantly collapsed and slept until the next morning from day one.

His training has been really different from my other two dogs. He is not a fan of free shaping (Clicker Training) at all, noticeably losing all interest after 2 or 3 minutes. On the other hand, he really loves all kinds of lured tricks and picks them up astonishingly fast – after a few lured repetitions he knows what to do and will even offer the behavior without any luring at all.

He loves to play frisbee and enjoys agility. He is so fast that I am as out of breath as I am running Kix! I am not sure he always knows exactly where he is going: To him speed is more much important than accuracy.

He also loves to run with and will outrun all of his doggy friends, no matter their size. He is the most playful of my dogs and will try and play with every dog for hours. One of his friends is the 70 lbs Scottish Collie Jax (who looks like a huge version of Party, having the same color and markings) and Party will race him around for hours. He has no fear and happily wrestles with any dog of any size. In his mind, he must be the biggest of them all!

Funny enough, he became very tall – too tall to fit under a plane seat – towering over his siblings by at least an inch and weighing in at three times of the weight of the smallest Chinese Cresteds. He is not a fragile small dog, rather a compact bundle of solid muscles. Maybe it is all that mountain climbing!

Here are some training videos of little Party: