Mr. McCaig asks: Can somebody explain how breeding Border Collies for agility and/or against "Early Takeoff Syndrome" differs morally from breeding them for conformation?
In terms of the "moral" aspect, I think breeding for sports is very similar to breeding for conformation. In terms of impact to the breed, my opinion is that such breeding may be even more deleterious. The biggest reason for this is that there are far more border collies being bred for agility than for conformation, so the impact of the breed from sports will be far greater. That is not a good thing for the border collie.
After being very active in agility (not with border collies, but other herding breeds), my thinking has evolved on this issue. There was a time when I didn't appreciate or understand the danger that these types of breedings can do. Although I'm not an expert, I have seen too many examples of border collies that seem to have lost the "talent" for herding after even one generation of unfocused breeding. I now firmly stand on the side of breeding only those border collies that excel in stock work as defined by the herding community. I also now have my own border collie bred from working stock, and we are hoping to partner up to run border collie herding trials.
As far as ETS goes- I've done some reading on this subject and I wonder if anyone has considered that dogs weren't meant to do the extreme jumping and other maneuvers required on today's international agility courses? If it doesn't impact the health of the dog or the purpose (herding) for which the breed was developed, it doesn't seem to merit much priority in my view.