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Is there a real difference?


Pam Wolf
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Time again for the Show dog photos going around the internet and the usual trashing of the show dogs. One discussion got me to thinking. The people who truly work the dog, not just a handful of school sheep a few times a week, but depend on the dogs for their livelihood, require different traits in the dogs. However the majority of breeders of working dogs probably come (in the US at least) from the trials world and encompass a wide range of working types.

 

People decry the loss of the strong dog that can go all day, yet I often hear breeders saying they want a softer, easier to live with sort of dog. Often they look for a low keyed easy to handle dog that is content to lie around all day and go out to trials on the weekends. They do not want an energetic dog (or cannot manage one that is energetic). They may win trials, but IMO are producing a watered down version.

 

How is this any better than the show/sport person breeding dogs? Should not the working person strive to at least maintain or improve the overall quality of the breed?

 

Using the target analogy: It appears the red zone is getting smaller the next zone (orange?) is being used more and being bred to the next (yellow) or worse to the white. Still more often I wonder if there is not more Yellow to yellow bred in effort to produce a 'more livable' type of dog.

Just another 'rant' on the decline of the working dog overall

 

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People decry the loss of the strong dog that can go all day, yet I often hear breeders saying they want a softer, easier to live with sort of dog. Often they look for a low keyed easy to handle dog that is content to lie around all day and go out to trials on the weekends. They do not want an energetic dog (or cannot manage one that is energetic). They may win trials, but IMO are producing a watered down version.

 

This description is not my experience for the working&trialing breeders I have/would purchase dogs from; there are breeders I would not buy from. There are plenty of breeders who trial and run large flocks as a business.

 

But I guess it would depend upon what you mean by a "strong dog". I know I don't want to live again with a "hard headed dog" (one that could take being hit over the head with a 2x4 to get its attention and would just shake it off) once I experienced that a dog can be softer to the handler (don't need a 2x4 to get its attention) and strong on the livestock (walk straight into the face of rams or ewes with lambs without flinching).

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My thoughts for what they are worth.

 

My toughest dog, a black bitch, but calm and strong and requires little direction from me. Often I cannot see her.

This is what I require.

 

If I need a two by four- no thank you, not for me.

 

If the dog is slash and dash- no thank you-

 

If the dog runs home, because of sound; loud abrupt noise- my office is a vast area with no fences, to hold stock or dog- think of that one- no thank you. If you cannot move what I put you on, mama cows, range ewes whatever- no thank you

 

I want a dog that is born with the work in her head. Biddable but not a slave to my advice as often this poet dreamer is wrong.

 

 

 

A pint can color my vision on either side of the fence.

 

I know that my dogs I often thought of as really good, in my own work proved not up to snuff.

 

I like to trial, I think that the trials and my work have made me improve both my breeding and my ability to train and see.

 

However I have seen things.

 

I had a person at a trial tell me how powerful one of my dogs was. I remarked back he is not powerful, he is wise. I knew this because of the work he was asked to do in my job. This work did not allow my dog to hide exactly what he is.

 

If I did not have the work I would not know this.

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trials had ruined the "grand old hill dogs of yore."

 

It is my [limited] understanding that trials are demanding of every possible farm task, done in rapid succession. That if a dog can complete a trial, it can do any task on a farm. That doesn't mean the dog is ideal for any given task, just that it can do one if needed.

 

Hill dogs would be great at outruns and driving, I'm assuming? I'd wager a dog or two of these particular traits could be found in any given litter of working stock. (Or have I missed the sarcasm in the quoted post?)

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I personally think the "easier to live with" generalization is probably just that: a gross generalization. A well trained dog should certainly be easy to live with, but that ease of living with shouldn't have any bearing on its ability to work stock. And since words like "soft", "hard," "easy," "tough," "powerful," "weak," and so on don't have hard, fast definitions, it's impossible to use those terms and expect that anyone will interpret them exactly as you would.

 

My dogs live in my house. They have to have manners. They also help me with my stock. They have to have ability. We have some particularly belligerent mamas right now, and when they need to be moved, the dog has to do what the dog has to do. The ram is by himself and overly pushy. When I go to feed and water him, the dog has to hold him back no matter what. That same dog sleeps on my bed at night. Being decent housedogs and excellent working/using dogs isn't mutually exclusive.

 

Etlai,

I think Donald is just pointing out that the lament of dogs not being what the "used to be" has been around nearly as long as working border collies have existed.

 

J.

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I think Donald is just pointing out that the lament of dogs not being what the "used to be" has been around nearly as long as working border collies have existed.

 

Or that people have been blaming trials for the decline of the dogs for nearly as long as there have been trials. ;)

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Pam, -- another question from a non-breeder.

Using your Red-orange-yellow-white analogy and perception that more dogs in the orange zone are being bred, is that in terms of relative percentages or absolute numbers? Because I could make an argument that the ability to sell puppies from working parents to sports and/or trial competitors might have enlarged the frequency/number of working dogs being bred as sheep farmers know that they can place the less-talented appearing pups with agility/sports folks.

 

NO idea if this is the case or not. I've had border collies for just a decade or so, and have no sheep.

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Pam, -- another question from a non-breeder.

Using your Red-orange-yellow-white analogy and perception that more dogs in the orange zone are being bred, is that in terms of relative percentages or absolute numbers? Because I could make an argument that the ability to sell puppies from working parents to sports and/or trial competitors might have enlarged the frequency/number of working dogs being bred as sheep farmers know that they can place the less-talented appearing pups with agility/sports folks.

NO idea if this is the case or not. I've had border collies for just a decade or so, and have no sheep.

 

Not the Pam you were addressing but another one. What you say is certainly seems to happen here.

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Dear Doggers,

 

The earliest jeremiad I've read was published in a British Livestock journal in 1912, complaining that trials had ruined the "grand old hill dogs of yore."

 

Donald McCaig

 

 

:lol: I guess it's like anything: as soon as one generation gets a little long in the tooth, they start telling the younger generation how it different was "in my day" - and it was uphill both to and from school. :P

 

~ Gloria

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Okay, I can't quote or paste anything here today, so I'll just wing it. B)

Whenever this discussion comes up, about breeders who say they want softer, easier or more low-key dogs, I feel like I must not get out enough. Are there really trial or working breeders who do this? I don't know all that many breeders so I haven't knowingly come across these people.

The folks I have met or observed, here out West, who produce the occasional litter of pups all seem to want good, strong dogs. In part because some of them have ranches or farms, but also often our big trials are run on range ewes who will flat eat a weak or wishy-washy dog, so people want dogs who can handle them.

That's not to say I don't see dogs that I regard as weak on the trial field, and sometimes those softer, easier dogs are indeed the ones getting higher scores, because they are easier to handle. But did those dogs' breeders deliberately select for a soft, mild dog? I don't know. At least one dog I've seen that I view as weak (but which has gotten higher scores than me, that's for sure!) certainly did not come from a breeder known for weak, mild or easy dogs - they and their dogs are usually balls of fire in a trial field. So I doubt this weak-but-easily-handled dog was an end product the breeder deliberately selected for. I've never seen any littermates to this dog, so what the others are like, who knows.

But I guess all I'm saying is that I have no idea how many trialing breeders are really selecting for these easier dogs, but I'm glad the litters I have seen produced were breedings deliberately chosen from good, strong lines. The buzz around those litters was never about the pups being easier, softer, more low-key dogs. If some prove easy to live with, too, that's just been icing on the cake. :)

~ Gloria


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Gonetotervs,

The dart board analogy was actually postulated by Denise Wall. We all refer to it, but it's her analogy and her thoughts behind it. She recently reposted it in the Health and Genetics section under the "Phenotype or Genotype" thread. You had posted to that thread as well, but it's an old thread, so you might have missed Denise's recent post there.

 

I think it may answer the question you just asked here.

 

J.

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I think one thing we are up against in the USA is the difference in culture. The sheep industry is inescapable in the UK. There have been generations of shepherds and kids learn to work dogs from their parents. As a result, they see no shortage of good dogs and most of the dogs out on the trial field are owned by people who depend on them to make a living.

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It is changing here as well though Liz. What you say is still true but the number of hobby herders is increasing as a result of diversication by shepherds who give lessons to the general public. They have created their own market.

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Personally, I think that this discussion can help if we stick to first person of what we ourselves have seen in our own dogs, work, trials, etc.

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I disagree.

 

Unless you're adopting rescue dogs, you can make sure you purchase from responsible working breeders.

 

And you can educate. Almost every time someone asks me about my dog, I explain the difference between this rescue-but-badly-bred border collie as opposed to the working dogs I've had (and worked) in the past.

 

And we do it here, as well. Look at all the discussions about where people should be looking for their next dog. How many of the writers admit that they once didn't understand the importance of good breeding? I've noticed a number of people here making that claim.

 

Every well bred dog purchased from working parents as opposed to dogs from the sports, pet or show dogs because some of us -- directly involved with herding or not -- informed people how important it is is a step in the right direction.

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I don't work dogs now, but I have in the past when I raised sheep and most of my dogs were working. (OK, not the pointer/retriever mix.)

 

And even if I hadn't, I have eyes and a brain that can interpret what I'm seeing. Lots of people who don't pay football (American or soccer) or tennis or whatever sport are still able to watch and to see for themselves who the good players are.

 

And not everyone who works dogs breeds their own. Are you suggesting that if people don't breed they can't judge quality?

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