Dear Faldage: how do you explain the willingness of retrievers to retrieve, and a Border Collie's just acting frighted of a ball in my hand? I never knew a Border Collie, smart as they are to learn to fetch. Given commands they have been taught, they will cut a single desired ewe out of a distant group, and drive it into an enclsure. But though I tried many times, I could never teach a Border Collie to play any kind of game.