Free to good home. Non-working Border Collie.

[The Sheep Guy]

Thank you all for your interest. I have found a very suitable home for her. They are easy-going people and no pressure will be put on her to work. She can find her own way in time. Perhaps she will turn out to be a fantastic working Border Collie. She has plenty of life in her to reach her full potential on a non-working ranch.

 

I am sorry for the all the blood being wasted on us. We are a working sheep ranch with not a lot of time for the Internet. I know not everyone who reads our website will agree with us on all the things we do. I also know we do the best we can by our dogs. Anyone who has ever bought or received a dog from this ranch will tell you they got exactly what I said they were getting. We pride ourselves on being straight about our dogs.

 

Thank you for your time,

 

Eric

[Journey]

Good for you Eric! BTW, Domino is cute as a bug

[Sue R]

Thanks, Eric, for finding a good home for this dog and for letting us (all) know she's placed.

 

There has been a certain amount of confusion and disagreement, that's for sure.

[PSmitty]

Hmmmm...dumped? He traded a truck for the dog, so I'd hardly call that "dumped."

 

I'm not quite clear on what you're trying to say with your A vs. B vs. C comments, Wendy. I don't think anyone has been bashing Eric as a *breeder.* I'm not sure if you're addressing Meagan's complaint or not, but the way I see it, if someone came along and offered a dog for adoption and posted a photo of a dog who was apparently pregnant or had recently whelped, and that person were, say, a sport breeder, you don't think folks on this forum would have jumped all over the evidence of the dog having been bred? I think that's the point Meagan was making, and it's certainly the point I was seconding.

 

As for the comments about reading the site in question, it seems like an awful lot of folks didn't bother to look at the picture of the dog in question before informing EK that she was quite out of line for asking about whether the bitch had had puppies. Many of the folks who posted to this thread clearly went to the website and saw the reference to pups for sale, and concluded that EK was mistaken in her assumption about the bitch being rehomed, when in fact, had they actually looked at the posted pictures they might have understood EK's confusion on that matter.

 

I didn't understand the slavery comment, but then I didn't read Eric's entire site. I had read the sheep camp part after suggesting to Liz P that it might make a good working vacation for her (different thread), but I certainly did look at what pups were available this morning after seeing the picture of the non-working bitch in need of a home, trying to figure out if she'd had puppies.

 

I certainly wouldn't say that Eric has done anything wrong here by trying to rehome a non-working dog, but I don't see what was wrong with EK asking the question either. And I see nothing wrong with asking that question here, where the original post was made, vs. privately. Clearly others were wondering the same thing WRT to the bitch in question.

 

J.

 

As usual, so often a voice of reason, Julie!

[Eileen Stein]

I sick of the double-standard about it being "OK" to discuss certain people by name and the attitude of some Boards members and I guess the moderators seems to be: "they can come online and defend themselves" (apparently without a thought as to whether the person can get online or even knows this forum exists). But in a thread not long ago, names were named when someone disagreed with those folks' breeding practices and decisions...and those names were Open handlers. And what happened to that thread? The entire thread was deleted. Why? Nothing said in that thread was any worse or any more libelous than in any other thread about breeding that's been posted on these Boards (and I rather thought it was a bit LESS so).

 

I came to this thread late because I was away at a trial. I deleted Journey's first post (accusing ErinKate of "spouting off") and hoped that would be the end of it. Since then, when I've had access to the Boards, I've watched the thread get worse and worse. I really wanted to delete everything after the first five posts, if only because of the posts telling ErinKate (and then others) that they should not be posting what they posted (in blatant disregard of the rule against telling people what they can and cannot post), but I didn't because there was wrong on both sides, and I hoped the thread might be self-correcting. That turned out to be a vain hope, but nevertheless I'm glad I did not delete, because Kelliwic (and others?) apparently would have interpreted that as a double standard to protect working breeders from criticism. Good grief.

 

The earlier thread that Kelliwic refers to was deleted not because it contained criticism of Open handlers. It was deleted because one of those Open handlers -- plus another, non-working breeder who had also been criticized -- came onto the thread and refuted the allegations made, and the person who originally posted the allegations was unable to substantiate them. I would have thought that was obvious; I even said so in my post about the "naming names" policy on that thread.

 

We do have a policy that breeders may be discussed by name on these Boards. I have stated the parameters of that policy and the reasons for it many times, but I think it would be worthwhile for me to restate all that in a sticky, and I will try to get that done over the next few days. It does not really apply to this thread, however. One can always question a previous poster on the same thread.

 

The OP posted a dog "free to good home" and referred people to his website for details. A poster asked if the dog was pregnant or had recently had pups. The OP posted in response to that question, but did not answer it. There was nothing wrong with asking that question. It was appropriate to ask it on the Boards rather than in a private email, because an answer posted on the Boards would reach other people who might be interested in the dog as well as the questioner. It was not an unreasonable demand on the OP's time (though of course he didn't need to answer if he chose not to). This is not a classified ads site -- if you start a thread you should be prepared to participate in it, and in fact the OP did take the time to reply, though his reply was non-responsive. Pretty much everything that came after that -- the recriminations, the speculations about what the answer might be, the sniping, the irrelevant comments on the OP's employment practices, etc. -- was just part of a big downward spiral. Some people tried to save the situation, some people seemed determined to aggravate it, but the overall result was certainly one of our more depressing threads, at least from a moderator's point of view.

 

I'm going to close the thread now. If you have further comments, please make them to me privately.