The DogRead Manifesto

[SoloRiver]

In light of recent discussions I thought this might be interesting:

 

DogRead is a fantastic email discussion list for people who like to read about dogs. Each month, we pick a book, the author joins us, and we talk about it. The list is very high-volume so I don't keep up with it every month but a couple of months ago, the discussion was about Dog Breeding as a Fine Art, by Amy Fernandez, who breeds Chinese Cresteds. The majority of folks on the list are part of the "dog fancy" (i.e., kennel club/sports folks) so I was sort of dreading the discussion but it was much more even-handed than I'd expected. Still, there came a point where I felt I had something different to contribute and below, I've quoted what I wrote.

 

After I posted this, I got a number of interesting responses, both privately and on the list. All of them were positive. Here is one:

 

"Thank you. Some of your phrases and ideas are somehow fresh and right on a subject I've been reading on for a half century. The AKC theory was that a good dog judge should be able to tell more about a dog from feeling its structure and seeing it move at a trot for even a short distance than the average breeder in love with what they have. But you have changed my mind."

 

Sometimes I feel like proponents of the working Border Collie are just banging our heads against the wall when we try to outline our point of view. But it turns out there are people out there to hear us.

 

Never despair, keep the faith, and fight the good fight.

 

----------

 

Subject: Interesting discussion (was Re: Border Collies)

Date: April 15, 2004 5:42:58 PM EDT

To: DogRead@yahoogroups.com

 

I'd like to thank our current author and the DogRead folks for a very interesting discussion thus far this month.

 

My computer's been in the shop since the beginning of the month and I just got it back, so I've spent the last hour or so catching up on the discussion. I have to admit I was anticipating this month's topic with a bit of trepidation. My dogs are Border Collies. One is a rescue of random breeding from good working/trialing lines, meaning that he is from working dogs but is not working bred, as in the goal behind his breeding was not to produce good working dogs (my suspicion is that it was to produce red dogs, but that's just a theory). I'm saying this because my friends (in other breeds) tend to use the term "working bred" as a euphemism for "not show bred," as if not selecting for the breed ring automatically results in a "working" or "field" dog. These friends of mine tend to also not realize that it takes as much or more careful breeding to produce an excellent working dog as it does to produce a winning show dog. But I digress. My other dog is a trained bitch of impeccable trial/working breeding that I imported from the UK a couple of years ago. I work both of my dogs on sheep (as a hobby, since I have none of my own) and compete with the imported bitch in USBCHA sheepdog trials. In civilian life, Solo the rescue does agility and Fly the blueblood is learning flyball.

 

I don't think Border Collies belong in the breed ring. What constitutes "breed type" to me, for these dogs, cannot be assessed in any way, shape, or form simply by looking at a dog. Therefore, selecting breeding animals on the basis of the breed ring is at best irrelevant and at worst a subversion of what these dogs are supposed to be. This does NOT NOT NOT mean that I think structurally unsound animals should be bred, nor do I think genetically unhealthy animals should be included in the gene pool (two straw man arguments often aimed at proponents of working Border Collies), because the breed ring is necessary for assessing neither structural soundness or genetic health. This breed has always been utilitarian, and it has never been selected for beauty, which is why it remained below the notice of the dog fancy for so long, I believe. I love the physical variation in this breed, which is as striking as is the absolute canalization of its behavior. Coppinger's and Coppinger's concept of "behavioral conformation" applies here: whether they look like whippets, or lab mixes, or exactly like the dog in "Babe," you know a Border Collie when you see one by the way it moves, by its eye, and most importantly (of singular importance, I should say) how they work livestock. They are unmistakeable. I don't think a breed standard has to say anything about how a dog should look to be both useful and operational. My dogs don't look anything alike, but if you see them walking together you know instantly that they are of the same blood.

 

The defining trait of this breed is how it works livestock. Most Border Collies have Irish markings, but they're irrelevant to working stock, it's just founder effect. Not defining. There's a whole slew of stereotyped behavioral quirks that go along with the working heritage, which most Border Collie owners adore and find to be quintessentially "Border Collie" (the crouching, the staring, the obsessiveness, the extreme biddability) but they're only symptoms, not the underlying cause -- a by-product, not what you breed for. The most difficult trait to stabilize in Border Collies is working ability. Most Border Collies will work stock to some extent, even if they are not well-bred or have fairly distant real working ancestry (a tribute to the power of breeding for function), but breeding Border Collies that work stock at the highest levels of ability is both science and art.

 

To me, there are two components to the term "breed." It implies both commonality of ancestry, and commonality of breeding goals or standards. To me, there are "Border Collies" out there that have diverged so far from the second component that they are no longer Border Collies, even if they still lay claim to the name on the virtue of the first component. Working Border Collie people call them "Barbie Collies" and I think everyone recognizes that they are essentially a separate breed from the "real" Border Collies, the scruffy sheep-herding dogs. However, the bigger question I see in this breed is is posed by those breeders out there staking out a middle ground and trying to produce dogs who do "it all," because their version of "good enough" when it comes to stock working ability can be quite laughable compared to what better-bred members of the breed can do. It's hard to breed the best working dogs. It's even harder if you start throwing in criteria like is his hair long enough or silky enough or gee, I wish he was just a tad shorter in the back and had a bit more stop and his ears were a bit higher or, I picked this stud because I know he carries red or because he's merle. And hey, he's good at flyball. Once you start compromising like that, it's impossible to breed the best working dogs. And even if you could care less about working sheep, you still end up losing the essential nature of the breed, bit by bit and if you like the breed the way it is, this is something that upsets you. What is a Border Collie? Is it something you can pretty up, or by doing so, by attempting to put that little bit of polish on it, will you irreparably damage what you have?

 

I've seen Border Collies do 600-yard outruns to pick up sheep they couldn't see (tall grass) and that I could only see as specks on the horizon that were approximately the same color as the horizon. I've seen Border Collies turn charging mother ewes by force of will, simply stepping forward and flashing teeth, and without ever putting the lamb in danger. I've seen my bitch Fly take a line on a drive and hold it without any obvious landmarks or any commands from me and march those sheep away from me straight as a ruler for 200, 300 yards and she could have kept going for 200, 300, 400 more. How does she know just where to be, just how to look at them, just when to turn her head, just when to move up and just when to hang back, to get them to go where she wants them to go, where I want her to take them? It's in her genes.

 

I've also seen enough of the results of "do it all" breedings to know that this kind of ability is the first thing that is lost when you start compromising on breeding decisions because darn it, you think working ability is important but you also wish your dogs were a little bit prettier or that they came out red or merle a little more often. I actually don't mind the Barbie Collies all that much: they are what they are and everyone knows exactly what that is and no one thinks they're working dogs or that they really herd sheep, except for the very few and the misguided. The "do it all" dogs, however, claim to be working dogs, and you know, some of them actually turn out quite nice in that respect but it's by accident, not design. And the rest work "well enough" but that's not the same as working really well. Are they nice dogs? Yeah. Are they the same dogs? No. And are they good Border Collies? That's the question, isn't it?

 

I know that there aren't as many farms out there as there used to be, and I know that the demand for herding dogs isn't what it used to be either. I know that there are a hell of a lot more people out there who like to do flyball or agility than there are people like me who spend our weekends standing around outside at 6 AM whistling our dogs around sheep. But you know what, the demand for dogs who can win shows isn't all that big either -- most people just want a dog that looks sort of like the pictures in the books and makes a nice, easy pet. I don't think "lowest common denominator" arguments are good ones for breeding dogs. Standards may change, breeds may evolve, this is true. But it is also true that when they do, the dogs end up being something that is both qualitatively and quantitatively different. I love my dogs and hope I always have dogs like them (if I get the sheep I want to get eventually, I'll NEED dogs like them) and that such dogs won't be rare or a minority in the breed or hard to find. To me it's not worth it to lose what I think of as the defining character of the breed, to trade it in for a dog that's a bit prettier or faster in agility.

 

Someone asked what advantages AKC registration has to offer to Border Collies. I don't want to get into that controversy here, but I will say that in my opinion, very few to none. The only one I can come up with is that if you like competitive obedience, AKC is the most widespread venue, but you can compete in AKC obedience with an ILPed dog or a dog on limited registration, and there's also ASCA obedience that doesn't require AKC registration. I don't think Border Collies fit into the "kennel club" paradigm very well, because the kennel club's main arena for judging breeding quality is the breed ring, and for Border Collies this is like judging the quality of a beef steer by analyzing the tonality of its moo. And for all other dog sports there are plenty of venues available that do not require AKC registration (NADAC, USDAA, NAFA, APDT Rally, etc.). The USBCHA (United States Border Collie Handler's Association, affiliated with ABCA and USBCC) herding trial program is the most active, demanding, and appropriate for testing the abilities of dogs that work like Border Collies. A dog doesn't have to be registered at all -- in fact, doesn't even have to be a Border Collie -- to compete in these trials. I've seen Kelpies and Aussies competing in USBCHA trials, having fun too. If there were such thing as a Lhasa Apso who could get the sheep through the course, he'd be welcome to compete, too. My dogs are ABCA and ISDS registered. Solo, my rescue, has an ILP because I thought I might do obedience with him, but he hates obedience and decided he'd rather do agility. If I'd known then what I know now about Border Collies, I wouldn't have gotten the ILP in the first place, but I didn't know, so I did. I'm not a real big fan of AKC, I'll admit that up front. I think they offer lots of nice things for other breeds and enjoy dog shows and think the breed ring is a fine place to judge other dogs. Just not Border Collies.

 

I like to think that there is room in the dog world for a breed to be defined by performance and not looks. That's why I was pleasantly surprised by the discussions there have been so far this month. I wasn't expecting the conversation to be as even-handed as it's been and didn't think I'd feel comfortable enough to contribute. Well, now I have. I hope I haven't offended anyone. These are only my opinions, although they are by no means unique opinions. Thanks.

 

-- Melanie, Solo the Red, and Superfly

[Eileen Stein]

Great post, Melanie.