Did anyone watch the Houston dog show

[TaliC2007]

I watched the herding dog class (the beautiful Aussie won it) and evertime one of the dogs came out to strut their stuff, the announcers would talk about how the dog used their eyes to control the stock. Even the Briard whose eyes were barely visable under all of that hair. I know there are strong eyed (BC's) and loose eyed dogs, but do all herding dogs use their eyes to control stock? Also, the BC in this group they called a Chocolate Border Collie. Is that a real color? He was very pretty but looked more like an Aussie with a tail than a Border Collie.

 

Also, has anyone seen the new AKC commercial? They show a Border Collie in the commercial 7 times, I rewound my tvo and counted, while talking about how great purebred AKC dogs are. I thought that was interesting given all of the controversy.

 

Tammy

[Devi]

Border collies come in LOTS of colors... but I wouldn't use "show" BCs (which probably shouldn't even be called BCs) as a good example.

 

Here are some pictures of other-than-B&W BCs from Colliecorner.com (check it out!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have a red (chocolate) BC myself!

[TaliC2007]

Thanks Devi,

Aww, I love that little guy at the end. Is that yours? I did know that they came in different colors, but I had never heard Chocolate before. I love red BC's. My BC's sire was red and white.

 

Is Devi your name or your dogs name, or just the name you go by on here? My son's name is Devon and the people who can get away with it call him Devi for short.

 

Tammy

[Devi]

This is my dog Chaos:

 

 

 

I'm Devi, my dogs are Chaos, Wren, Mocha, Buddy and Hank! I am a girl, but when people hear my name spoken, they always assume it's Debbie, not Devi. It's not short for Devon, though I have met a girl named Devon!

 

Chocolate and liver are just different words for red (though the actual color called 'red' varies greatly). When you asked if chocolate was a real color, I assumed it was because you hadn't ever seen a red BC before. The show BCs do sometimes look aussie-ish, though, don't they?

[TaliC2007]

Oh yes, I remember Chaos now. He is stunning! And his eyes are amazing.

 

Devi is an unusual name but I like it. I have also met some girls named Devon. I wonder if Devi means the same thing as Devon, or Devin, as it is also spelled. It is an old Gaelic name that means Poet. I am going to have to go look it up now. I am curious.

 

ETA: I looked.

DEVI

Gender: Feminine

Usage: Indian, Hindu Mythology

Other Scripts: देवी (Sanskrit)

Derived from Sanskrit देवी (devi) meaning "goddess". Devi is the Hindu mother goddess who manifests herself as all other goddesses

 

Or

DEVI

Boy or Girl ?: girl

Origin of name: Hebrew

Meaning: Variant of Deborah: Bee. Deborah was the Biblical prophetess who summoned Barak to battle against an army of invaders. After the battle she wrote a victory song which is part of the Book of Judges.

 

 

But you probably already knew all of this.

[Devi]

In my opinion, poet is much cooler!!

[bc4pack]

#4 , the saddle patterned looks sooooooooooo much like my Molly..... Right now I've got quite a variety....

Molly, the saddle patterned; Nell, split face,predominantely half and half blk and white but some light tan

on one cheek; Roy typically blk and white; and Rock predominantely white with blk spot across his tail,blk on his ears,

some light ticking and a tan spot on his cheek too..... Oh and Nell,Roy and Rock are littermates and Molly is

their mama. Nothing like diversity....

[Eileen Stein]

What we call red (dark or light red or brown, with brown nose leather), the show people call chocolate or liver.

[NorthfieldNick]

So, my Nick, who is blue (dilute black), would not be called chocolate? That's what everyone says he looks like. I call it mud...

 

 

 

Not sure what the difference between blue & red would be, visibly. Genetically, it's different genes- red is one gene, blue is caused by a dilute gene acting on black. I would have called Devi's Chaos blue (he looks to be the same colour as Nick). Although, Nick's nose is black (I had to wake him up to check).

 

I don't particularly care what colour he is- he gets the job done, although I do wish he didn't match the PNW mud so well! I let him inside and he's invisibly filthy!

 

ETA: Okay, I lied. Chaos is much redder than Nick, so that I look closely.

[Devi]

 

Chaos is definitely brown (liver, chocolate) and he has a brown nose!!

 

Nick is gorgeous, but he looks much more grey or mud-brown than red to me. And it looks like he has the blue nose.

 

More "blue" BCs... (again, from Collie Corner)

 

 

 

 

 

And two more reds for comparison:

 

 

 

[NorthfieldNick]

Ah, yes. Much better now. Nick was light grey as a pup- his papers actually say grey. His undercoat is the most beautiful foggy grey colour- I'm always threatening to spin it into yarn... but dog fuzz smells like dog- especially when wet- no matter how many times it's washed. I learned this after spinning some Bernese Mountain Dog blended with wool for a friend. Ick.

 

My sister has an ancient red BC, although I think she's actually a sable- she has "oil spots."

 

Oh, Chaos has that same look Nick does... waiting for trouble! LOL!

[juliepoudrier]

What we call red here in the U.S. is genetically liver or chocolate (so if you go to do research on color genetics, you'll see the color we call red referred to as liver or chocolate, bb). Genetic red is what we in the U.S. refer to as Aussie red and is actually yellow/gold (ee). How's that for confusing? Here's a site a really like that discusses color genetics: Canine Color Genetics.

 

Red (liver) comes in a variety of shades from light to dark. My red dogs tend to bleach to blondish in the summer and then go mahogany when they shed out in fall and repeat the cycle each year. If a dilution gene is present, then red/liver becomes lilac and B&W becomes blue.

 

Tammy,

I was in a hotel for a trial this weekend and did catch some of the show on Animal Planet. When I heard the announcer mention the "they control stock with their eye(s)" I knew he didn't have a clue about working dogs. Most of the other herding breeds are considered "loose eyed," which implies that they do *not* use eye to control stock. I also thought it was funny when they mentioned the "distinctive" gait of the OES, since I couldn't tell much difference in the way it moved compared to many of the other breeds in the ring. I personally thought the Aussie was ugly. Not the color so much as the eyes--they looked blank, and the whole picture the dog presented just wasn't pleasing to me. But then lucky for him I wasn't the judge, huh? That said, I thought the Pharoah hound was absolutely gorgeous.... And I must've missed the commercial. Although the commercial that talked about dogs with drive, intensity, whatever else it said and then equated all that with purebred dogs I just found amusing. As if mixed breeds by their very nature don't have drive, intensity, whatever else they said....

 

J.

[Bo Peep]

I watched that off & on last night and didn't even hear them mention a border collie and I thought- no BC in Texas? They must have protested. Guess I missed it due to my channel changing BF. Loved the dark red on the Merle Aussie, though.

[PSmitty]

Although the commercial that talked about dogs with drive, intensity, whatever else it said and then equated all that with purebred dogs I just found amusing. As if mixed breeds by their very nature don't have drive, intensity, whatever else they said....

 

J.

 

Yeah!

 

I'm not surprised that the BC on the show looked like an Aussie with a tail. From what I can see, that's what the show dogs look like. IMO, of course, and I'm not knocking the dogs personally.

[ZoZo]

I saw the portion with the herding category of the Houston show and was mildly appalled by the gibberish coming from the two announcers. One asked why the herding dogs where in the order they were and other commented it's because the "faster ones are in front". What??? The first dog was a German Shepard (with what looked like deformed back legs, I bet my cat could run him down) and the one Border Collie that was present was near the back, I think he was behind a Corgy. They talked about about how great and useful those herding dogs are, like the Swedish Vallhund. They had a short clip of this exciting new Vallhund in action- the owner had to hold him up in the air and point so he could find the sheep (his legs were about 3 inches high and he could see over the grass)- now that's a useful animal. All the time, barely uttering a word about the Border Collie. The whole thing was completely bizarre.