Finding a breeder

[GentleLake]

I could be wrong on those numbers, but I do remember hearing they were very high.

 

In a quick search, I found this on the International Association of Assistance Dog Partners' page on finding a suitable candidate for assistance dog work: Animal Shelters: Finding a suitable candidate for assistance dog work in an animal shelter or dog pound won't be easy. According to a 1997 poll of the non profit training programs that belong to Assistance Dogs International, only a small percentage of the dogs evaluated by them at animal shelters over the course of a year were able to pass the initial screening tests given on the spot. Recent statistics from Paws With A Cause, one of the largest providers of hearing dogs and service dogs in the USA, put its success rate with 600 of the best shelter dogs they could obtain last year at only 25%. Over a third of the dogs had to be dropped from training due to bad hips and other health defects. The other big reason for failure during training was the manifestation of an aggression problem related to people, cats, dogs, food or territory." (http://www.iaadp.org/sources.html)

 

Interestingly, they also have this to say about starting with an adult rather than a puppy: "ADVANTAGES OF AN ADULT CANDIDATE VERSUS A PUPPY

A big advantage of starting with an adult candidate vs. a puppy is the fact the adult could begin serious training immediately. The results of the health and temperament screening are far more meaningful if performed on an adult (age 18 months to 3 yrs.) rather than on a puppy. It is true that occasionally an adult may fail due to a latent health or temperament problem that doesn't manifest itself for several months, but the risk of this happening is very low, compared to the risk of a puppy failing because of a serious health or temperament problem after a year of careful nurturing. An emotionally mature adult will master the schooling for good manners much faster than puppies or adolescent dogs. The guide dogs and hearing dogs trained by non profit programs may be ready for placement (team training) in as little as four to six months. A service dog's education make take 8 months to a year, but if living with the person while undergoing training, an adult could begin performing simple tasks around the house in as little as six weeks. The advantages of starting with an adult should be carefully considered when selecting a dog for this career." (Ibid)

 

I have a friend who's raised pups for one of the guiding eye groups. Her therapy dog, a Golden/Lab mix bred by the group, is one she raised but was given back to her after he failed out of training -- maybe because of his hips? I'll see if she can point me to any statistics.

[Maralynn]

If you go the rescue route you have to be prepared to sort through A LOT of dogs. Like at least a hundred. I know people who swear by rescues and others who swear by working bred pups. Both end up being pretty equally successful.

[juliepoudrier]

I'm not sure I'm following you here. Are you saying it's bizarre that people who trial should be the ones recommending dogs for stockwork to farmers? Or are you saying it's bizarre that people who trial and who also don't farm (on any scale, before that comes up) are encouraging farmers to use dogs?

 

I don't farm on a large scale, but I raise sheep primarily because I like raising livestock (and I was raised on a farm--again not a huge working farm, but one that supplied us with the milk, eggs, produce, etc. we needed for our family). I don't make a living raising stock, but I supplement my living. I do not keep sheep primarily to train dogs (anyone who knows me knows that I don't do much training, but we do plenty of practical work).

 

Anyway, back to the topic. I do demos when asked. It's a great way to inform the public what real working border collies are and what they can do. People are generally very receptive and ask many great questions. I don't reach out to the farming community per se, but when I converse with folks who farm but don't use dogs, the topic often comes up in one form or another. Today, for example, I was talking to a gentleman who was interested in my Suffolk ram. Not only did we discuss the value of UK/NZ genetics in the Suffolk breed for a grass-based system, hair sheep vs wool sheep, our market for the lambs we produce (he also raises Jersey cattle), but we also talked about working dogs. He's looking for one that can work his cattle and sheep. He doesn't need anything fancy, just something that with minimal training can bring the stock in, load a trailer, and work the pens/chutes at the stockyard.

 

In the past he has used an aussie, a heeler, and an aussie/pit bull cross. Someone local to him came out to buy some sheep and used her border collie to gather his flock. He was super impressed that the dog went out through one pasture, into another, and then found and gathered the sheep and brought them back through the gate between the pastures (this is a 500-acre farm, but I don't know how big the pastures are) to their feet. Now he wants a border collie.

 

I believe the person who did that doesn't own sheep, or if she does, just a few. But the fact that her dog was capable of doing a simple job that I think any well-bred border collie could do, this fellow now wants a border collie and recognizes what help they can be. He doesn't want or need a fully trained dog (doesn't want to pay a great deal of money).

 

I don't see how his introduction to working border collies through a trialer and/or hobby farmer is such a bizarre or awful thing. If the real farmers are too busy to leave the farm to trial or do demos, who else will be able to introduce other farmers to the possibility of using dogs?

 

J.

*I know it's valid* ... but there is a cognitive disconnect with sheepdpg trialers showing farmers the way to using dogs.

 

Wow. Just wow. Only in (North) America could such a seemingly bizarre sentiment be expressed with so much confidence.

 

And be true.

 

That all said, I completely agree. Not that non-farmers who trial are the right folks to be championing the cause [1], but that (a) farmers need to be informed and ( those already using dogs need to become involved and stop being so insular and uppity about it all.

 

 

[1] But since they seem to be the only ones stepping up, it's a hard case to make.

[CMP]

I'm not sure I'm following you here. Are you saying it's bizarre that people who trial should be the ones recommending dogs for stockwork to farmers? Or are you saying it's bizarre that people who trial and who also don't farm (on any scale, before that comes up) are encouraging farmers to use dogs?

Yes, that folks who not "really" farm (as in make a sole living at it), should be having to encourage folks who do to use a "system" that was once the sole domain of those farmers. So they gave it to the public, who made a sport of it, and that sporting public is now in a position where it is trying to sell it back to its own source.

 

Yes, that *is* strange to me.

 

Not bad, just strange.

 

It is definitely something one should be thankful for.

 

I don't farm on a large scale, but I raise sheep primarily because I like raising livestock (and I was raised on a farm--again not a huge working farm, but one that supplied us with the milk, eggs, produce, etc. we needed for our family). I don't make a living raising stock, but I supplement my living. I do not keep sheep primarily to train dogs (anyone who knows me knows that I don't do much training, but we do plenty of practical work).

 

Anyway, back to the topic. I do demos when asked. It's a great way to inform the public what real working border collies are and what they can do. People are generally very receptive and ask many great questions. I don't reach out to the farming community per se, but when I converse with folks who farm but don't use dogs, the topic often comes up in one form or another. Today, for example, I was talking to a gentleman who was interested in my Suffolk ram. Not only did we discuss the value of UK/NZ genetics in the Suffolk breed for a grass-based system, hair sheep vs wool sheep, our market for the lambs we produce (he also raises Jersey cattle), but we also talked about working dogs. He's looking for one that can work his cattle and sheep. He doesn't need anything fancy, just something that with minimal training can bring the stock in, load a trailer, and work the pens/chutes at the stockyard.

 

In the past he has used an aussie, a heeler, and an aussie/pit bull cross. Someone local to him came out to buy some sheep and used her border collie to gather his flock. He was super impressed that the dog went out through one pasture, into another, and then found and gathered the sheep and brought them back through the gate between the pastures (this is a 500-acre farm, but I don't know how big the pastures are) to their feet. Now he wants a border collie.

 

I believe the person who did that doesn't own sheep, or if she does, just a few. But the fact that her dog was capable of doing a simple job that I think any well-bred border collie could do, this fellow now wants a border collie and recognizes what help they can be. He doesn't want or need a fully trained dog (doesn't want to pay a great deal of money).

 

I don't see how his introduction to working border collies through a trialer and/or hobby farmer is such a bizarre or awful thing. If the real farmers are too busy to leave the farm to trial or do demos, who else will be able to introduce other farmers to the possibility of using dogs?

 

J.

 

Agreed that it is not awful. Not one bit. I refuse to give up on my belief that it is bizarre. though, because I think that's valid. Maybe ironic is the better word.

[juliepoudrier]

I agree it would certainly be ironic in the UK if trialists/hobbyists were encouraging farmers to use dogs, but here the dogs were't a given for farmers/ranchers, so it's not so bizarre, IMO, that those same farmers/ranchers are unaware of the usefulness of dogs (border collies weren't developed here, after all, and the farming traditions here are a bit different as well). This ties in with the same old argument about finding working bred dogs and how the whole concept is part of the fabric of life in the UK, where even the city folks know what working sheepdogs are, but that is most certainly not the case in this country.

 

Consider the working cow horse. Here, in the west, farmers and ranchers understand the value of a good cow horse. It's part of their cultural tradition to use horses to manage cattle. Imagine if reining, roping, etc., became popular in the UK as a sport. Imagine then if those people who competed in roping and also kept some cattle for that purpose started promoting a good working cow horse to farmers in the UK who had never had a need (at least that they knew of) for a good horse to help them work their cattle (okay, you will have to use your imagination to see farmers in the UK running cattle over large land areas and needing horses to help with that, so please do so for the sake of the analogy). Is that so bizarre?

 

Considering the vastness of this country and the isolation of some of the huge farms/ranches historically (as in it could take a day's ride, say, to go visit your nearest neighbor), it's not at all surprising to me that use of dogs to manage livestock would not simply grow organically once one person (or a few people) started doing it.

 

J.

[Donald McCaig]

Dear Doggers,

 

Reports of collies working stock in the US date from the 1840's though many of these dogs were probably more like English Shepherds (combination guarding/herding) dogs). I've seen photographs of Collies with sheep in Montana in the late 19th century - a good many western sheep farmers were Scottish descent (Read "This House of Sky") and of course they used dogs. Arthur Allen's father's dogs drove cattle and sheep and guarded them.

 

Penny Tose's history of US sheepdog trials goes back to the 19th century, often attached to fairs, rodeos or livestock expos.

 

After WW2, US sheep numbers fell off a cliff. Americans never did like lamb (we're a Cowboy Nation) and the mutton in army rations was, by all accounts, indescribable. While I've seen photos of 1950's sheepherders with dogs, excepting the basques they were very much a second class population. Most were busted-down cowboys with little use for sheep and no knowledge of dogs. One rancher told me, "I just got sick and tired of having a saloonkeeper call me and say, "Joe, your herder's horse has been tied to my hitchrack for three days."

 

Most of the eastern sheepdogs were English Shepherds and most of the western ones were Australian Shepherds. They weren't asked to do much and knowledge of what they could do died out.

 

There weren't many trials - the Pulfers used to drive from Ohio to run in the Blue Hill (timed) fair trial and no easy way to acquire the skills to use the dogs. Ethel Conrad had the first sheepdog handler's clinic with Arthur Allen in 1978(?). The clinics made it possible for a very expert handlers to supplement their farming income by teaching and importing dogs.

 

I remember when Jack Knox was invited to go out to a winter Montana livestock show - 1986(?). After his demonstration there, he was invited back to do a spring clinic (all ranchers), the Montana Sheepdog Assn was formed and that fall they had their first trial.

 

While most skilled livestock men can use a Border Collie to some advantage (I've known show jock's dogs who could fetch and pen but had no notion of driving or shedding) learning to get the most out of one of these dogs is often counter intuitive and requires either a culture of use (UK, New Zealand, OZ) or skilled instructors (US & Europe). In the last two, the trial people brought the dogs to the farmers and I'm inclined to surmise that when New Zealanders imported the sheepdog they called "The Border Boss" they may have been doing something like.

 

Donald McCaig