Border Collie or Mini Am/Aus Shepherd ?

[mseaver]

The female dog on the left of the accompanying photo is a registered Miniature American Shepherd (nee: Mini Aus Shep).  The vestiges of her naturally bobbed tail curve up and forward, Spitz-like.  She stands perhaps 15-16" at the withers and weighs in the m-30lb's.

The male on the right stands 20" at the withers.  In the photo (l-Nov/22), the male was 18mo and obese at 50lbs.  Now (e-Mar/23) he weighs 45lbs and remains on a gentle downward track towards a more appropriate wgt.

A dog novice whose first language is not English adopted the dog on the right as an 8wo pup from a rural breeder.  The owner believes that the breeder declared the pup to be an unregistered pure-bred BC.  The pup's siblings, sire, dam and grand dam were on site at the time of the adoption.

When you study physical characteristics (such as: muzzle length, folded ears, leg length, Spitz-like tail) of the male on the right, does he appear to be a BC to you?

 

[mseaver]

Current feature story on the subject of the reliability of some Dog DNA Testing services.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-dog-dna-test-1.6763274
How accurate are dog DNA tests? We unleash the truth
By Jenny Cowley, Travis Dhanraj
CBC News 2023.03.04

"Marketplace recruited two mixed-breed dogs, one purebred dog and one human (Marketplace's very own Travis Dhanraj) to test the accuracy of consumer dog DNA tests. Their DNA was sent to four companies that claim to specialize in dog genetic testing: Wisdom Panel, Embark, Accu-metrics and DNA My Dog. "

[beachdogz]

On 3/3/2023 at 11:02 AM, mseaver said:

A dog novice whose first language is not English adopted the dog on the right as an 8wo pup from a rural breeder.  The owner believes that the breeder declared the pup to be an unregistered pure-bred BC.  The pup's siblings, sire, dam and grand dam were on site at the time of the adoption.

 

I'm not going to register a guess on this.  I am, however, going to address the above quote regarding someone saying it was an unregistered pure-bred BC.  

Years ago a vet suggested a young couple bring me their new "pure bred" German Shepherd puppy which had papers.  They called first -- and I asked why the vet questioned it.  They said it had hanging ears (most shepherd puppies do not have upright ears), it had a white toe on its foot (that can happen) and a white spot on its chest (also can happen.)  Well, when they brought me the pup, the ears were hanging to almost the shoulder (think hound), the white toe was actually a sock, and the white spot on the chest was the whole chest and it had ticking!!  I suggested they call the "breeder" and they did.  Seems they owned both "registered" sire and dam.  This was the first time they ever bred a dog.  Once they got a "tie", they thought the bitch was bred.  So they just left her out in the fenced back yard randomly for the rest of her season.  I'm guessing she had multiple "visitors" or at least one with ticking!  They believed they had pure-bred puppies and the papers to prove it.  So "papers" don't prove a thing.  Only thing you can rely on is a breeder you can trust.

p.s.  The couple was simply uneducated and contacted all their buyers, returned all their money, and offered to take back any puppy that was then unwanted.  They then had both the dogs fixed.  The end. 

 

[mseaver]

Oh, my!  THAT was an expensive education for the couple  - in more ways than one.

As to the provenance of the male above on the right, I sense that I need to rephrase in order to improve odds of eliciting comments here.  Rather than do this, I'll let the matter rest.  I know what I think (and I haven't even touched on personality).

Thanks for the response