Improving the Breed

[geonni banner]

You hear a lot from breed people of all - well, many - breeds about how they're making breeding choices to "improve the breed." For Kerry Blue Terriers that probably means winning more ribbons in the conformation ring. But what about Border Collies?

 

Border Collies are bred for working ability, or at least they should be. So how are the breeders with that aim doing? Are Border Collies better at stock work than they were, say, 50 years ago?

 

Is there a higher percentage of pups per litter that work stock well? Do the best dogs outshine their ancestors?

[mum24dog]

The answer you'd get from some farmers round here is "No" and one reason given is that too many are bred with trialling in mind rather than what they consider real work. They are rather scornful of those who have largely forsaken farming to concentrate on the sporting activity of sheepdog trials and ancillary activities.

 

Tell a local farmer that you are getting a pup from a well known trial breeder and you would be lucky to get an "Oh aye?" out of them. They wouldn't be interested enough to talk to you about it and hero worship doesn't figure large in the British psyche..

 

Another reason quoted is the ubiquitous quad bike which carries the dogs back and forth to their work and results in dogs with less stamina than they used to have. Hard to say whether they would have stamina if they were worked harder or whether stamina has become less important and is being lost.

 

Just relaying what the locals tell me.

[Liz P]

I hate that term. For show dogs, it has meant breeding to more extreme types (think bull dogs and German Shepherds). This has led to the ruin of far too many breeds IMHO.

 

From what I have been told by UK handler and North American handlers who have been around longer than I have, in the USA the quality of handling is still improving, but the quality of trial dogs is likely as good as it will get. (I suspect there is still improvement happening in farm bred dogs via trickle down effect.) In the UK, I think they have likely reached their peak. IOW, right now our goal should be maintaining high quality. You can lose it in as little as one or two generations if you don't constantly select for it.

 

Did that make any sense or was I rambling?

[simba]

I wonder if trials initially improved the quality of both dogs and work, since they provided a venue for people to actually see what was possible. Must hunt up some old collie books and see, most of mine are not written by the right people...

[CMP]

We breed our own dogs and have done so for several generations - the original breeding dogs having come with one of my ancestors when they emigrated from the British Isles. Now and again one or two is added - all from the farmer's e-bay (stock sales, stock yards, across the fence) to ensure a proper genetic diversification. We keep a careful studbook.

 

Our dog people tend to think of the people who trial as people playing at farming and dogs like it is a sport instead of the "strip the flesh from your bones" vocation it actually is. It's a cross between jealousy that some people have enough money to indulge themselves and part frustration that their beloved dogs are being "hi-jacked" by amateurs.

 

The idea here of "improving the breed" got a good chuckle. "Do'ya mean we try and breed good dogs?" was the answer I got when I asked the question. Followed by, "They don't need improving - that's some kennel club yakkety-yak." (And I quote verbatim)

 

I could not begin to tell you how umimportant "style" is to anyone here except in the same way we all admire a graceful act of athleticism. What's important is that the sheep/cattle/goats/horses get moved around safely, efficiently and dependably. They do. No improvement necessary.

[gcv-border]

I think "improvement" can have many definitions. As Liz says, AKC thinks that breeding to a standard (written by whomever or whatever committee) will 'improve' the breed.

 

Probably every knowledgeable herding handler will have a mind's picture of how s/he would improve their dogs - instinctive outrun, just the right amount of eye, etc.

 

IMHO, if the Border Collie breed (working-bred dogs) could maintain the level of work they currently have, but be bred for ideal health (in a fantasy world - no HD, no CEA, no joint issues, no epilepsy, no EOD, no sound reactivity, etc. etc.) -- that would improve the breed.

[geonni banner]

From what I have been told by UK handler and North American handlers who have been around longer than I have, in the USA the quality of handling is still improving, but the quality of trial dogs is likely as good as it will get. (I suspect there is still improvement happening in farm bred dogs via trickle down effect.) In the UK, I think they have likely reached their peak. IOW, right now our goal should be maintaining high quality. You can lose it in as little as one or two generations if you don't constantly select for it.

 

Did that make any sense or was I rambling?

No, that's the kind of thing I'm interested in. I suspect that dog handling skills are improving, (thus performance?) We also know more about dogs that we used to (and less in some ways. We understand more about genetics and veterinary matters, but I suspect that Border Collies are "culled" much less. A number of less talented stock dog puppies in a litter might be tolerated more readily if there is a ready pet-home and sport-home clientele.

 

Someone mentioned that people who breed their own dogs for use with their own livestock will be looking for (keeping) the dogs that do what they need them to. If that is moving dairy cows to milking sheds twice a day it will need one set of skills. If they are running 3,000 head of range ewes, plus rams, that will require a considerably different skill set. Some dogs will be working in stockyards - another skill set. And then there's the "career trial dog." Will he be able to cut it with the folk mentioned above?

 

A Border Collie who keeps seagulls off runways will be doing useful work, but how much stock working ability and/or stamina is actually needed? Does the existence of the true all-rounder prevail? Or is that a myth? Do we still see the dog who can work alone at great distances from the handler? I suspect smaller average holdings may make it difficult to assess whether a dog can have that ability.

[CptJack]

 

The idea here of "improving the breed" got a good chuckle. "Do'ya mean we try and breed good dogs?" was the answer I got when I asked the question. Followed by, "They don't need improving - that's some kennel club yakkety-yak." (And I quote verbatim)

 

 

I tend to actually agree with this. I'm not a farmer. My grandfather was. I'm not claiming to speak from personal experience; I have no livestock.

 

If the dogs are doing what is needed of them and those whose livelyhood is dependent upon them are satisfied and happy, what is the goal you are improving TOWARD? Who gets to determine what a good working dog is, if not the people using them for work?

 

Work is, yes, going to vary enormously. That means a dog bred for generations to move cattle or work a stockyard is going to have different abilities and strengths than one moving thousands of head of sheep on open range, but.. if all parties are happy with the quality of the work their dogs do, and the work is RADICALLY different amongst the people using them for work, then I don't think there can be a universal definition of 'better'.

 

And come to that, I have to confess I think that the idea of a "better dog and/or better dog for most" is fundamentally what the AKC and the confirmation nonsense is about - or treading awfully close to the line of it. They're trying to decide for everyone what makes a dog better, and in doing so are gutting the dogs. I think maybe trying to tell people to breed toward some standard that contradicts, defies, or ignores the standard of work the people using these dogs for a living need is probably not enormously better.

[geonni banner]

Um. I don't think a standard comes into it. At least, not for me. One commonly hears that the Border Collie is the "best" stock dog around for the most types of stock work. I just wondered what it is that breeders do to make that happen. And what is needed to maintain and possibly improve the dogs we have now.

 

One thing mentioned was testing for inherited disorders. That's got to be a good thing to help making breeding decisions. Of course nothing can be known about working ability until the individual dog is put on different kinds of stock in a variety of circumstances. I'm not interested in the idea of building a "super-collie." I'm curious about how breeders are insuring that nothing is lost in the larger picture of the breed's working ability.

[simba]

Does the popular sire effect ever become a problem in the sheepdogging world? Or are people generally better about breeding the 'good to the good' rather than 'everyone to the best'?

[Smalahundur]

"If it ain´t broken don´t fix it".

[CptJack]

Sorry, should have clarified:

Standard of what improvement is.

The work is already the standard. Better or not better is down to the folks using these dogs for their livelyhood to determine, IMO. That means any universally applied 'better' is going to leave some people with 'worse', except generally healthier dogs - and even that has some potential for fallout, given the plummeting number of working farms and ranches utilizing dogs, and therefore the falling number of proven, working, dogs in the gene pool. I'd love healthier dogs, yes, but at the end of the day form follows function and I'm not sure setting up another hoop for people to jump through's really an improvement.

[CMP]

I think it's exactly on point to discuss the various uses and various types of skill sets required of these dogs. The breed works because it is the antithesis of homogenous - there can be no full standard because there is no work standard. So you end up with what we have - dogs with certain instincts (can't be improved upon by design), who bear certain qualities such as character, intelligence, hardiness, speed, agility and biddability (which can be maintained but what sane person would mess with that mix) .

 

We can't improve the breed .. nearly by definition of what a Border Collie *is*. .

[simba]

I wonder if the ability to transport dogs and buy and sell dogs across long distances will improve the breed (with the caveat that that's a loaded phrase with complex interpretations.) You're no longer limited to dogs within driving distance. From the introduction of the train it's been becoming easier and easier to transport dogs, and their genes.

 

That has had some obvious effects in that the border collie has dominated the local landraces of working dog, we don't see the random-bred dog the way we used to (I think I've mentioned on here before about how labradors used to be used to manage cattle.) It's easier to get a better dog for the purpose.

 

So will that mean there's a better genetic diversity of good working dogs, that there will be less homogenity of dogs in an area? Or will it mean that we will lose genetics as dogs are bred from fewer animals, and 'better' dogs imported instead of 'adequate' ones bred?

[Liz P]

The ability to transport dogs and semen long distances is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, you can find the "ideal" mate for your dog. This can improve some lines. On the other hand, local bloodlines are lost and popular sire syndrome is becoming a real problem for our breed.

 

http://www.bcdb.info/article2/wsn2.htm

 

http://www.bcdb.info/article1/WSN1c4.htm

[geonni banner]

CMP says:

“I could not begin to tell you how unimportant "style" is to anyone here except in the same way we all admire a graceful act of athleticism. What's important is that the sheep/cattle/goats/horses get moved around safely, efficiently and dependably. They do. No improvement necessary.”

 

Well and good. I take your point. Your dogs, of your breeding are getting the work done in a very satisfactory manner.

 

I read a good deal here from the “sheepdoggers,” (which to my mind includes the “cowdoggers,”) about how the working Border Collie is under siege by the AKC crowd, the sport crowd, and even occasionally the trialing crowd.

 

I don’t own stock. I don’t own a working Border Collie. I am not an expert on the Border Collie, nor will I ever be. I am simply looking at a breed, or type of dog, called the Border Collie, which has a remarkable talent. A talent which, it seems, quickly erodes to nothing in the hands of anyone not breeding with the sole aim of maintaining said talent.

 

Certainly, when CMP puts a dog to a bitch, he/she does so with the intention of preserving that talent. It’s the only reason for the mating. A working dog is needed so a working dog is bred. Presumably, CMP will strive to produce the best worker possible.

 

I will unashamedly admit that when I watched Patrick Shanahan and Riggs do their stuff at the Nationals a couple of years back, I had tears in my eyes. Even I could see that it was wonderful work.

 

However, (and I mean no disrespect to Mr. Shanahan) if I wanted a dog to look after a flock of sheep with me, and I had a pocketful of money to buy one with, I think I might be better suited with a youngster of Tea’s breeding, than of Patrick’s. Perhaps I am wrong in this. But the way I see it, is that a litter of Tea’s breeding would be created to do a day’s work – day in and day out, in all weathers and with at least two kinds of stock. If I wanted a dog to manage a herd of cows, I might go to Anna Guthrie.

 

Do Tea and Anna trial? Yes. Well, I think Tea trials, and I know Anna does.

 

My sense is that the ultimate aim of Mr. Shanahan’s breeding program is to create the quintessential trial dog. Certainly many of the folk who go to buy a pup of Riggs get are hoping for that.

 

But are the quintessential trial dog and the quintessential working dog the same thing? What I read here on the boards, and what Mum 24 hears from local farmers, suggest that they are not. So if the AKC and the sports crowd are taking great numbers of Border Collies to hell in a hand basket, what are the trialers doing? Certainly, not the pernicious damage of the breed ring, but what? Is there attrition of ability in the trial dog? Will there be an insidious loss of specific aspects of stock-working skill, drained from the breed by the popular sire effect?

 

And what can the working breeders and stockmen and women do to maintain all the necessary components of the old crofter’s dogs that came to this country and blew everyone away with their seemingly endless talent for working stock, their unquenchable vitality and iron stamina?

 

Perhaps I worry needlessly. Perhaps if people like CMP, Tea and Anna – and others, here on the Boards and elsewhere, keep putting the occasional litter on the ground, there will be sufficient dogs coming on to provide working stock keepers with skilled collies. But I was born worrying. I worry about genetic diversity in the breed. I worry about whether there are enough true working collies in this country to maintain that gene pool.

 

I don’t want to suggest that people be told which dogs to breed and whether or not to run half a dozen tests for genetic conditions/diseases in their dogs. I just want to feel that there will always be Border Collies that have an aggregation of traits that everyone who needs a specific kind of worker will be able to find one.

 

OK. Shuttin’ up now…

[simba]

You wouldn't need an attrition of ability, or of specific skills of stock-working skill. All you'd need is selection for some trait or another, which is less useful to the stock-working dog, and gives the dog a slight disadvantage compared to a stock-work bred dog (edit: there has to be a better way to phrase that. Farm-bred dog?)

 

Like you see with field-trial labs (just from the anecdotes I hear, I know nothing about this)- the people who are 'good' at it get dogs who are harder and less biddable, because a good trainer can bring out the great in them. Give that same dog to someone just looking to get their dinner with a gun every so often, and that hard-headedness might not be so easily compensated for.

 

I have no knowledge of this area, this was just a thought inspired by Geonni Banner's very interesting post.

 

Maybe the answer is for lots of people to breed for high-quality work in lots of slightly different areas, with some interchange of genes/lines? Easier said than done...

[mum24dog]

 

 

Our dog people tend to think of the people who trial as people playing at farming and dogs like it is a sport instead of the "strip the flesh from your bones" vocation it actually is. It's a cross between jealousy that some people have enough money to indulge themselves and part frustration that their beloved dogs are being "hi-jacked" by amateurs.

 

 

 

 

Put more bluntly that I, as an outsider, would do but yes.

 

Referring to someone as a "handler" shouts "sport" to me.

 

I suspect that the internet and existence of international trialling competition makes it easier for those in the trialling world to gain a high profile (with more pups sold abroad) than it is for the dedicated working breeder. Do some working breeders feel forced to involve themselves in serious trialling rather than just treating it as a hobby? How good is that for the breed?

 

I've often seen on here the view that only Open trial dogs should be bred from. How often do we see posters looking for a pup told to check for recent trial results in the breeding? How can that be justified?

[Pam Wolf]

First, define "improved" or "Improving Border Collies. I can't say for 50 years, but I've had the working breed since 1979 and they have changed, some better, some worse.

As Liz P says, some of the farm dogs have definitely improved in their working ability. And as Mum says the farmers are not always interested due to the trialing influence (and constant commanding that often happens at trials).

From what I've seen, the dogs are softer-not always bad until breeders prefer breeding softer dogs to make them easier for the city people to live with-then much like the show people who breed for the 'wrong' traits these people are setting a priority on 'easy to live with'. Softer dogs often do not pack the punch for tougher livestock, however OTOH they are much easier to live with on a daily basis as a general rule and require less input to keep them under control (the 'off switch').

While it would be great if only dogs capable of competing at Open were the only ones bred, that ain't gonna happen unfortunately. Even Open winners sell to sport/pet homes and these people often bred their dogs. Moreover, there is still the attitude that if you breed your non working pet bitch to my stud you are 'improving' the breed--but is that true anymore?

30 years ago, the last statement probably was true cause just about every dog was either working or directly from working stock. But not today and I'd question the validity of the idea.

[Tea]

Patrick is someone I regularly go to for advice and lessons when I have the $. He is the person that told me my dogs would learn to understand, this is the job today, Loading mama cows, or trialing on 3 sheep, I am grateful to him as his saying that kept me from giving up, him and Gloria and a few others. Everyone has a type it seems that suits them. And their work.

Unless I have walked in their shoes. I say very little.

[CMP]

When I wanted a small boned, gentle female for training in a specific type of service work (the elderly) I had to go outside our own dogs/breeding program. As you say, those dogs are bred for their work and they are "hard" dogs with very independent minds - much larger and coarser than I wanted (where the visual actually is important). Ours are fairly aggressive, used to making decisions and semi-intolerant of too much handling.

 

She comes from "working" dogs but not the sort that work like ours do - the sort that works on 80 head of sheep and plays fetch in the evenings and goes to trials and wins ribbons.

 

I am not looked upon entirely favourably by everyone here for this. "As long as you don't put a costume on her or make her dance," was one comment. Having her spayed was a condition of her coming here to the farm to live.

 

My puppy, Molly, would not have made the grade here - she would be seen as too physically fragile and with no hereditary proof of her character or stamina, she's a cipher in terms of "worth".

 

Trialling is not the problem - it's the influx of weekend warriors to them that is the problem. Trials started like local fairs did - as a way for local farmers to get together and wager over a pint who had the better dog or who was the better 'herd. They were legitimate ways to prove a dog's worth and winning dogs were asked to stand stud or be bred and those puppies were worth something. It is not that way now. Trials contributed, in many ways, to the breed being what it is. Ironic, in some ways, that the same activity is connected, possibly, to the decline of the breed as working dogs.

[Mark Billadeau]

We can't improve the breed .. nearly by definition of what a Border Collie *is*. .

 

While I generally agree that we cannot improve the breed, the ideal of a Border Collie. I do believe we can improve the gene pool (and therefore the breed as a whole) by increasing the number of individual dogs that approach the ideal.

 

I also have a problem with the idea the dog reaches the ideal when it "can get the job done" because for strictly farmers/ranchers the job that needs being done does not have the same complexity/difficulty from farm to farm and region to region. A dog capable of getting the job done on a fenced east coast farm may or may not be capable of getting the job done in the west out on the open range; how the livestock is managed alters how they react to dogs and what is required from the dog to get the job done. Trialling at the national level exposes handlers and dogs to this while attempting to get the same job done and can be one of many tools in selecting breeding stock.

[CMP]

 

While I generally agree that we cannot improve the breed, the ideal of a Border Collie. I do believe we can improve the gene pool (and therefore the breed as a whole) by increasing the number of individual dogs that approach the ideal.

 

I also have a problem with the idea the dog reaches the ideal when it "can get the job done" because for strictly farmers/ranchers the job that needs being done does not have the same complexity/difficulty from farm to farm and region to region. A dog capable of getting the job done on a fenced east coast farm may or may not be capable of getting the job done in the west out on the open range; how the livestock is managed alters how they react to dogs and what is required from the dog to get the job done. Trialling at the national level exposes handlers and dogs to this while attempting to get the same job done.

Good points. I think it's awesome for the farmers/ranchers who can get to trials and compete - as you say it helps keeps the gene pool broad and diverse and allows for dogs with this or that inheritable trait to spread their goodness, if you will. It's how it was done in the past. A local place held a trial and the local farmers entered and thus breeding arrangements were born. It created the Border Collie, by and large.

 

The problem is that back then nobody bought a herding dog and then got a few sheep to teach themselves and the dog how to work them and then entered trials. THAT is the problem, in my opinion. Dogs that can learn to herd animals may not be the same as dogs who herd animals day in and day out for a decade under real conditions.

 

What can get lost in the translation are those special qualities of durability and endurance (mental and physical) and ability to make decisions in difficult situations that can only be proven one way.

[Mark Billadeau]

I would put it a different way. There is a difference between dogs that are taught to compete in trials vs. dogs that are taught to work livestock. The former are taught very narrow skills while the latter are taught broad skills that can be applied to trials and farm work.

[CMP]

I would put it a different way. There is a difference between dogs that are taught to compete in trials vs. dogs that are taught to work livestock. The former are taught very narrow skills while the latter are taught broad skills that can be applied to trials and farm work.

Yes, that is a good framework for the discussion.

 

Our dogs that primarily work sheep, for instance, are quite a different sort from those who deal with the heavy animals (cattle and horses) - and the two that mostly work with the Rams and dealing with stock culling are different from the four who work the flocks and so on. One needs deftness and composure, the other needs a certain sort of arrogance ... so, yes.

 

Ha - I think we worry too much about it - the breed flourished because it was useful. It still is and so long as that continues to be true the breed will evolve - and one hopes it evolves for the better but either way none of us have any control :/