95% of the time he's perfectly behaved but when he sees a hot air balloon he goes ballistic - he races off barking his head off. It's a problem because he has run out into the road from the park and he's run into a kid's play area and scared some toddlers.

He's very responsive when we're out but he won't listen to a word I say when he catches sight of one of these bloody things.

Even in the house if he hears them he belts to a window and growls and barks furiously non-stop. I've tried holding him and soothing him when it happens in the house but it has no effect. Last time I told him off and that stopped him for abut 2 minutes and then he was off again so I made sure I told him off every time he made a noise or looked at them but after a while he just started ignoring my commands and running to other windows to resume.

So, any advice...?

collies obsessive nature at it's worst

i've got the same kinda thing with my guinea pig corral. will not leave it alone, just runs around it all day & doesn't spark out until i've put all of them away

My labby hated air balloons - it wasn't a huge problem though -

Our collie's exactly the same with our hamsters. He's completely obsessed with them and would happily sit in front of their cage just watching them for hours! Strangely enough it's just the hamsters. We have mice and gerbils too, but he's not interested in them at all.

Blooming heck ! How many of these do you have going over?

My border collie ( Murf) is 15 next week so I do have experience of this breed.

I was thinking the same, but I live near a place you can go up in gliders, in some places they would be a rare sight, here they are common.
Maybe the op lives near a balloon field (or whatever they are called?)

My border collie sally has the same thing. Although not balloons. She is obsessed with the house phone.. Left on the side its fine.. ringing.. she will growl at it.. using the phone is a different experiance... she will bark growl.. howl... jump.. and basically go completely mental and attack the phone!

she used to do something similar with the vacuum and the dustbuster.. now she ignores them... now its just the phone.

we think she isnt all ''there'' in the head!!!

But we love her

My border collie is also similar, starts barking and looking at me expecting me to do something about it. I just ignore him, sounds harsh but my thinking is that if he sees me not bothering about it then he'll eventually cotton on and not care either.

There is something about hot air balloons though. One of my cats is an ex stray and the toughest lil bugger I've known. He's got no problem walking up to other cats or dogs to see what's going on, and he'll sit through fireworks like they're not there, but as soon as he hears a hot air balloon he goes crazy.

My lab/ border collie x does the same thing with the phone. As soon as he hears it going off (it's a novelty Darth Vader phone so it plays the imperial march) he's up and crying and whining in till someone answers it.

I find the quickest way to discipline is to bark and growl at them when they do something thats not acceptable. People might think ur mad but who cares,works for me. Be the top dog.