#my sheltie when i was a kid absolutely refused to get on the furniture

[pastafossa]

This is ABSOLUTELY Pippin, this is the perfect description for what he does as a herding breed??? Rules he follows but was not taught:

If the stair chair takes his Grammie upstairs where He Cannot Go, he must alert all of us and bring us to the stairs to watch her go up safely.

Normally, he wants to be where the most people are. If there's a room with 3 people and a room with 1 person, he's choosing the room with 3 people, unless that room with 1 person is in the kitchen. It's not even that he wants to get food off the floor if dropped, he doesn't really care about that. It's just that, for reasons known only to him, all kitchen activity, even getting a glass of water, must be Collie Supervised TM at all times.

He must walk through the bushes and not around them on walks. All bushes on his side of the sidewalk must be walked through or over.

When the cats are fed for the last time at night, you MUST open his crate and put him to bed. It doesn't matter when. You can feed the cats two hours early, before his bedtime, and he will STILL require you put him to bed. He'll open the crate himself if he has to, and sit inside staring a hole into the side of your head until you come put him to bed with his final treat. You also can't trick him by giving him the treat and leaving the crate open. The door must be closed. The Crate Rule is something he just came with, the rescue has no idea where from (when he lived on that horrid farm, he was just left outside at all hours. At best he slept in the barn in the hay. He had no crate). But damned if he has not created The Crate Rule and follows it to the letter.

He has a rule about refusing to bark to go out. He will bark at everything else - other dogs, wind noises, package trucks, a leaf falling in Australia. He'll bark to alert us to things in the house. But he will never. ever. EVER. Bark to go out. Instead, he does a Blair Witch reenactment at the door: he stands, face mashed against the door, and waits silently until he is noticed because for some reason, he's allowed to bark about everything but his desire to go out and pee (or eat snow).

Chaotic lawful sounds about right.

fun thing about herding and/or generally neurotic breeds: they are really good at following rules you have instituted, but they will also make their own Dog Rules they will follow stringently whether or not you like it