Sport Collies

[jenkshipley]

I'm just curious, and i'm sure the answer is probably location specific. I know the big mills produce a *lot* of dogs. I don't think it's a coincidence that ABCA registration numbers took a huge dive once Swafford and his gang were tossed out, for example.

 

 

Honestly, some are papered from working lines, some are papered from puppy mills, backyard breeders, etc., but most have no papers and there is no way to tell where they came from. Some are strays, some are turned in by puppy mills when they are done breeding them, a despairingly large number are turned in by people who can't handle them and never should have been sold one in the first place. I can tell you there are a lot more Border Collies in shelters and in need of coming in to rescue then there were when I started volunteering in rescue and I wouldn't even call myself an old timer.

 

I do know I have had three dogs in the past year alone as fosters who I am certain would have made fantastic agility dogs.

I have a past foster who is now training very successfully as a search and rescue dog. He is exceptionally well built, has very nice drive and his temperament is absolutely rock solid and bomb proof, we have no idea what his background is. I wish I could say the same for my youngest Border Collie, who I purchased for $1000+ from a sports breeder who calls herself a working breeder and is really a glorified puppy mill with a pretty website. Shame on me for making the decision (a long and convulted and uncharacteristically impulsive decision) although I love my dog dearly. After much hard work and effort she has greatly improved in behavior and confidence, but she has changed how I view breeding, who should be doing it and what should be being bred regardless of talent in any venue or activity, including true working dogs.

 

One of my most recent fosters is currently training in agility and he will make a very successful competition dog. If I was ready for another dog when he came in, he would not have left. Again, an exceptional dog with a great structure and a wonderful temperament and all of the Border Collies exceptional and unmatched desire to work with their person.

 

It seems to me these days that every Tom, Dick, Harry and Mary who buys a Border Collie keeps the dog "intact" in case they want to breed it. Ugh. When I started in agility with my Keeshond mix, Border Collies were few and far between. Now their height class at a trial has 150 dogs in it and there are Border Collies everywhere.

 

We can't be doing the breed a service with this many people breeding and the breed will eventually suffer as a whole for it.

 

Good thing there are still working people breeding working dogs and some of them are responsible, careful people who are aware of health issues and do regular health checks as part of their breeding decisions.

 

Best,

Jen

Flute, Enna and Fever

[Shoofly]

So would you guys say that the vast, vast majority of rescue dogs are not purpose-bred dogs? Is that a fair assumption?

[jdarling]

Yes, I would say that.

[Denise Wall]

So would you guys say that the vast, vast majority of rescue dogs are not purpose-bred dogs? Is that a fair assumption?

 

I can well believe this. Years ago, on the canine genetics list, someone noted that AKC had done a study and found something like 80% of all the dogs registered were from basically one time BYBs.

 

Depressingly, if also true in border collies, this situation is unlikely to change.

[SoloRiver]

Maybe this should go in a different thread but i have a question based on the above. Where do most of those border collies in rescue actually come from, breeder-wise?

 

I haven't seen nearly as many rescue pedigrees as Sheena has, by orders of magnitude, but the ones I have seen were mostly from generic "farm dog" breeding -- however, these dogs usually went back to recognizable "names" within one or two generations. Which gets back to previous discussions about how we don't protect our dogs very well. I don't think cutting off the supply would mean there would be less Border Collies in rescue, but if good working breeders are going to try to bear the standard for the working Border Collie (which many of them maybe have no interest in) they could at least try to not let their names be plastered all over the papers of unwanted dogs.

[Shetlander]

ETA This has been a really good thread.

 

Really? Because I don't see how this was helpful or any new territory was covered. I'd say that the majority of people on these boards understand and agree with the belief that Border Collies be bred for the ability to work stock. I certainly can't imagine the working people suddenly saying, "Oh, wow! Great point! You're right that sports breeding can be a good thing." I mean did anyone think that might happen? I suppose it could be another attempt to educate sports people and persuade them that Border Collies should only be bred for working ability. But since I am only a sports person who doesn't even do sports right now and who agrees with the Board's philosophy, I may have been missing the purpose of this discussion right from the start.

[Shoofly]

Well that's quite the catch 22 isn't it? We tell people to go buy working bred puppies but then we don't let them have any? If only the few "chosen" are allowed pups, what's that do to the gene pool?

 

It's sort of beside the point anyway, if 99% of the dogs in rescue are no different from the BYB labs/dalmations/labradoodles bred down the street - bred to put a few bucks in the pocket of the owner of the bitch.

 

I think it might be more useful to separate those 2 discussions.

[Katelynn & Gang]

I don't think cutting off the supply would mean there would be less Border Collies in rescue, but if good working breeders are going to try to bear the standard for the working Border Collie (which many of them maybe have no interest in) they could at least try to not let their names be plastered all over the papers of unwanted dogs.

 

I totally agree with this.

[SoloRiver]

Like others here have said, sports breeding seems to select for a very few specific traits, and what I don't get is that apparently these same sports folks advocate breeding for sports seem to get that when conformation breeders are breeding for just a few specific traits (looks-based in their case) they're essentially changing the breed to something else, but then can't extrapolate that same idea to sports breedings.

 

I have noticed that sport people refer to sports as "work." Part of the problem is that they consider their dogs to be working dogs, and therefore on "our" side of the "working/Barbie" divide. Certainly there are sports breeders who realize that they are creating something qualitatively different, but a lot seem to think they are just taking the basic working Border Collie and polishing it up a little, getting rid of the rough edges, and maybe putting a shiny coat of merle paint on it.

 

I hear all about some of the high profile agility breedings, and ironically, they're not breeding for one or two specific traits, but rather the "whole package" just as the working breeders (albeit a MUCH different package...lol).

 

Which I guess gets back to my original question: what IS that package they are selecting for, and are they actually getting it? And does it actually make for a better sport dog? Shayna's response way back was actually the most informative in this respect, although it was specific to flyball dogs. My guess is that flyball breeders are looking at a much, much narrower set of criteria than other sport breeders.

 

I remain curious about obedience breeders. Obedience lines of Border Collies have been around for a very long time; this discussion was partly inspired by the fact that I recently learned there are apparently many more lines of obedience dogs (Obedient Collies?) than I thought there were (I had basically heard of Heelalong and maybe one or two others). Obedience training involves so much drilling and precision that I could be made to believe a particular set of characteristics is highly desirable in these dogs and that not every Border Collie would do. Solo hates formal obedience training and trying to make a competitive obedience dog out of him would have been like kicking myself in the head. Oh, I think I could have done it (note, by this I mean I think it would be possible to train him in formal obedience -- not for me to say put an OTCH on him -- I don't have that much hubris), but it would have sucked royally for both of us. Then again, there were the aforementioned OTCH Peke and almost-OTCH Afghan Hound so I guess one never knows.

 

I don't think we have many obedience competitors here so maybe this question of mine won't go anywhere.

[Shoofly]

Really? Because I don't see how this was helpful or any new territory was covered. I'd say that the majority of people on these boards understand and agree with the belief that Border Collies be bred for the ability to work stock. I certainly can't imagine the working people suddenly saying, "Oh, wow! Great point! You're right that sports breeding can be a good thing." I mean did anyone think that might happen?

 

No but it is good to get some insight into the sport breeding stuff. I mean, if you go way back to the beginning of the thread to what Pearse said, that's what i'd have thought in terms of why they were breeding. I never have understood the point of sport breeders trying to go to working dogs to breed to. From this thread, it appears the really top competitors don't and really are producing 'Agility Collies' by breeding within the pool of dogs excelling at that activity. It's the competitors further down the food chain who are muddying the waters.

[Shoofly]

I don't think we have many obedience competitors here so maybe this question of mine won't go anywhere.

 

I don't know if it's bred for or just an artifact of the training, but i can tell you one thing that makes obedience dogs darned hard to train on sheep - they go towards a correction or body pressure instead of away from it. They don't "give" to pressure. Or at least the few i've had come out for lessons have. Drives me nuts!

[jdarling]

What I find interesting is the number of breeders out there who are producing a ton of puppies every year, yet they do nothing with their own dogs, but because of the success of a few of their puppy owners, they are able to sell litter after litter of puppies. Here's the list of AKC titles from July.

 

BCSA Title Central - AKC Titles for July 2008

 

Jodi

[juliepoudrier]

I don't know if it's bred for or just an artifact of the training, but i can tell you one thing that makes obedience dogs darned hard to train on sheep - they go towards a correction or body pressure instead of away from it. They don't "give" to pressure. Or at least the few i've had come out for lessons have. Drives me nuts!

This is veering off topic, but there was just a long discussion on Herders-L (I know!) about dogs who move into pressure vs. those that don't. The context of the discussion was whether it was possible to "do both herding and schutzhund well with the same dog," and if so whether one should start with the stock training or with the schutzhund. It was a rather long and sometimes pissy discussion, but what I gathered from it was that dogs (in breed generalities) who tended to move into the pressure would benefit from schutzhund training before being introduced to stock because the former would give them the *partnership skills* they needed with their handlers to be able to effectively work stock at some later time. I may have misunderstood, but I think the gist was that if the dog is trained to be obedient to the handler early on through schutzhund, then the moving into pressure when working stock can be managed but not as easily so if you approached it from the other direction.

 

I know obedience isn't schuthund, but since schutzhund is about coming on to the pressure, I think the concept applies here.

 

J.

[Smokjbc]

I know obedience isn't schuthund, but since schutzhund is about coming on to the pressure, I think the concept applies here.

 

J.

 

 

I dropped out of that one (the Herd-L schutzhund discussion) early as I didn't think I could stay "P.C" enough- but the whole time, I'm thinking why would you want a schutzhund dog to double as a stockdog or vice versa? I think it speaks to the fascination of "versatility" - the more they do the better- jack of all trades, master of none.

[juliepoudrier]

Yeah, I thought the whole thing was kind of silly, but then these folks seem to think that the more different titles they can get on their dogs, the better. When folks are titling dogs that aren't even protection-type breeds, it makes you wonder just how stringent the schutzhund requirements are. If they're anything like the herding requirements, well, enough said.

 

J.

[Lenajo]

Some of that's taught as well as bred.

 

"New" lines for obedience I don't know, but the old school lines were selected and bred to be very body tolerant. I called them Rolex dogs - they could "take a licking and keep on ticking". The training was harsh, extremely repetitive and exacting, unlike sheep it had no redeeming factor to make a dog "feel" right about being obedient.

 

HARD has new meaning with those dogs. If you wanted to work them on sheep you had to get in their heads as early in the training as possible. You couldn't use their body against them (the little poof with the boogie bag, or even just get them tired) because they just didn't care.

 

Decisions made in the breedings for obedience lines have made some of the most unhealthy dogs I have ever dealt with. I know of owners who had multilpes from who were afflicted with severe epilepsy, hip, hearing, temperamental, and heart defects. Multiple littermates, aunts, uncles, etc etc. A lot of this came from linebreeding on popular, but for the wrong reasons (i.e. titles) sires and dams.

 

There were good, sound, lovely ones too, but the prevelance of trauma caused by creating them was imo far too great. The end, did not justify the means.

 

Really the "obedience" line failure (after all, they don't really exist anymore), piles in there with the failure of every performance breed who has tried to establish a "sport" line, just tells us yet again that the Border Collies doesn't need to go there. Every dilution of the genepool has a price that cannot be paid by the next generations. At least not if we want the same dogs we started with.

 

 

I don't know if it's bred for or just an artifact of the training, but i can tell you one thing that makes obedience dogs darned hard to train on sheep - they go towards a correction or body pressure instead of away from it. They don't "give" to pressure. Or at least the few i've had come out for lessons have. Drives me nuts!

[SoloRiver]

What about outcrossing BCs with other herding breeds (wasn't this done with Beardies)?

 

This was from a question about whether Border Collies are resistant to practices that might "dilute" what they are.

 

Working Beardies are registered by ISDS and are essentially the same dogs when you look at the phenotype that matters, which is working style and ability. "Beard" is just another coat type on most of these dogs, as far as I understand. As many of you know, Fly is part working Beardie and is unremarkable in either looks or working style.

 

Schutzhund obedience is, from what folks have told me, like regular obedience plus. Most of schutzhund competition is actually obedience (or so I am told -- I have never seen one) with the bitework/sumo suit stuff being a smaller part of it albeit the more spectactular part.

[Lenajo]

Actually I do believe good working Border Collie can do anything that the trainer in charge can teach.

 

I think that's why so many "other" breed owners hate this breed. Doesn't say much for your "schutzhund lines" of GSDs, when a Border Collie shows up and knocks the decoy on his arse. (And I know at least one BC that has done it. And fwiw, Leroy Boyd's lines produced a fantastic drug dog for a major city)

 

I know Border Collies that can outbird your overage Pointer or Setter.

 

There is a *reason* that these "sport" competitions (hunting, schutzhund, etc) are often limited to a certain breed: that being, the former real "work" is now a "sport".

 

Back when they were really about work it was like a USBCHA/ISDS Open trial. If you could do it, you were welcome. If you could do it consistantly better than what was registered, they'd breed to it anyway, ROM or otherwise.

 

Now it's about "titles".

 

There is a lesson in this for us all.

 

Herding genetics, true, solid herding at a high level is one of the most malleable sets of genetics you can work with. It's up to the trainer to develop what they want...then be honest that it was the herding genetics that created the dog to begin with - not the training. Those sport breeders are breeding training and titles, and pretend to be assured that the genetics will fall properly in line behind such.

[Rave]

A "civil" discussion? Is that what you are having? Go back and reread your posts - you have single handedly contributed every "I hate you herding snobs" sentence that ever enters into these discussions, except they are usually offered up by noobs who aren't listening to the conversation, they are just reacting and taking personally generalized comments. I admit I was surprised, and disappointed, to see them come from you.

 

Sorry to see you're misinterpreting my posts and lumping me into some preconceived group. I have several "herding snob" friends as you call them and there's no hatred here, except maybe in your snippy posts. But seriously, if you want to continue this, use the private message feature, b/c it's distracting from the actual convo here. Thanks. ;-)

 

 

Back to the topic at hand...

 

I have noticed that sport people refer to sports as "work." Part of the problem is that they consider their dogs to be working dogs, and therefore on "our" side of the "working/Barbie" divide. Certainly there are sports breeders who realize that they are creating something qualitatively different, but a lot seem to think they are just taking the basic working Border Collie and polishing it up a little, getting rid of the rough edges, and maybe putting a shiny coat of merle paint on it.

Which I guess gets back to my original question: what IS that package they are selecting for, and are they actually getting it? And does it actually make for a better sport dog? Shayna's response way back was actually the most informative in this respect, although it was specific to flyball dogs. My guess is that flyball breeders are looking at a much, much narrower set of criteria than other sport breeders.

 

I think most BC owners recognize or are told their dog needs a "job" to do, even if it's just an outlet for their energy w/o an actual purpose/need. To that end, they refer to it as "work" when it's not the traditional definition.

 

Between the two major sports, flyball breeders tend to be the worst from what I've seen. Their entire breeding program revolves around speed first. Flyballers will put up with a lot of crap (behavior issues) in order to have the fastest dogs. IMO this is worse than a random person breeding their pet BC's (not the high volume BYB's, but the other clueless random folks), since flyballers are breeding over-the-top almost crazy dogs in the interests of speed. It's much easier for a rescuer to place an almost couch potato pet than a high strung one who can't cut it flyball. And flyballers are the WORST (IMO) for discarding "not good enough" dogs.

 

OTOH there's agility breeders. The GOOD ones of this lot want an overall package of structure, health, biddability, good temperament, focus, and sometimes "proven" successful agility parents (bonus if they're handled by some "name"). Yes, they like flashy colors too.... but that's not all they're looking at, it's considered a bonus. Those are the good ones. Unfortunately, there's a lot of bad ones out there too and who knows what they're breeding for.

 

There is such a wide spectrum and large number of sports breeders, I can't even say the "good" ones are in the majority.

[SoloRiver]

And flyballers are the WORST (IMO) for discarding "not good enough" dogs.

 

What do they do with those dogs? When elite sport competitors wash out dogs where do those dogs go?

 

I know that "advanced" stockdog dropouts with some training on them often end up being sold to novice handlers (which can be good or bad, depending on what the new owner thinks s/he is getting) or go on to careers as goosedogs. I am not sure what happens to dogs that are hopeless on sheep from the very beginning, as by the time their owners/trainers give up on them as stockdogs they are usually almost mature and therefore not going to appeal to the puppy market. I do not know firsthand of any sheepdog trainers who have actually dumped dogs in rescue or a shelter, although I have seen washouts on rescue courtesy listings from time to time. That does not mean, obviously, that it never happens.

 

From what Sheena has said, at least some flyball folks have no compunction about dumping the dogs that are "too slow" in rescue. What do agility and obedience people do? There's one high-level agility competitor I know of (not know) personally who goes through dogs like used kleenex (at least one of the participants in this discussion will know who I am talking about) and has been known to dump dogs in rescue occasionally but seems more likely to offer them to random other people who train with or near her (I was offered one of her castoffs before I got Fly, and I had never even spoken to her). I would think that a dog with a certain amount of training on it, be it obedience, agility, or herding (OK, maybe not flyball) would make an ideal pet for someone, but I don't know how much anyone would pay for that.

[airbear]

What do agility and obedience people do?

I only know of one person in our region who has re-homed his agility dog, and that's because the dog was dysplastic. Don't agree with it, and it provoked a lot of anger in our little agility community.

 

And that may be why there is so much obsessing over health checks, genetic testing, early stimulation, etc. We (sporty people) who live in the city or the suburbs are limited as to how many dogs we can have, and rehoming the dog if it is lame/insane/not drivey enough just aren't options.

 

I've heard of some big-name handlers who re-home their dogs who aren't competitive, and that makes me sad. It also makes me sad that fellow competitors will rail about Big Handler's habit of dumping dogs, but will still attend her seminar when she comes through town.

[jdarling]

I only know of one person in our region who has re-homed his agility dog, and that's because the dog was dysplastic. Don't agree with it, and it provoked a lot of anger in our little agility community.

 

Kristi, what were people angry over? That he placed the dog because it was dysplastic rather than taking care of it? Or did he do so without telling the new owner?

 

Jodi

[airbear]

They (and I) were angry that he re-homed the dog because it was dysplastic. All the nice platitudes were given (he'll be so happy in a pet home where he can just be a dog) but I thought it was gross. Violates my mandate that dogs are not sports equipment.

[Lenajo]

Since many people live in dog-limited communities, or just frankly have financial/emotional/time limits, I would rather they *ethically* rehome an unmatched dog than keep it and eventually resent it.

 

Big difference between and ethical rehome and a "dump"

 

But then again, if HD was a huge issue for that person, WHY DID THE IDIOT BUY A PUPPY? Yet again, if you know something is a deal breaker, then buy/adopt a dog that is a guaranteed fit. If HD means rehome, then adopt an adult enough dog to xray!

 

How hard is that to do.....<gggggrrrrrrr>

[jdarling]

I guess I have a different take on it. I have my pets (the dogs who will never go anywhere), and then I have the dogs that I train/trial/compete with. If a dog doesn't work out for one reason or another, I've rehomed them. I didn't even have the excuse that they were dysplastic.

 

Let's loop this back around to something that was mentioned earlier. I bought a dog several years ago. She didn't work out for me, so I "sold" her to a friend of a friend, along with her papers. I recently found out the dog was bred, had a litter, and both the bitch and one of her pups ended up in rescue -- unbenownst to me -- and more importantly for the purpose of this conversation, unbenownst to the breeder of the dog. The dog's papers are laden with well-known stockdog people in the area.

 

So how do you solve that problem? How does someone maintain their lines, maintain complete control over the dogs they've bred, without a contract a mile long (that still ensures nothing) and looking like a control freak? What is too much?