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Blastoff,

Setting aside my belief that your posts are more troll-like than genuinely seeking information, I will attempt to answer the question you put to Denise. I expect that if one of those pet homes couldn't keep one of Denise's puppies, she would take it back and she'd make it work out somehow, even if it meant taking a third back from a particular breeding. I'm quite sure she wouldn't let the dog be shipped off to the pound or to a rescue. What Denise is doing is looking at the odds (you know, statistics) when she places a puppy. Statistically speaking, it's more likely for a pup placed in a working home to come back because of unsuitability than for one carefully placed in a pet home. When Denise said she could afford to take two back, she wasn't saying she'd never take more than two back, she's saying that she will place a litter accordingly based on the fact that a pup going into a working home has a greater chance of being returned than one that goes into a pet home. And of course, no one plans for a pup to come back, so keeping two slots open is really just theoretical. She may never get a pup back, but if three come back out of one litter, I don't think she'd turn the third one away for having reached her limit. The point is that she's not pumping out huge numbers of puppies for which she needs a gazillion homes. She's producing a few high-quality puppies, some of which she would like to place in pet homes, keeping in mind the likelihood of those going to working homes possibly not working out and needing to come back to her. And she wants to make sure she has the means to be responsible for all the puppies she produces. Your whole argument if pretty much a red herring.

 

Also Denise clearly stated that she sells pups with an NB status, so even if someone does run off and breed it, they won't be able to register it.

 

J.

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Whoa...as a breeder of working dogs, we take back any dogs that we sell into working homes that do not work out and guaranty them with money back or another dog, if a person comes to us and wants to purchase a pet, we would also take that back if they decide they do not want it anymore, and have, but we would not take it back on guaranty it's not our fault they decided they did not want a dog anymore, they would not get their money back or a chance at another dog. And, if I work with that dog and turn it into a working dog and sell it again they don't get anything for that either. I would venture to guess that other working dog breeders would do the same, especially if they believed in their dogs, in some cases welcoming a grown up surrender. Now, how many confirmation breeders or sport dog breeders will take a pup they sold into a pet home back when the purchaser decided it did not want it any more? Heck, even the breeder we purchased our male from guaranteed his pups, he had no problem taking them back and reworking them.

 

I had a male dropped off here in March from a sport breeder, the breeder wanted nothing to do with him when contacted. We took him in, trained him, trialed him a little and now he is working on a hobby farm, should have never taken him in, should have let him go to the shelter and be euthenized, he cost one of our other dogs a working home or a pup that was bred with the intentions of working a home. But I didn't do that, it wasn't his fault that he was a product of a failed sport breeding. BTW, confirmationally he would never make it in sports, but he could work and was happy to.

 

If all breeders were required to take their dogs back when they did not work out we would be way better off, or better yet if all breeders could only sell into homes that the breeding was intended for, but that would require 100% success on the breeding front which would be impossible. I don't know where people get their dogs in other parts of the country, but many around here just get them off the farm, many people will classify those breeders as Working Dog Breeders, but I don't, to me their just dog breeders, maybe they get lucky and produce a working dog. Others buy them from pet breeders or at the pet store. For the most part the people that seek out true working dog breeders understand what they are getting into, their dogs do not end up in the shelters or in rescue from what I've seen in our area. I am seeing an increased frequency of buyers that thought they were purchasing working dogs to find that the seller did not have what they thought they did, they were advertising "Working Lines" "Herding Instincts", "Championship Herding Lines" and roped the buyer in thinking they were getting a pup from proven working lines as opposed to pup out of working lines that has not been proven. One confirmation breeder we know does send puppy buyers away if they are looking for a working dog, I commend them, they are trying not to add to the problem.

I've yet to hear of any of our dogs going to shelter, if they did I would want them to come home. We try to keep in contact with the buyers, some continue to send us updates some prefer their privacy and don't want to keep us posted. As to what the purchasers do with them after they leave, I really can't control it, I can tell them I want them back as opposed to them giving them away, I can ask that they spay or neuter them as opposed to breeding them, but they are going to do what they want to do with them, they own them and they are their personal belongings to do what they please with once they leave my custody. Even a contract will not ensure they do what we want them to.

 

 

Deb

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I too don't agree with Robin that if it doesn't work it isn't a border collie, and I think she has taken that position because -- as she herself has said -- she doesn't consider breed important. I understand what she's saying, but to me the breed, and the concept of a breed, IS important, so I see it basically the same way that Melanie does. A dog who is bred for work but cannot work is a poor example of a border collie, but it's still a border collie.

 

As an article elsewhere on this site says:

 

To a geneticist, a breed is simply this: a population of animals whose breeding is controlled and outcrossing limited, so that genetic selection can be exercised on it. . . . A population is simply a subgroup of the whole species of dog, Canis familiaris. Controlled breeding and limited outcrossing make it possible to select, as I described in an earlier issue, for whatever genetic traits the organized breeders decide on. Organized breeders is almost a necessary part of the definition; one breeder cannot produce enough dogs to truly create a breed, and a lot of breeders going in different directions will never produce any sort of directed selection
.

 

So I would say intent plays a big part in the creation and maintenance of a breed. You have to have some sort of standard to which the breed's breeders aspire. There is room for variation, according to different breeders' needs and preferences, but if there's not enough agreement on the defining standard then the breed has no integrity, it is incoherent, it is not a single breed. Conformation breeders breed to a written KC standard. I guess Roseanne has more or less outlined the sport standard. But if you are trying to breed to these standards, you are not breeding to the traditional working standard which created the border collie. If breeders continue going in these different directions, and yet you try to apply the umbrella name "Border Collie" to all of them, it becomes more and more meaningless.

 

Root Beer repeatedly asked where you draw the line. As with any continuum, where you draw the line is necessarily somewhat arbitrary. When the show people took over the working collie back in Victorian times, they continued calling it the Collie, and it's still called "Collie" by the KC and the public today. The working folks came up with "Border Collie" at some *arbitrary* later point to refer to the dogs that they had formerly called just "collie," because that name, thanks to the changes conformation breeding had wrought, had come to designate a different breed. If the working folks hadn't started using "Border Collie" -- if they still continued to call their working dogs just "Collie" -- the Lassie Collie would still be just as different from the Border Collie as it is now that they are considered two different breeds. They would just be two separate breeds under the same name. When one creates a miniature form of a dog (let's say a miniature poodle from a poodle, although I don't know the details of that evolution), the time when the public (or the Kennel Club) recognizes it as a different breed depends on a lot of chance factors -- it is arbitrary. But I think Melanie's argument that the time OUGHT TO BE when (1) a group of people are breeding for a specific purpose different from the traditional breed standard, and (2) the complex of traits or phenotype that they are breeding for becomes predictably achieved in their breedings, is a very sound one. (I would place it even earlier than that.) Does that mean that the Sport Collie breeders are going to adopt the name Sport Collie at that point? Apparently not -- they want to claim their dogs are border collies. But conceptually -- and I would say, actually -- they're not.

 

I'm sure by the time I get this posted the thread will have gone in a totally different direction, but probably a less interesting one, so here it is anyway.

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Guest blastoff

Julie, just because a dog doesn't have papers doesn't mean it can't be bred and its puppies sold for profit. There are plenty of unpapered border collies being bred (for whatever reason) that ultimately end up in rescues and hence take up the homes that your reject puppies could be going to. So again, it's a vicious cycle. Until the working breeders take control of their puppies' reproductive organs, they can blame the fact that the pet homes are going to rescues to get dogs at least partially on themselves.

 

Debbie, a lot of your sentences are incomprehensible to me but I think I get the gist of your post. That being said, puppies can be speutered at young ages. Fix them before they leave your custody if you have no desire to followup with contracts. Rescues have no problem either altering early or following up with contracts so this seems like pure laziness to me.

 

Everyone has a bunch of excuses but no one wants to own up to the fact that their unaltered puppies being sold to the general public are producing far more puppies than they know or care to admit.

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Ignore the troll, and keep posting please. Even when we don't agree I enjoy your posts and learn something.

 

Blastoff - ChillOut!

 

 

Thank you Julie and Wendy. I thought I was being clear enough but apparently there is no "clear enough" to convince blastoff that I and others here are not contaminating the border collie rescue world with huge numbers of puppies.

 

I know a troll when I see one so I'm done here.

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Guest blastoff

Of course! Anyone who brings to light the shortcomings of your practices must be a troll. None of you will even touch the subject of your puppies being bred with a 10 foot pole. Just ignore it and the problem will go away.

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Blastoff,

Have you said where you got your dog(s)? If it was anything other than rescue, that makes you part of the problem too, doesn't it? Or are we just conveniently ignoring that?

 

I am also well aware that unscrupulous breeders can sell unpapered puppies for fun and profit. Do you have anything more constructive to add to the conversation? So far all you've managed to trot out are the same old arguments (hence the troll comment) that others have made before; that is, "the times they are a'changin' and so the dogs are changing, and well, if you don't like it too bad." "Working breeders are the problem." And so on.

 

I disagree with some of what has been posted here by other working dog folks, but I'd like to point out that my unaltered puppies aren't producing anything. And I don't think most of the people who have responded to this thread and who also breed occasionally could have come anywhere close to producing the number of dogs that are flooding the shelters and rescues. There are mills, sport breeders, backyard breeders and the like filling the market with unaltered puppies. Claiming that it's the unaltered puppies coming from working breeders that are the root of all breeding evil is what exposes you as someone who hasn't a clue about working dogs and as a troll. Are you also trolling sports boards telling them that the unalatered pups they sell to the general public and the sports people are a problem?

 

Eileen,

thanks for your comments. I think what you said is what many of us have also been trying to say before this thread went off on several tangents. Maybe if it's said enough some folks will begin to understand.

 

J.

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It's unfortunately people feel a need to troll. But I did want to expand on a bit of Denise's postings where she's talking about how there aren't enough good working homes, and how puppymill and BYB puppies take up those good homes.

 

Robin said:

Fortunately my first dog (BYB) had at least enough interest to get me started, even if she didn't have the talent to take me very far.

 

I think this drives Denise's point home. How many of you that work dogs started out with a poorly bred dog -- not knowing any better? For those of you who own stock, how many of you have people come over and practice with their poorly bred dogs, not be able to say anything to them that their dogs will only get them so far before they will hit a plateau on the working side of things, see the new handlers get new (nicely bred) dogs, and then watch them come to the awful realization all on their own that their first dog isn't going to cut it no matter how long they try?

 

Of course there are going to be the few that lucked into a nice dog their first time around, or the smart ones who hung out for quite a while and did their research before getting their first dog, but they are probably few and far between. Most of us have gotten the dog and then found stockdogging, no?

 

What is the point? Just what Denise was saying ... there are so many BYB's and puppymills out there that people unknowingly buy from who then find herding, and now those people will keep those dogs till death do them part (as most people would), but that's one space in one home gone to a BYB/puppymill that could have been filled with a good pup with potential if all breeders (dreaming now) bred for the right reasons.

 

My worthless 2 cents ... I'm done rambling. Denise, I hope you don't stop posting. I appreciate your point of view.

 

Jodi

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Wow. I'm shocked. I go away for a couple of hours and come back to find that blastoff has been labelled a troll and forcibly ejected. Hey, I might not agree with everything or even anything she said (but then again I might), and for sure I came to this late and haven't read all 16 pages either. However, what I DID read from blastoff seemed cogent, reasoned and deserving of reply. If she's wrong and we can show that she's wrong, I don't see why she should not be heard. Hey, Melanie started the thread by wanting to hear from the other side, and blastoff seemed to be presenting a non-uncommon perpective from the non-working world. So where did hearing from the other side suddenly become anathema, just because a couple of people who have bred a litter or two (or more) felt they were being maligned? Or am I missing something? Surely some of her questions are no worse than what is directed at breeders whose names and websites are regularly, ummm, 'investigated' on these Boards?

AM I missing something?

A

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What I am saying is that if you are ON PURPOSE BREEDING FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT, eventually (and probably fairly quickly) you will not have Border Collies anymore because they will not exhibit Border Collie characteristics and will not breed true for them. The latter point is very important. THE ENTIRE POINT OF BREEDS IS THAT YOU BREED TWO TOGETHER AND GET PREDICTABLE TRAITS IN THE OFFSPRING. If the offspring of Sport Collies are predictable for a different set of traits than Border Collies are supposed to be (namely, that behavioral package that makes a working stockdog), THEN THEY AREN'T BORDER COLLIES ANYMORE. They are Sport Collies. They have and live up to a different standard, just like my Giant Chihuahuas and Black Samoyeds. Please, please someone tell me this makes sense.

 

I am becoming inspired. I would like to start a breeding program, entirely made up of dogs that miss the point, and call it Oxymoron Kennel. I will also breed miniature Great Danes, and Chessies that are afraid of water. And Sheena and Julie can come join me since they are apparently the only ones who get what I am saying.

 

This is very clear, and a good point, and bears repeating.

 

I think people are getting hooked on the idea that their precious border collie is a border collie and to call it anything else is, well, offensive. I mean...they paid $1,000 for a dog with papers!

 

But, I have a sport bred border collie (parents are owned by agility handlers). I got lucky, she can work. But if I bred her to another border collie for the primary purpose of agility/flyball puppies/dogs, who do you think I'd breed her to? A working bred dog? Or a dog from a well-known agility/flyball/sport handler/kennel? What do you think my target market (puppy buyers) wants?

 

So, if that's my goal (sport dogs)...I'd pick an agility dog. Potentially, the offspring are even more removed from the working gene. The stud I chose may have never seen a sheep in his life...so I have no idea what his working abilities are (or aren't) because, in this hypothetical, that isn't imporant to me.

 

How many generations do you think it would take before the working gene(s) are diluted or removed from a majority of the offspring? How long then will we call dogs that aren't bred to work stock any longer a breed that they will eventually no longer resemble (in purpose, but possibly also appearance)?

 

Now, not every good working dog is a border collie, and, gasp, there are other breeds that work very well for the purpose for which they were designed.

 

This thread should be about - how many generations of breeding for something other than bc working ability will it take to get to a non-herding stockdog - and then, what do you call it?

 

Jennifer Akins

Trowbridge, CA

www.jentodogs.com

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Hi all,

 

Thanks for the support. I'm not done posting to the boards, just in response to blastoff, who seemed to not be reading what I was writing at all but just using me as a reason to promote her agenda, whatever it was.

 

I've been gathering some info for inbreeding and COI programs as promised that I'll post as a separate topic soon.

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This thread should be about - how many generations of breeding for something other than bc working ability will it take to get to a non-herding stockdog - and then, what do you call it?

 

Shelties, most of whom I imagine would be utterly useless on stock, are still called Shetland Sheepdogs even though they are very far removed from the dogs who were said to have once worked sheep and fowl. With Goldens and Labs, I hear people referring to the lines or type -- field, show, pet. Of course, I could be missing all the delightful politics and arguments owners of those breeds engage in. Even I, who have only marginal interest in retrievers, can easily tell the 3 types apart and that is without going hunting.

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If a border collie bred from working parents does not work becomes dubbed "just a dog" and should not be called Border Collie then why not just dub your border collies who actually do work "working border collie" or "working whatever". If the distinction is to be taken to this rather absurd level, then maybe those who agree should just rename their own dogs.

 

I agree in essence that if you breed for different things you get a different breed (it took a while but I agree) but until there is a breed split, I do call my dogs Border Collies and will continue to do so. I may explain they are conformation bred if I feel like it or think there is some usefulness but that's pretty much it. I don't agee that I should not call them Border Collies or that they've suddenly become mutts. (And I love mutts also) Should it become official and they're Show Collies or Poop for Brains Collies, then I'll call them that.

 

Oddly enough, in keeping in consideration that the breed is split three ways, I understand why show breeders breed for coat or bone or whatever is the fancy of the moment but can't quite wrap my head around breeding for stickiness to contacts.

 

A few hormonal thoughts from a newly pregnant woman.....

 

Maria

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Now, how many confirmation breeders or sport dog breeders will take a pup they sold into a pet home back when the purchaser decided it did not want it any more?

 

After learning my lesson with an unscrupulous puppy mill type breeder and not being able to find the dog I wanted in rescue, I did find a couple of breeders that would do this.

 

They are out there and if you want to get a pup these are the breeders one should suppport. Not that I would ever take any of my dogs back but the fact that they take care of their own dogs that come back due to divorce, illness and other things that may leave a dog dumped at the pound is a big tick. My family have taken on several nice dogs that have been returned to breeders as have several of my friends. Both my BC and ACD are unwanted returns to the breeder and one is a retired breeding bitch. My ACD breeder takes any of her dogs back and so does a local BC sports/conformation breeder. Dogs come with limited register papers and relevant genetic and other health checks.

 

In terms of my next BC I would love to take on a nicely bred working dog returned because it didnt work out on stock.

 

As to the comment on Kelpies, certainly where I live kelpies are the stock dog of choice, so a working kelpie is definitely not a BC! They are awesome stockdogs in their own right. Where I live 10,000 head are a common flock size. As you move North into the cattle pastoral country, ACD crosses are more common because of the conditions. Down south BCs are the dog of choice. Farmers chose the dogs most suited to the local conditions and their local culture and sometimes mix and match a bit with the breeding to suit what they want.

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So where did hearing from the other side suddenly become anathema, just because a couple of people who have bred a litter or two (or more) felt they were being maligned? Or am I missing something? Surely some of her questions are no worse than what is directed at breeders whose names and websites are regularly, ummm, 'investigated' on these Boards?

AM I missing something?

 

Yes, you are. Really, Andrea, I know you're anxious for any opportunity to champion civil liberties, but you're really going overboard here. Blastoff said the following: Don't breed pups unless you have homes lined up; working breeders should only place their dogs in working homes; either there are plenty enough working homes to absorb working-bred dogs, in which case other dogs are not taking homes away from them, or there are no longer any working homes, in which case working dogs are no longer needed and the breed should evolve to be something different that is needed; you're breeding and selling puppies you won't take back; you should speuter your pups before they leave home. Do you really think there's anything there that hasn't been said here before by members who remain in good standing, or anything that I would be afraid to see posted, or anything that I would kick someone off for posting? The Boards exist for discussion and debate, and despite the angry tone of these points/accusations, all were IMO effectively addressed/rebutted.

 

Blastoff was previously removed for reasons having nothing to do with the substantive content of posts. Blastoff is fully aware of the reasons for the removal, and blastoff and I discussed them fully and privately at the time. Blastoff chose to return to the Boards surreptitiously by registering under a new name with a different IP number. When that was brought to my attention, I confirmed the fact and blocked the new account.

 

If you have anything further to say about how the Boards are run, please address it to me privately. It is not on-topic.

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I know I may not agree with alot of what has been said but I do think that the working breeders on this site would take care of their litters.

 

I don't believe in early speutering. I do believe in speutering though and all my dogs are speutered and it is done around 6-8 months of age depending on if male or female. I don't want the hassle of breeding. I would not be able to a job to do justice to whatever breed.

 

Anyways, whether anyone really cares I believe what the Working Breeders were saying is they can only really afford (room, money or whatever) to take back a certain number from their litters. They would take back others even though they could not afford to do it. They would either keep said extras or would find a new home for said extras. I commend anyone who will take a dog back no matter how long down the road that happens. Things happen in life that will force someone to return their dog even with the best of intentions from the breeder. There is nothing wrong with rehoming a returned dog. I would assume "you (in general)" would take extra care the second time to hopefully not uproot the dogs life again.

 

Again, life happenings is not the breeders fault.

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I gave you that one so people would laugh behind your back and call you the Paris Hilton of dog sport people.

:D :D :D

RDM

 

*cough*bitch*cough* :rolleyes: I am too short, too poor and too heavy to ever be considered the Paris Hilton of anything! Besides, Zephyr doesn't fit in my purse! :D

 

I don't think you'll be able to convince Joe and Jane Public that their dog is not a border collie and shouldn't be called that because of a lack of herding ability. If you look at the majority of the dogs in the working and herding and sporting groups, they are no longer able to do what they were bred to do, yet still look (somewhat) like the same dog. Nobody is arguing that the "pet" and "show" goldens are not golden retrivers, although most of them would never be able to do real hunt work. You're trying to make that argument with people who have bought in to the show world and no amount of talking about purpose and ability is likely to change their minds.

 

The OP asked why people would want a sport collie, and from somebody who is very involved in the sport world and only dabbles in herding - because the dogs being bred are perceived (rightly or wrongly) as possessing the traits necessary to succeed in the sport. Big name handlers like Linda Mecklenberg take a dog (Stellar) from a sport kennel (Rival) and do extremely well with that dog. They then breed that dog to another sport dog (Neat, also from Rival) and get litters that are also very successful sport dogs (Super, among others).

 

For people who want to succeed at dog sports, they see that as proof that you can breed for the characteristics that make a successful sport dog. When placements at international competitions are decided by 100's of seconds, and first to 20th can be less than a second, people are eager to grasp at any advantage. The trainers like Linda M would likely do just as well with any working bred border collie but that is not what is seen by your average competitor.

 

I don't think that the majority of people who are only interested in dog sports care if their dog can herd, much less do well at the open level. Neither the breeders nor the purchasers make a correlation between success in agility and success in herding because they are (at least so far) seeing success in their breeding programs for the traits that are important to them.

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I've been gathering some info for inbreeding and COI programs as promised that I'll post as a separate topic soon.

 

I won't pursue my previous point here at the . . . er . . . suggestion of our esteemed moderator :rolleyes: (we are communicating privately) but I would VERY MUCH like to read Denise's post on THIS topic. I did join the CanGen list at her suggestion (and believe me, it was as struggle to be accepted as a non-geneticist, given their current mix) and spent quite a while reading some very long, usually erudite and largely civilized posts from a wide variety of breeders and scientists in their archives, while trying to stay current on the list. A losing cause I think. In any case, I am particularly interested in the theory or opinion or ? (even that is under discussion!) that inbreeding for conformation characteristics is more harmful than inbreeding for working characteristics ie that by the very nature of the selection process in the latter case, a higher degree of inbreeding can be tolerated in the case of breeding for work. Or, to put it another way, that what would be a dangerous COI in a show breeding program would not be so in a working breeding program. I THINK I've expressed that correctly. This is Wendy's point I believe and perhaps others would agree or disagree. I'm interested to hear.

Can we discuss this? Is it premature, Denise, given that the discussions rage on, on the other list?

Andrea

PS I've copied this to the start of another thread in Politics.

PPS I'm off to work dogs for the day so will check in later.

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I too don't agree with Robin that if it doesn't work it isn't a border collie, and I think she has taken that position because -- as she herself has said -- she doesn't consider breed important. I understand what she's saying, but to me the breed, and the concept of a breed, IS important, so I see it basically the same way that Melanie does. A dog who is bred for work but cannot work is a poor example of a border collie, but it's still a border collie.

----------------------

I'm sure by the time I get this posted the thread will have gone in a totally different direction, but probably a less interesting one, so here it is anyway.

 

Yeah, it's gone way off but i wanted to back up a little bit to this, if anyone is still reading anyway. I think i'm understanding what you're saying and i think i can accept this definition after doing a lot of thinking and pondering on it. If the *intent* of the breeding is to create stock working dogs, and that's the selection standard, then it does follow that the puppies have been bred to the breed standard. Whether they actually live up to it or not, and should be included in the future gene pool or not, is to be determined later, when old enough to work and evaluate compared to the breed standard of work. Okay, i get it. The breed standard is for determining a dog's worthiness to be bred, not to define the breed of the dog itself.

 

Thanks everyone, this really has been a good thread with lots of food for thought.

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