Red Factor

[juliepoudrier]

Jan,
As Roxanne noted lilac and blue are the result of a gene that dilutes the base color (red or black, respectively). It's recessive so can remain "hidden" until someone happens to breed two dogs who carry the dilution gene. Even then, you may get just one pup in the litter with a diluted color. Again the statistics. When there weren't many red dogs, and even fewer dogs who carry the dilution gene, then the chances of getting a lilac puppy are very slim. Unless someone deliberately breeds a red dog to another red (or one that carries red) AND dilute (either parent could carry dilute), you're not going to get lilac. By the time you're done meeting all those criteria, working ability is completely out of the picture. And as I said earlier if certain colors weren't preferred then they wouldn't have been bred from, and thus the genes for those colors would not exist except in a very small percentage in the general breeding population.

 

ETA: So it's not that the genes didn't exist from some point in time during the creation of the border collie, but rather that they weren't generally selected for (or simply chosen) and so never appeared in any great percentage in the working gene pool as a whole.

 

Now, as I said before, because there are so few such dogs in the real working dog gene pool, the chance of having a "candy colored" dog that is also a superior/exceptional worker is just plain slim (consider how few, relatively speaking, top working dogs are produced when breeding the "normal" colors and then add in the tiny percentage of dogs that carry the "nonnormal" colors, which of course severely narrows the choices one could make when selecting a breeding pair). As more folks breed for those colors, the percentage of dogs carrying the genes for those colors will also increase, but because the colors were selected for from the start without much regard to anything but the color, what we end up with is a bunch of dogs with pretty colors and patterns who no longer have the complete complement of genes that make a dog of exceptional working ability. While you could take a candy colored dog and try to breed up, as it were, the fact remains that working ability must be selected for in every generation or genetic drift (and thus loss of at least some part of the total working package) occurs.

 

If we've learned nothing from the AKC and its programs, we should at least have learned that once it's gone, it can't really be put back in. Aficianadoes of other breeds would of course disagree, but there's a reason that the AKC herding program has such a low bar, and it's because those breeds were bred for something else (looks) for so long that they lost whole chunks of the package that makes a great stock working dog. Although such dogs may be useful in some ways, there's a reason that the breeds most often used for working stock are those that haven't been co-opted (or at least not until recently) by conformation programs....

 

Regarding Aussies, they are an American created breed that has been in existence for much less time than the border collie, so it's unlikely merle in the border collie came from an aussie somewhere. As I said before, numerous breeds/types (I use this latter word because dogs weren't really considered breeds as such back before the Victorian era and the advent of conformation showing, but rather types who did specific types of jobs) went into the creation of the border collie as was known in generations past (before the breed's meteoric rise in popularity and the meteoric rise in breeding that goes along with that) and any of those could have carried any of the characteristics that we see in border collies today, not just color. Eye probably came from dogs used for hunting such as pointers or setters, for example. Speed may have come from types we now consider as sight hounds. And so on.

 

And yes, shepherds selecting for preferred looks were in essence making choices based on something other than working ability, but those choices were made after making a cross that that first and foremost was intended to improve the working ability of the dogs being bred and used. And that's the main difference.

 

J.

[Smalahundur]

Regarding Aussies, they are an American created breed that has been in existence for much less time than the border collie, so it's unlikely merle in the border collie came from an aussie somewhere.

Really? I always thought that breed was created in Australia.

[gcv-border]

Really? I always thought that breed was created in Australia.

Yes, that is a common misconception because of the name. I thought so too for a while.

 

Jovi

[GentleLake]

Really? I always thought that breed was created in Australia.

 

Nope.

 

And the English Shepherd is also an American breed.

[GentleLake]

there's a reason that the AKC herding program has such a low bar, and it's because those breeds were bred for something else (looks) for so long that they lost whole chunks of the package that makes a great stock working dog.

 

And this is nothing new, or even since AKC recognition of the border collie.

 

It would have been sometime in the mid '80s that I took my BC bitch to a "Canine Learning Experience" dog show where there was an eye clinic being offered.

 

There was also, among a whole lot of other things including obedience and conformation, a "Herding Instinct Test" being conducted. They had a handful of Indian Runner ducks and a whole lot of AKC herding breeds making fools of themselves in the ring. Most dogs ignored the ducks. Some kinda sorta followed their owners around if they followed the ducks. Everyone involved got really excited when a Beardie puppy thought the ducks were moving toys and pounced on them! All of the dogs that even looked at the ducks were awarded Herding Instinct Certifications.

 

Kate wasn't a particularly impressive working dog on sheep, but after watching this fiasco I knew she could do a whole lot better than any of the dogs I'd seen. And I was curious to see how she'd react to ducks. So I walked over to the people doing the entries and asked if I could give Kate a try. The woman doing the entry forms took one look down at Kate and saw that she was a BC, looked back up at me and promptly turned her back on me without saying a word and walked away.

 

BTW, the dogs in that instinct evaluation are what we have to look forward to in AKC border collies as they continue to choose looks and colors above real working ability.

[Kian's Mom]

Julie and Roxanne

Thank you both for the explanations, they are really easy to understand. Yes the light bulb went on again. LOL

Jan