Merle Champions?

[Bodol]

I wrote an article about Merle on bordercollie.org

(http://bordercollie.org/kpmerle.html)

 

He or she wrote....

"I don't know the attitude of the traditional herding people toward the merle pattern; although I have known a few merles that were being used for herding, I have never seen one in an Open trial class. In all the books I have read on Border Collie history, I have never seen a reference to a merle as a herding champion either in Britain or in the USA. Whether this is because of the prejudice against them, or simply because the color has, simply by chance, never entered the principal lines of Border Collie breeding. If any of you know the answer, maybe you could let me know!"

 

I also heard that Merles are not good as working dogs from some people.

But Why?

are there any reasons?

Is it true that there are no merle in an Open trial Class?

Do you know sheepdog trial champion merles?

 

I really want to know about it.

[KathyF]

I can tell you that there is a gal from Michigan who is running two blue merles in open. She did qualify for the sheepdog finals in 2006 for open with her older one and for nursery with her younger one. She is still trialing both of them in open in '07 and will be in '08.

 

Kathy

[juliepoudrier]

Bodol,

Here's a recent discussion on merles: Merle explosion. It's a long thread, but there's some good discussion regarding merles and working ability. It's worth reading, since much isn't likely to be repeated here.

 

J.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

That's a pretty old article. There's a few now in Open, though it's still true that no merle champions have yet emerged. But, you could think of it as a simple matter of statistics - what percentage of black and white dogs actually become champions? Then you can add open prejudice, whether justified or not, and you'll see the odds against any rare color winning any high profile trial becomes pretty low.

 

There was a recent, very extensive thread on the subject of merles, recently, but I can't remember what it was. Someone should remember and post it.