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Donald McCaig
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Dear Doggers,

The ABCA (American Border Collie Assn) board has decided that next year they will begin listing all Border Collie breeders who register more than 30 dogs per calendar year. The following statement will appear in conjunction with the list:

The ABCA does not endorse high volume breeders. The main purpose of the ABCA is to protect and promote the working Border Collie. Good working Border Collie breeders are not high volume Breeders.It is the intent of the ABCA to encourage Breeders to use livestock working ability as the primary criteria to select potential breeding stock. This is very difficult to do when breeding at a high volume rate. Forfurther information on this topic please see ABCA’s publication; Code of Ethics and Best Practices.

Donald McCaig

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I am assuming that the reference to registering more than 30 per year is for ABCA registrations. Says nothing about AKC pups. I know a breeder who registers with both organizations. I can bet that she will still churn out pups, but that many/most of them will be AKC registered to keep her below the limit.

 

It is a good step forward.

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The ABCA is well aware that there will be breeders who will evade this unwelcome attention by spreading their breeding stock among family members and by registering with AKC or another registry instead of with us. Not much we can do about that. I was pleased to hear, though, that at this year's annual membership meeting (which I unfortunately couldn't attend), when this new policy was announced, it was greeted with overwhelming approval, even though Mike Neary was forthright about the fact that it might well cause a drop in registrations and even in memberships, which might in turn result in a need to raise the membership and registration fees.

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Great--I'm glad many are on board with this. I was just reading a lengthy thread on fb full of folks who think this is an awful thing :-(

A

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...I was pleased to hear, though, that at this year's annual membership meeting (which I unfortunately couldn't attend), when this new policy was announced, it was greeted with overwhelming approval, even though Mike Neary was forthright about the fact that it might well cause a drop in registrations and even in memberships, which might in turn result in a need to raise the membership and registration fees.

I was at the meeting, and there wasn't one person who there who didn't think this was fabulous. In fact, there was a hearty round of applause. Well done, ABCA. If only the 'champions of the purebred dog' had the same philosophy.

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The consensus is that if these are now "suggestions," then it is a slippery slope to becoming a "rule," for one. And it's the who-are-they-to-tell-me-how-many-pups-I-can-produce mentality. It is mostly a cattledog demographic, and there are some who are vocal who I know are pretty high volume breeders (would likely be on the list). They claim to be breeding working dogs, and most of the pups they produce probably will work, but in my opinion, they are not breeding to produce the best working dogs they can. And just because a dog will work does NOT mean (at least to me) that it should be bred. Some I know are breeding for color (and claiming working, as well). Some are just breeding unproven dogs from dogs who worked, but as we all know, that does not mean the pups will be great ones. Some suggested that it will cause people to register their pups in family members' names, and so, that is a way the ABCA can generate more money by having more members. Really. To be honest, to me it really sounds more like a kid who has been told it should not do whatever having an immediate knee-jerk negative reaction. But I doubt they will change their minds,

A

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^^Exactly. There will still be breeders who do what they can so as not to appear on the list. (It wouldn't surprise me to see a cattledog registry at some point, especially for the folks Anna is talking about.) But hopefully there will be buyers who will pay attention to the fact that there *is* such a list and make choices based on that information.

 

Eileen,

Will this just be a list, or will numbers (i.e., numbers registered) be attached?

 

J.

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I am saddened by the number of people who are in opposition to this list. While I don't know if I would agree to an outright limit on number of pups a year, I do like the idea of access to the information.

 

My real dream for the registry is to have access to the database online so I could search pedigrees, track down related dogs, etc. Maybe some day?

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I would love, Love, LOVE to have an accessible pedigree database. As someone who is trying to understand pedigrees, it seems an almost insurmountable task to learn pedigrees without having been in the 'industry' for a long time. The more I talk to people or read the occasional pedigree (if someone happens to bring their dog's pedigree to a clinic or trial), I learn a little bit here and there. It would be so helpful to have a database for not only more rapidly learning lineages, but also for researching lines and breeding matches.

 

The alpaca industry has a wonderful searchable database (must pay a nominal member's fee) which can be searched by name, breeder ID or registration #. I think each pedigree lists 4 or 5 generations. That would be sufficient for most purposes. [There are a few other nice search features too - such as being able to get a listing of all offspring of a dog/bitch.]

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