Border Collies can do much more than herd sheep. The breed’s incredible energy and trainability can be put to other activities too. One of them is dancing.

Jessica Karlgren is a Border Collie owner who joined a dog dancing contest with her dog, Storm.

And Storm is a very fitting name for this pooch, because he tore through the competition like one.

Karlgren dons a feathered headdress and a pair of model axes.

They’d rehearsed this dance already and were prepared to show the crowd all the hard work they put into it.

Storm sticks close to Jessica right from the start, probably owing to his training and bonding with his owner. He knows to stick close to her leg unless she tells him not to.

That kind of communication is a huge factor in these kinds of competitions. The fact that Storm displayed such good communication with his owner before they even started was a good sign.

When the actually did start, Storm showed what else he was capable of.

He danced with Jessica and followed all her signals. Storm’s tail wagged with excitement. Seems like he enjoys putting on a show.

Jessica marches and steps around matching the theme of their performance, and Storm matches her rhythm. The enthusiastic border collie knows how to follow a beat, and he’ll make sure to show that to everyone.

He’s got incredible hand-eye….I mean, paw-eye coordination too. No matter how many twirls or sidesteps he does, he manages to still keep up with Jessica.

When Jessica signaled for him to follow the little axes, he did so without any trouble or hesitation.

Border Collies have a lot of conflict and herding in their blood. Romans imported stockier, heavily-built dogs to herd cattle during their occupation of Britain.

When Vikings entered the land and brought their own herding dogs – slenderer, lighter ones, the two kinds of dogs were crossed and that’s how we got Border Collies.

If you have a Border Collie, you should be taking them outside everyday to burn that energy. Dancing works too, it seems.

Indeed, it seems like dancing is a nice outlet for all that energy. Though I get how that’s not that easy to do for most people!

Storm’s display of excellent communication is another telltale sign of a Border Collie. American Kennel Club recommends you teach them socialization and communication as early as possible.

I can imagine that trying to reason with a grown-up, energetic, and large border collie would be a handful. A stubborn dog that’s also on the large side isn’t something I’d wanna deal with at all.

But Storm shows what proper training can do.

Even when she flips the axes and ducks, Storm knows to stay still and wait for his cue to start moving again.

They would go on to win this contest. Not many dogs are world champion dancers. I guess Storm has something fun to brag to the other dogs about now, huh?

Check out the whole performance in the video below. Please give this article a share too!

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Source: The dancing Border Collies, American Kennel Club