If he's able to grab the leg of bicyclists, he's leaving your property. It is your responsibility as a "good dog owner" to properly control your dog at all times. Watching him isn't enough, especially if you are "watching" him chase down bikes and bit kids. How's his recall? You need to put much much more work into that part of his training. While you work on training, erect a fence. A physical (not invisible)fence would solve your problem quickly. It would also keep other dogs and the kids that chase other dogs off your property.

It sounds like he could use some refreshing on obedience and learning his limitations. He's flexing his top dog muscles and I think that's because he hasn't been challenged lately enough to learn he is not the boss and not suppose to be chasing people.

I agree that he needs to be kept confined and not able to run out on to public property.

As a hearder he has a very strong chase instinct as it is so kids on bikes without him being corrected at the time, it's too much temptation for him.

Does he get enough hard physical activity? I have a border collie and she needs a lot of exercise, either through chasing my other dog around the yard or being taken into an open field and allowed to run till she's pooped out. It's possible your dog is bored. Does he have lots of things to chew on like big raw beefy bones, bulliles or cow ears? We watch or read TV to relax and with dogs it's chewing. All the dogs I've had in the last 20 years have all enjoyed having things to chew on every single day. It kept them occupied and my furniture in tact.

The way to break him of this of course is to have him on a lead and have the children come by and correct him when he starts to lunge. Do you watch Ceasar Milan on National Geographic channel on Friday nights? He's wonderful and shows techniques for training the problem you are having.

I do think however, in spite of training, I think you need to ensure your dog is confined to your property and that's for his safety as well as others safety.

He's a herding dog doing his job, & I don't think obedience school or any other training can overcome genetics.

& it would be cruel to insist.

The solution is so easy;

Keep him inside a fence.

In my neighborhood, you'd never hear a complaint about a dog who chased kids, "grabbed" pants legs, & attacked bicycles.

but one day you'd find him dead or you'd never find him at all.

Protect him;
put up a fence & keep him inside it.

Yep, he needs confinement and training. Even tho he's a herding dog he still will benefit from obedience training since he should respond to recall.

Since you didn't see the incident, I would wonder if the boy hit your dog or did something else for your dog to dislike him so much. It's also possible the dog saw the boy as a sudden, fast moving intruder and your dog's instincts just took over.
Or, it could be she just doesn't like something about your neighbors. A BC I once owned liked most people but there would be a few people that she totally disliked even tho they had done nothing to her.

If you have any trainers in your area look into sheep herding, agility training or any activity that is mental and physical.
Your dog needs a job and if he can't be given one, then ask DH to build a fence around part of your property. A simple electric braid, tape, or netting fence wouldn't cost very much.

Sorry, IMO your DH is looking for an easy way out, but if he's not willing to put some effort into working with and training the dog, then finding a new home may be the best answer. I would never suggest putting the dog down.
Kudos to you for trying to help your dog.

Sounds like he needs some socialization and obediance training. I suggest everybody watches Caesar Milan as well.

Exercise, discipline, affection... in that order.

Supervise at all times when outdoors or contain within a kennel. It's probably the law where you live anyway. I know it is where I live. Dogs have to be restrained or under verbal command at all times. Dogs cannot be chained and must be in a suitable shelter and have access to water at all times.

Oh an what I think is unless you are workinging that dog, HARD. For 2+ hours a day, he is going out of his mind from boredom. Making his own "fun" chasing cyclists and whatever.
Border collies are working dogs, more intelligent than most humans. They make excellent working dogs on farms but they make horrible "pets". Time to get some sheep or work on agility , frisbee, or some other intensive (much more so than other breeds) activity.

You dog just needs some training, thats all. BC's are very smart but it sounds like your dog is not getting enough stimulation which is why it is being aggressive.
SO first of, leash walking for 45 minutes a day. Not letting the dog sniff around but a real good brisk walk on the leash by your side. 45 minutes a day. every day.
Next I suggest you either contact a positive reinforcement trainer or do it yourself. You sit with the dog where bicyclist are going by and you teach your dog to leave it. Just stating that a dogs behavior is due to herding instincts and leaving it at that is not acceptable.
Go out with a friend on a bike, and have your dog on a leash and when the friend rides by, the very second your dog alerts, say leave it. and give a tug on the choke collar. A couple of sessions of this a couple of times a week, your dog should catch on.
Next I suggest a basic training class, and maybe getting your dog into flyball.....good luck

Thanks for all of your excellent suggestions. We are stepping up the exercise and going back to the basics again with obedience and socialization. I was typing in a panic and didn't mean to dismiss the bicycle chasing as of no concern. Someone else suggested exactly what you did mazer and so we're working at restraining him and enlisting the help of a volunteer bike rider. This is going to be a really tough one to break him of. For some reason he is becoming more and more territorial and that may be an issue to deal with too. I don't think that we're especially bad owners, just inexperienced with a dog of this caliber. We WANT to learn and to do better with him. We live on a farm with wide open fields and woods on three sides and a county road up front. He learned his boundaries so rapidly that I (foolishly in retrospect) thought that we could trust him further than he can be (trusted). There is just too much temptation out there with neighbor kids, farm dogs, horses and machinery cutting through our property to get to fields behind us. One more question, if we are to build a kennel as some of you suggest, what size is suitable?

Why not ride a bike with your dog. I personally hate "brisk" walking so I've trained my dog to jog beside my bike. He loves it and gets excited whenever we go out to the garage to get the bike.

My first thought was "Eurka, timbulb, what a wonderful suggestion! I can use the exercise too." BUT I can't think it's a good idea to take him out riding along the very road I'm trying to teach him to stay away from. We don't have any paved area on our land, but I guess if we pursue this we could drive dog and bikes to someplace he won't identify with as road. Hmmmm, worth some more thought perhaps. (Oh, how I envy people who live close to parks, etc. The closest biking path I can think of is 20 miles away).

Now, perhaps a really stupid question...can dogs tell the difference between various types of people and have a bias against certain ones? I ask because we took him on a brisk walk tonight (exercise!) and stopped by an English neighbors (socialization!) and our dog was absolutely wonderful with their family, kids, and dog. There were motorized toy cars going, all sorts of unfamiliar noises and activity. No problem, not even a hint of one although we watched him very closely, told the neighbor what we were doing and why, and kept the dog on a very tight leash. As I think of it, absolutely every hint of aggression has been with the Amish neighbors (both on our property and theirs). This is NOT an excuse for his behavior and probably has no bearing at all, just seems like sort of an odd coincidence.

Hmmmmm.... Amish? Are they puppy mill Amish? I'd attack them too.

Lots of puppy mill Amish here...hadn't thought of that one. Still, no excuse. Thankfully, for those who are interested, I'm hearing more and more about people in the area going out of the puppy mill business...selling off their "stock". People who are boycotting the pet stores ARE making a difference...keep it up!

It's a two sided story though, many of those families desperately NEED the income to keep their families going. Today's economy is tough enough for everyone especially those with eight to ten little mouths to feed. The Amish are also raised with an entirely different value system and regard for animal life. They truly see no problem in those puppy mills...kind of how farmers might view cattle or chickens.

(Sorry, off track)

Schoolbelle, where do you walk him? He must go on that road at some point. Take him for ehough bike rides and he'll learn to associate the road with bike riding only. The bike riding will be good leash training which is invaluable to him learning who is pack leader. When that connection is established in his mind, he'll know not to go on the road until you tell him he can. As well, the exercise is more important than anything. Dogs in the wild (wolves, dingos, etc.) are travellers. Covering a lot of ground in a day satisfies a lot of basic instincts in a dog and you'll notice a change in his behavior almost immediately.

Timbulb, I have tried to work with him at staying away from the road. I never walk him on the road at all as I figured it would give him mixed signals. We occasionally cross the road (with leash), but never walk along it or on it. Your point is well taken though. I walk him through the fields to neighbors and particularly in one very large hay field where we run, do frisbee, ball throwing, etc. This summer I've been driving into the nearest town each day and walking him on leash around the sidewalks of town for the variety of people, animals, and experiences.

I don't know if the kennel will work. My sister had a golden that wouldn't go potty of either kind in about 15' x 15 kennel. If you could fence off an area of yard, enough room to run and play and throw ball in with you that might be better.

No training help from me, but I thought I'd let you know my dog suffers from religious intolerance too. :) As a young lad, he was tied up and tortured by some Muslims from Mozambique. This guy is a therapy dog, and there is almost no one he doesn't love. But even today, he has an unerring ability to pick out the Muslim residents around here. Considering the harsh things the Koran has to say about dogs--I cannot blame him entirely. But bad behavior cannot be tolerated. Logically, I'm sure it's an attitude about dogs, something in their body language, that they project to the dog. With lots of correction, my dog behaves very well, but I can still see his hyper alertness and sometimes a low rumble escapes. I'm sure your dog can learn to live peacefully with the Amish neighbors as well.

And for anyone wondering, no... the dog isn't picking up signals from me. I rarely know anyone's religious beliefs from a casual encounter. Sometimes, a conversation follows and I can confirm what he already seemed to know.

Nope you are not a bad dog owner, but just dont know enough. Plus lets face it, we get spoiled by good dogs and when they start acting out, we finally get that we are doing something wrong.
That you are open to the suggestions and are planning on acting on them, that makes you a good dog owner. You have a tough road to hoe for the next 6 months or so, keep at it, dont let that dog get away with anything. You should see a change soon.....PS - trick of the trade, run your dog hard, or play hard BEFORE training time, a tired dog is much easier to train.

Do your neighbors wear any type of head gear?
Many dogs get aggressive toward guys with hats, etc.

Thanks so MUCH for all your great ideas! I am feeling alot more positive about myself and my dog since I first posted! My first response was to throw in the towel...that I was a huge failure as a pet owner, etc. I've always lived in farm communities where farm dogs were sort of different than the average pet and to find out that YOURS is acting in a territorial/aggressive manner is pretty unnerving. Yes, the neighbors wear hats and bonnets...pretty much traditional Amish headgear. The fact that they LOOK different than we do, don't travel in the same social circles that we do, don't speak the same language...I guess all might be things the dog might or might not be picking up on. Again, all of your suggestions are well taken and being put into action as we speak. Thanks again for your input.

Karen, funny you should mention hats.

Several years ago, I stopped by a friend's house to pick her up to do something outdoors-visit garage sales, go on a garden tour, something-& I already had my straw hat on.

Her ancient Schnauzer (who normally adored me & all other visitors) growled at me.

growled big.

Her hackles stood up, her posture went on "alert", & I thought she was going to come at me.

so, keeping my arm close to my body so she wouldn't think I was getting ready to attack, I took off my hat.

& she went "oh it's you" & toddled forward to get some attention.

I wear a broad-rimmed hat when I go out with my dog (gotta protect against them wrinkles you know!), and some dogs just hate that. The ones who react, I will take off the hat and then they're fine. Mine also doesn't like hats (except on me).

Dogs also react to the non-verbal cues a person put out - whether it's aggressive or submissive or dominant vibes or what have you. After a while, you may learn to notice the differences also. Humans are woefully out of touch with non-verbal communication and signals - we depend on verbals for everything.

My pet sitting service sent a new person out to interview just in case our main sitter was unavailable from time to time. My dog growled and slunk behind me - would not let the new person come near him. I felt sorry for her, since she's trying to get work as a pet sitter that's not a good sign, LOL.

schoolbelle -
Yes, different clothing can set them off.

I went to a co-worker's house to drop off some books and her dog went NUTS. Very abashed, she explained that he didn't see many white people, and freaked out at us.