30 Year Club

[Pam Wolf]

Just curious: How many people on this board have had Border Collies for 30 years?

[desertranger]

I got my first BC in 1974, 35 years ago.

[Sue R]

My first, a pet, was Lady back about 1955, at a guess.

 

But a working Border Collie (at least a farm-bred cross-bred dog)? That would be 1986. But any real opportunity for understanding, training, and help with a working Border Collie? That would be 2003.

 

Paraphrasing what someone once said about my dog, and applying it to me - I am older in years but younger in training.

[kajarrel]

I got my first border collie in 1979, before my junior year in college, but didn't start working border collies until 1995 or so when we FINALLY moved to a farm and got sheep (lifelong dream).

 

Kim

[NCStarkey]

Hello everyone,

 

I have had Border Collies since 1971, and my first Border Collie helped me operate a boarding stable.

 

Regards,

nancy

[aljones]

Since you placed this "Under the Handlers Tent," Pam, you're probably looking for folks with 30+ years' experience working dogs.

 

But I'll mention that I've had border collies since 1977, first as kind of all-purpose farm dogs growing up and then as pets as an adult. And the first two BCs I had as an adult were actually out of a bitch you bred--one of them had washed out of a working placement, so we were an especially good match.

[somewhereinusa]

Working Border Collies for 37.

[kajarrel]

Since you placed this "Under the Handlers Tent," Pam, you're probably looking for folks with 30+ years' experience working dogs.

 

Well, I feel pretty silly . . .

 

Kim

[aljones]

Well, I feel pretty silly . . .

Sorry, Kim--that was not my intent at all!

 

I first saw the title of this thread right after Pam posted it this morning but had been hesitant to reply to it because I didn't know if I should or not. So I guess I was trying to hedge my bets with my response, along the lines of "not sure if you care, but I'm going to chime in anyway."

[Pam Wolf]

Actually I was not sure where to put it. Since many of the people who had BC's 30 years ago DID have/work their dogs, it was a given I thought. I would also like to meet/know who has had them. The explosion of Border Collies as pets came about within the last 20 years or so.

[kajarrel]

No offence taken, I just didn't think . . . :-) Ironically, my first border collie came from a shelter in Philadelphia.

 

For what it's worth, today there are quite a few people living around me in their late 70s or 80s who "grew up with border collies." This part of NY State was a big sheep area at one point in time, but I get a sense that the dogs these people grew up with were "general farm dogs" rather than "herding dogs" per se. Today, I see border collies on many of the farms I pass by but, again, I rarely see them working (we're a dairy region now).

 

Kim

[Sue R]

What you say about folks "growing up with Border Collies" is something I run into all the time when I take my dogs to Lowe's, and when I used to take them on therapy dog visits to the rehab center. The folks can be younger than me (usually with grandparents or even parents who lived on farms) or older than me - one was even from the UK, and had lost his beloved dog not too long back.

 

The common thread for the folks I meet though are that those dogs lived on farms, their farms, their parents' or grandparents' farms, or neighboring farms even if they were largely pets. They didn't live in town.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

A TON of people around here had Border Collies as pets 20 to 40 years ago - they even know some of the old names in the breed, the Ousleys, Fred Bahnson, etc - I even went to church with someone who knew Jack Knox when he worked for Mr. Bahnson.

 

Of course many farmers had them as working dogs too. But in this state a lot of those farmers sold out a long time ago.