Kennel Club Timeline

[Eileen Stein]

What it comes down to is that your initial argument is flawed. There is a connection in the argument with no supporting premise. Basically, it is the link between the AKC dogs and the working dogs. Sure, the name of the dog links them, but the argument being made is about the breeding of the dogs. Your argument is missing the link of how the AKC breeding affects the working dog breeding. . . .

 

I don't believe that there is a fundamental link between KC and working lines. There may be some effect, but unless you can say that workers are being forced to buy and breed AKC dogs, then this argument is impossible to make.

 

I don't think chene's argument is flawed at all. I have bolded the part of your quote that I think is most significant, and which you seem to glide over without giving it any consideration. The names we use to designate objects or beings are designed to convey information about them. If an entity changes the nature of something -- be it animal, vegetable or mineral -- but continues using the same name to denote the thing, and claims that the thing is the same as the original, that leads at best to incoherence and confusion. If the entity doing it is powerful and respected by most, that can indeed lead to changes over time in how the thing is bred or made.

 

Let's go back to Tea's tomato. Suppose Burpee decided to develop a 'Beefsteak' tomato that had a spectacular flower. Over the tomato generations it took to develop the spectacular flower, no attention was paid to the fruit -- its taste, the thickness of its skin, etc., so the fruit deteriorated in the qualities we currently value in a tomato. They brought it on the market, advertising it as a new and improved 'Beefsteak' tomato that gave gorgeous blooms as well as fruit. Now Burpee is not as dominant in the flower and vegetable business as AKC is in the dog business, but still this would lead to problems. A lot of people, home growers as well as seed companies and nurseries, would buy those 'tomato' seeds and plants. Many would be disappointed, but many would not be -- they'd be entranced by the flowers, or they didn't have much of a sense of taste, or they're easily influenced (think "The Emperor's New Clothes"), or they never ate tomatoes often or at all, etc. If that was your first tomato, you might well think it was fine. Those who were disappointed might not buy again (or would try not to, because how can you be sure when they're both called 'Beefsteak' tomatoes?) and would only be out the money they spent for their first plants. But there would be enough demand from those who weren't disappointed to cause market share to grow. Over time, more and more people would buy that tomato, and produce that tomato, and fewer and fewer people would remember what a "real" 'Beefsteak' tomato was like. They would think that the new model was quite a good tomato. They would think they "had it all." (Have you ever tasted beef raised on pasture on a farm? I was amazed when I first tasted it, it was so much better tasting than supermarket beef. But how many people know that? How many have had that experience?

Everybody once did, but over time less and less do.)

 

There is not the rigid line you seem to think between breeders of working border collies and breeders of others. Many good breeders of border collies were able to breed more working dogs than they otherwise would have because there was demand for their pups from non-livestock folks who nevertheless appreciated border collies' attributes. Those folks may be misled into buying the "new and improved" border collie, because after all it's a border collie, and AKC besides, and probably easier to come by. There are many livestock producers who do not currently use dogs, but who would certainly be better off if they did. If they decide to give a dog a try, they may well choose an AKC border collie, because after all it's a border collie, and as a result decide that border collies are not that much use. Not only are they worse off as a result, but the breed is worse off.

 

You cannot keep a breed alive without a fairly broad and deep gene pool. And you cannot have large numbers of the breeders of that breed working at cross purposes, breeding for different and mutually inconsistent things, without serious damage if not destruction of the breed.

 

 

So, I would stop using the working dog argument against the AKC. There is so much more that you can fault them for and that people will actually care about. You can tell them what those AKC papers actually represent. Explain to them what they are actually spending their money on. Lots of people still see the AKC as the gold standard for dogs. Explain to them how meaningless an AKC registration actually is. Inform them about the flawed organization that they are supporting by buying an AKC dog or registering with the AKC.

 

Yes, those are the easy arguments to make. AKC rewards the production of deformed dogs. AKC supports puppy mills. But I think it's important to make the argument that's harder to grasp, because it goes to the very foundation of how people think about dogs (thanks to the AKC and other KCs). Who says a breed is what it looks like? The AKC. And that thinking has permeated the larger society. It's important to fight that. To explain that there's a different way of defining a breed than by its appearance. That a breed can be defined by what it can do, not by how it looks, and that besides being the original way breeds were defined, it's a more useful way, because breeds have been developed to be of service to us in different ways, and to disregard the importance of what the dog was developed (painstakingly and over many generations) to do is to undermine that breed. That's what the AKC does.

 

 

ETA: I was writing this response to an earlier post of yours, Chanse, while you were posting the one immediately above. I do think you are still minimizing the significance of using a single name for what are in essence two different breeds, though. And I would not know where to begin to find a working lab, even though I'm sure that some (but not many) people would.

[chene]

Let's go back to Tea's tomato. Suppose Burpee decided to develop a 'Beefsteak' tomato that had a spectacular flower. Over the tomato generations it took to develop the spectacular flower, no attention was paid to the fruit -- its taste, the thickness of its skin, etc., so the fruit deteriorated in the qualities we currently value in a tomato. They brought it on the market, advertising it as a new and improved 'Beefsteak' tomato that gave gorgeous blooms as well as fruit. Now Burpee is not as dominant in the flower and vegetable business as AKC is in the dog business, but still this would lead to problems. A lot of people, home growers as well as seed companies and nurseries, would buy those 'tomato' seeds and plants. Many would be disappointed, but many would not be -- they'd be entranced by the flowers, or they didn't have much of a sense of taste, or they're easily influenced (think "The Emperor's New Clothes"), or they never ate tomatoes often or at all, etc. If that was your first tomato, you might well think it was fine. Those who were disappointed might not buy again (or would try not to, because how can you be sure when they're both called 'Beefsteak' tomatoes?) and would only be out the money they spent for their first plants. But there would be enough demand from those who weren't disappointed to cause market share to grow. Over time, more and more people would buy that tomato, and produce that tomato, and fewer and fewer people would remember what a "real" 'Beefsteak' tomato was like. They would think that the new model was quite a good tomato. They would think they "had it all." (Have you ever tasted beef raised on pasture on a farm? I was amazed when I first tasted it, it was so much better tasting than supermarket beef. But how many people know that? How many have had that experience?

Everybody once did, but over time less and less do.)

 

I think this is what I was looking for in terms of making people (and myself) understand. I needed those specifics, of exactly how it would happen. Even without the analogy, those are some really good, concrete points. I like concrete. I think people can grasp at the concrete a lot better than a blanket statement like "the AKC makes border collies stop being real border collies". What Mr. McCaig said hits home too. I guess I figured if farmers with working lines were around, the original breed always would be too. But if no one even knows about a working line and therefore doesn't even think to look, then it's pretty useless to have them there.

 

I agree with Eileen in that, while I know I could just drive someone off the AKC by stating all the other bad things they do, I would much rather make them understand what I'm actually fighting for, so they can join in that. Other it feels almost like deception.

 

Chanse, I was focused on #2, but through this conversation I'm realizing that 3 and 4 are the real problems, the things we need to fight against. They are what causes 2, but so slowly and subtly that no one thinks to fight for it if all they're focused on is whether or not the working breed is actually dying off. So here's what I want to be able to do:

 

1) Convince someone that the working lines need to be fought for.

2) Convince them that the working lines will become irrelevant to the breed if the AKC continues on its path.

 

We're working on the second right now. The first is another thing altogether, and I'll deal with it once I figure out this one.

[geonni banner]

I don't think it's even just that the AKC doesn't mention "working". Most AKC people will swear up one side and down the other that their dog, whatever breed it is, would be totally functional for the original purpose of the breed. For instance, many insist that their show-bred (for generations) "Border Collie" has all the instincts hard-wired in and is perfectly capable of being a "herding dog" if they only had time to pursue that. The same with every other once-purposeful (versus breeds strictly bred for pets to begin with) breed. This is my experience - the insistence that a show-bred Beagle has everything it needs to be a rabbit dog; that the English Bulldog could go right out and bait bulls (that flat face is what allows it to breathe when it's gripping the bull's nose and blood is pouring out of the bite holes, of course); that the Newfoundland could rescue people from a shipwreck; that the Greyhound could course down wild game; that the Irish Setter (and other bird dogs) could go out in the field and help you bring home dinner; and so on.

 

What fascinates me, in my experience, is how people can feel you have to select strongly in each breeding for physical characteristics (including things that are largely cosmetic such as color, coat, eye shape, ear set, etc.), but that you do not have to select one bit for the mental characteristics that are the basis for working ability because it's going to be in there no matter what you do. Excuse me, but where's the logic in that? And, even more so, the people who actively breed away from the characteristics that define a purpose-bred dog because people want what that breed *looks* like but they sure don't want what that breed *is* like.

 

The future of all purposeful breeds lies in the hands of those who breed for usefulness, not those who breed for an arbitrary definition of what a particular dog should *look like*.

I think one of the problems is that people think that a sheepdog becomes a sheepdog by being trained to be one. They also think a gun dog or terrier does its type of hunting because of training it receives. This impression is reinforced by the fact that sheepdogs and hunting dogs are trained. They don't realize that the training is mostly about getting a dog that comes "out of the box" with a set of traits that fit it for the work, and the training is just a direction and fine-tuning of the dog's innate ability. (An oversimplification, I'm sure, but...)

 

Added to which, they are unaware of the delicate balance of many characteristics that make a good stock dog. The Collie (AKC type) breeder understands that it's really hard to produce a dog with a typey head and a natural ear-set. But the average pet owner doesn't understand even this. They just think the dogs "come that way." And they have no idea that it takes careful planning to keep a dog to even an appearance standard. Let Collies (AKC type) choose their own mates - even just among Collies, or even just among show-bred Collies, and you soon (2 or 3 generations) have a dog that looks like a farm collie.

 

OK, I'll go back to my non-working topics now...

[juliepoudrier]

Let Collies (AKC type) choose their own mates - even just among Collies, or even just among show-bred Collies, and you soon (2 or 3 generations) have a dog that looks like a farm collie.

And, honestly, having been dismayed by the trend toward ever pointier heads and piggy eyes, maybe going back to looking like a farm collie wouldn't be such a bad thing....

 

J.

[geonni banner]

And, honestly, having been dismayed by the trend toward ever pointier heads and piggy eyes, maybe going back to looking like a farm collie wouldn't be such a bad thing....

 

J.

Bad thing? It would be a gift from heaven! There might be room in the skull for a brain! Honestly... I got invited by a friend to bring my Collie to the Golden Gate Kennel Club Show. (one of the very few benched shows left) So I entered him and he was at one end of the "Collie Aisle." Sensei was not really "show quality." He had "too much stop" and "too big eyes." That is of course, why I chose him. He also was very athletic and bright. Well, when they started letting the public in, they clustered around him and cooed and fussed. Sensei loved it. The show people did not... He also had "natural ears," which aren't that tough to get if the dog doesn't have a skull like a pencil... His ears would go up if he put his head back and up. The show people said I should tape them. I told them to go "piss up a rope."

here he is at about the time he was shown - 9 mos.

Here he was with his head back, boing!

He was also a sable-merle. And yeah, they thought his eyes were too big.

 

ETA... Sensei did come home with a ribbon. He was the only one in his age class.

[simba]

He's so pretty!

 

Here's where I shamefully admit that the 'farm collie' and crosses thereof appeal to me more than the standard border collie look. This is just 'cos of scary experiences with a few savage border collies. Never got why people complained about pit bulls, when I was younger- all the permanent scars I've seen were collie-related.

 

I know I always say this but what you could very well see if the problem gets bad enough is that working people will call their dogs something else, the border collie will become another standard docile pet-breed, and the breeders will still talk about what wonderful herding instincts they have. And the genes will bottleneck again in one or both splits, you'll lose a lot of good genes, and you'll lose the 'brand'. Then the border collie will become something entirely different as show ring fads come and go.

 

We've gone through this before, and the rough and smooth collies happened. Then since it's been so long people forget it happened and start trying to breed for 'pet' collies again- when they already have them.

[Donald McCaig]

Dear Doggers,

 

Ms. Banner writes: "I think one of the problems is that people think that a sheepdog becomes a sheepdog by being trained to be one. "

 

True. We took a pup back from a neighbor who complained: "I thought you put that stuff in them. I didn't know it was in them whether you wanted it or not."

 

Donald McCaig

[mum24dog]

He's so pretty!

 

Here's where I shamefully admit that the 'farm collie' and crosses thereof appeal to me more than the standard border collie look. This is just 'cos of scary experiences with a few savage border collies. Never got why people complained about pit bulls, when I was younger- all the permanent scars I've seen were collie-related.

 

I know I always say this but what you could very well see if the problem gets bad enough is that working people will call their dogs something else, the border collie will become another standard docile pet-breed, and the breeders will still talk about what wonderful herding instincts they have. And the genes will bottleneck again in one or both splits, you'll lose a lot of good genes, and you'll lose the 'brand'. Then the border collie will become something entirely different as show ring fads come and go.

 

We've gone through this before, and the rough and smooth collies happened. Then since it's been so long people forget it happened and start trying to breed for 'pet' collies again- when they already have them.

 

As I've said before, border collie is not a name used commonly in the UK except in non working circles. Working folk have always called them something else.

[simba]

My understanding is that collie or sheepdog are commonly used, but 'border collie' is to differentiate from, for example, the rough collie (descended from the same relatively undifferentiated pool of dogs). I'd imagine there could have been a use in differentiating from, say, the wicklow collie too- all these little local versions of roughly similar things. This is just from a lot of reading of old dog books though, they could have got their stuff wrong.

[Mark Billadeau]

It doesn't help that the AKC has preached that if it looks like a Border Collie (or what ever working breed) the instincts are there and training will make it a working dog. The breed standards even talk about meeting specific forms (ear set, tail set, chest shape, etc) that will impart functions (hearing, rudder in the water, stamina for running, etc) needed for the work. This "scripture" is preached by announcers during televised breed shows and touted on websites for these breeds.

[juliepoudrier]

As I've said before, border collie is not a name used commonly in the UK except in non working circles. Working folk have always called them something else.

Well, since we're talking about the AKC, the discussion is centered on American norms, and here they are called border collies or sometimes just collies (which will make John Q. Public immediately think of Lassie) or working border collies. I'm sure no one has forgotten how they're called in the UK, but that's not what this discussion is about. And since a great number of these dogs also work cattle here in the US, calling them sheepdogs is leaving out a good portion of the population.

 

J.

[Sue R]

And what Mark says is what John and Jane Q Public will hear! The general mass of people who are not familiar with the breed will believe just what they hear when they watch Westminster or anything similar. The people who are well-versed in the working stockdog (not to leave cattle-working, sheep-working, or anything-else-working dogs out ) know what the "real" thing is. Then there is a big gray area of those who think they know about the dogs but whose experience is show dogs, sports dogs, and mediocre (with regards to working ability and work jobs) dogs.

[mum24dog]

Julie, it was just a response to the suggestion by simba that working folk may start to call their dogs something else. It's already happening, that's all.

[Chanse]

Eileen, yeah, I glossed over the name because it is part of the problem, but not the solution. As simba said, the name change has been done before and it has led to the same result as before. Sure, I agree that the AKC border collie shouldn't be called a BC anymore, but I also don't believe that will get us anywhere and it will likely just add to the confusion.

 

As for the flaw in the argument that I am referring to, I am talking about the leap that is made from the supporting information to the conclusion. The supporting info is good: selecting for different qualities will lead to different offspring. The argument then defines a dominate authority and tries to link the dominate authority with the extinction of the original group. I will agree that the dominate authority can and does add to the confusion, and they use the name of a superior product to sell their own. This does not provide any support for the conclusion that this leads to the demise of the original. Sure, the original is less known then the new one, but that does not mean it no longer exist. So this is the point that I am trying to make: there is no direct support linking the AKC to the demise of a working breed (at least none has been presented so far and I have yet to find any).

 

Now I can find examples of working breeds that have not been driven to extinction by the AKC. The BC being one. There are still working BCs out there. Unless you have numbers showing that the numbers of working BCs or the demand for working BCs is being directly reduced by the AKC, then you can't say that the AKC is leading to their demise. Also, those numbers will require that your rule out other causes, such as are there fewer jobs for working dogs? The other example is labs. There are two lines of labs now. Yep, it can be confusing and not everyone that knows about labs will know that there are two separate lines, but the point is that the AKC has not led to the demise of the working line.

 

I think there is a good argument here, I just also think that you are just overreaching with the link between the AKC and the demise of a working line.

 

The argument I like that people have been making can basically be summed up by saying that breeding to different standards leads to different dogs. This is what I believe to be the core of the problem and I believe Mark summed it up nicely. Working line breeders breed their dogs for a function/task. Their function gives them their form. The AKC has made a significant logical error since their inception. They defined a dogs form as giving them their function. In logical reasoning this would be called a mistaken reversal. Just because function lead to form does not mean that form will lead to function.

 

So yes, argue that the AKC standard leads to the breeding of dogs using a different selection criteria then that of a functional dog, which leads to a very different dog. This is why we have different dog breeds after all; we selected dogs for traits that we desired. Explain to them what makes a working line BC unique. Tell them that if a BC became the amazing dog that they heard about by breeding for the herding ability, then the AKC standard cannot produce the same BC because it no longer selects for those traits that make a BC a BC. Ask them this: how does breeding for a certain coat style, ear position, tail position, etc. lead to a smart, intelligent, and devoted dog? The answer is that it doesn't guarantee these traits, so why not support breeders that are selecting for those traits.

[Donald McCaig]

Dear Doggers,

 

In the thoes of the Dog Wars we suggested the AKC might call their breed "American Shepherd" but they figured they could take the original "Border Collie" name, the breed's history, reputation and genetic abilities while creating their own breed as like its ancestors as birds are to the teropod dinosaur. They may have hoped to benefit by inevitable consumer confusion.

 

Fortunately, the late Colin Campbell coined a persuasive,accurate name for the AKC similcrum which disrupted their calculations: "Barbie Collie".

 

Donald McCaig

[Eileen Stein]

As for the flaw in the argument that I am referring to, I am talking about the leap that is made from the supporting information to the conclusion. The supporting info is good: selecting for different qualities will lead to different offspring. The argument then defines a dominate authority and tries to link the dominate authority with the extinction of the original group. I will agree that the dominate authority can and does add to the confusion, and they use the name of a superior product to sell their own. This does not provide any support for the conclusion that this leads to the demise of the original. Sure, the original is less known then the new one, but that does not mean it no longer exist. So this is the point that I am trying to make: there is no direct support linking the AKC to the demise of a working breed (at least none has been presented so far and I have yet to find any).

 

I'm glad we agree that selecting for different qualities will lead to different offspring. So the AKC, which encourages and rewards selection for different qualities, is a threat to the merit of the dogs of every breeder who succumbs to their lure to select for different qualities. Because of AKC's prestige, awards and influence, they are causing the progeny of many border collies to become something that is called a border collie but we both agree is not truly a border collie.

 

If that only happened to a very small percentage of the gene pool, it would be questionable whether that constituted damage to the breed. But what if, over time, it came to amount to 70%, 80%, 90% of the breed? It came to be the recognized norm (as it is fast becoming)? Could you say then that the breed had not been seriously damaged? The fact is that there's a tipping point, even if we don't know exactly where it is. There comes a point where you don't have enough dogs who still have the qualities that define a border collie to maintain a healthy, viable breed. Working traits cannot be "fixed" the way color and ear set and tail carriage can be "fixed." You need enough dogs in the gene pool to be able to choose mates that will keep these traits in balance in the next generation and the next, as well as avoid the health problems of inbreeding. The ones who have lost the traits cannot contribute. If they become a big enough proportion of the breed, we will see the quality of working dogs diminish even if it is not recognized as happening, because the pool of dogs who still have all the traits has become so small. And if it IS recognized as happening, livestock people will probably turn to other breeds, or at least an infusion of other breeds, and that will be the demise of the working border collie breed in the sense in which the AKC (and you, I think) are using the word "breed."

 

The AKC has done this. They didn't have to, they could have left the border collie alone, as the vast majority of border collie owners and 100% of border collie registries and 99% of border collie organizations wanted them to do. But they wanted the breed and they took it. Suppose some rich whacko offered to pay $100,000 to anyone who bred a line of prick-eared, short-coated solid-brown-except-for-one-white-circle-on-the-top-of-the-head border collies that breeds true for three generations. Doesn't that person bear some responsibility for the harm s/he causes to the breed as breeders go all out to win the prize, even if no one was forced to seek the prize? In the same way, AKC bears the responsibility for setting appearance standards as the measure of excellence for border collies, offering incentives to breeders to breed to those standards, and legitimizing dogs so bred as authentic border collies, and even Champion border collies.

 

Now I can find examples of working breeds that have not been driven to extinction by the AKC. The BC being one. There are still working BCs out there. Unless you have numbers showing that the numbers of working BCs or the demand for working BCs is being directly reduced by the AKC, then you can't say that the AKC is leading to their demise. Also, those numbers will require that your rule out other causes, such as are there fewer jobs for working dogs? The other example is labs. There are two lines of labs now. Yep, it can be confusing and not everyone that knows about labs will know that there are two separate lines, but the point is that the AKC has not led to the demise of the working line.

 

The factor that everyone seems to lose sight of in these arguments is TIME. It's natural to think that how it is now is how it will always be. But that's not true -- acts can set in motion processes that take a fairly long time to play out. Often their effects are barely noticeable at first, but gather speed over time and then snowball. The border collie was recognized by the AKC in 1995. The fact that there are still working border collies in the US twenty years later does not mean the AKC is not a serious threat to the breed. Nor does the AKC have to be the one single cause of harm to the border collie. Most complex events have more than one cause -- some major, some minor. Climate change has not had a single cause, but there are entities that still played an outsized part in causing it. Throwing sandwich wrappers overboard may contribute to pollution of a river, but that does not minimize or excuse the role of the chemical company that pipes its waste into the river. If the AKC has done the things you acknowledge they've done, they deserve blame for the harm those things predictably have caused and will cause. There are many breeds that have totally lost their function after being taken in by the AKC. I'm not aware that working Cocker Spaniels exist in any number. How hard does it have to be to find a dog from a surviving working strain for you to acknowledge AKC recognition has caused harm to that breed? Even what has happened to the lab and the GSD and the Aussie looks like harm to me.

 

So yes, argue that the AKC standard leads to the breeding of dogs using a different selection criteria then that of a functional dog, which leads to a very different dog. This is why we have different dog breeds after all; we selected dogs for traits that we desired. Explain to them what makes a working line BC unique. Tell them that if a BC became the amazing dog that they heard about by breeding for the herding ability, then the AKC standard cannot produce the same BC because it no longer selects for those traits that make a BC a BC. Ask them this: how does breeding for a certain coat style, ear position, tail position, etc. lead to a smart, intelligent, and devoted dog? The answer is that it doesn't guarantee these traits, so why not support breeders that are selecting for those traits.

 

Sounds good to me.

[Tea]

The word 'herder' kinda freaks me out.

 

Work stock, work sheep, work- this makes me breath deep and say, Aha...yes I understand.

 

Load cattle, flighty heifers in electric netting who will jump out if harassed and not get into the rig if not pushed in such a way that confidence is there lying between heifers and dog, but strength and power and wisdom is there that says, you must go in.

 

I have seen this power in the trials when I have set sheep and said to my dog, now this dog here, going down the fetch line, I would take in a heartbeat.

 

Work, all day in the dry hills where there can be little rest and quit is a 4 letter word.

 

Gather in a lightening storm, or gather while someone is shooting to scare something off.

 

Work, such a word, I wish I was a good enough writer to show you these hills, and what happens out here in silence with no one watching.

 

A poem of work, a partnership.

[GentleLake]

I'm glad we agree that selecting for different qualities will lead to different offspring. So the AKC, which encourages and rewards selection for different qualities, is a threat to the merit of the dogs of every breeder who succumbs to their lure to select for different qualities. Because of AKC's prestige, awards and influence, they are causing the progeny of many border collies to become something that is called a border collie but we both agree is not truly a border collie.

 

In the case of border collies, it's not just conformation breeding that's creating dogs called border collies but really aren't. There are far too may border collies coming from what are supposed to be working registries but that are being bred for other purposes such as sports, colors, pets, etc., than working as well.

 

At least with the conformation bred border collies there's enough of a genetic difference that even though they're masquerading as the same breed with the same name they're actually a totally different breed . . . though not too many people are actually aware of that, which of course leads back to the name issue.

[Chanse]

But what if, over time, it came to amount to 70%, 80%, 90% of the breed? It came to be the recognized norm (as it is fast becoming)? Could you say then that the breed had not been seriously damaged?

 

(Note: This is a response to Eileen's post above)

 

I meant to mention this before, but the problem with this and earlier arguments is that you use percentages to predict changes to numbers. An increase in the percentage of AKC dogs does not mean that there is a decrease in the number of working dogs. Why does 90% AKC dogs mean that there isn't enough genetic diversity to maintain a viable working line? What if that 10% consist of 100,000 genetically different working dogs? Your conclusion is based on the assumption that more AKC dogs means less working dogs, which does not have to be true.

 

Also, I am calling the two types AKC dogs and working dogs. For this argument I don't care that they are being called BC's, the only thing that matters is that there are two lines. I'm not positive, but in your scenario it sounds like that there are only two possible outcomes. The AKC BCs takeover to become the only BC and the working lines die off, or vice versa. This leaves out the possible conclusion of coexistence. There is no requirement that only one thing can be named a BC.

 

As for time, the labrador was accepted in 1917. We are at almost 100 years later and the working lab is still around. How much more time do you need? I think the lab shows that if there is a job to do then the working lines can and will survive. I guess one way to support your argument would be to show that the working labs of today are of lesser quality then the labs prior to 1917, but that might be a difficult thing to prove.

 

here are many breeds that have totally lost their function after being taken in by the AKC. I'm not aware that working Cocker Spaniels exist in any number.

 

Yeah, I agree that the AKC dogs have lost their original functions. That does not have a direct relation to the number of working cocker spaniels though. Right now this argument seems to be more of a confusion of causation and correlation. There is a correlation between the AKC accepting a breed and then that breed no longer having a working line. Of course there is. But the question is if the AKC caused the demise of the breed. This is difficult to prove because there are other causes out there. Does no one need cocker spaniels to work any more? Did someone find a dog that was better at the job then the cocker spaniel? Like you said, there may be multiple causes, but the question is if the AKC was one of them. To prove that they are you need to show that they directly impacted the working lines, not that the AKC acceptance and the end of a working line coincided with each other.

 

The problem I have with the conclusion that the AKC acceptance leads to the demise of a working breed is that it requires an assumption to be made, and an assumption is a flaw. Making assumption in arguments is common, but sometimes that assumption won't be made by everyone you talk to. The assumption with this argument is that the working breeders are affected by the AKC dogs. Are working breeders being pushed towards breeding with AKC dogs? Are they for some reason finding it necessary to produce AKC dogs? Do working breeders depend on puppy sales to the general public to continue their breeding program? Is the AKC propaganda resulting in working breeders forgetting how to properly select their own breeding stock? Are working dog breeders using these AKC champions in their lines? I don't need all of these to be true, but I have to accept at least one of those questions to be true in order to reach your conclusion.

 

What you need to support your conclusion, that the AKC damages/decreases working lines is the input of working breeders. If anyone on here is breeding working dogs then answer this, how has the AKC affected how you breed your dogs? Has the AKC made it harder to find or choose which dogs to breed? Does the AKC damage your working lines? Are the size of your working lines being reduced by the AKC?

 

 

The word 'herder' kinda freaks me out.

 

Sorry Tea, didn't mean to sum up the work that people and their BCs do, but 'herder' was just a little bit shorter then your description

[Eileen Stein]

I agree that it cannot be conclusively proven that "more AKC dogs means less working dogs," (or even dogs less capable of working, which is what matters), and I agree that there is a difference between cause and correlation, in that the second does not conclusively prove the first. But rather than re-hash all the factors that I think make it highly likely that AKC is a major causal factor here, and that the inevitable result is harm to the border collie breed as a working dog breed and harm to the people that depend on it (just as it is highly likely that AKC was a major causal factor in the diminution/demise of working dogs in other breeds), I will just say that the standard of proof you are requiring here is highly unrealistic and inappropriate to the subject. There are many species and even civilizations whose decline and/or disappearance we cannot conclusively prove were caused by this or that. We can point to actions and conditions that would likely lead to this result, and that are good reasons to accept that those actions and conditions were indeed the cause, but we cannot prove it conclusively. That doesn't mean we should refrain from advancing the arguments or trying to counteract the actions and conditions (where that's possible).

 

In your first post, you said that, instead of focusing on the working dog, we should be making the argument that "The AKC's lack of oversight in its registered breeders has led to poor breeding practices." But can you conclusively prove that? How do you know that just as many people outside the AKC don't breed just as poorly? How do you know that breeding practices were not equally bad before there was an AKC? How do you know that any action the AKC might take would improve breeding practices? You don't. You actually have less concrete evidence to eliminate these competing possibilities than we do. But even so, you can make a reasonable and credible argument that it is likely the case. Similarly, one can't conclusively prove that the disappearance of the Cocker Spaniel as a useful and used hunter was caused by AKC's impact on how they are bred, rather than by people no longer wanting to hunt with them or finding a breed they liked better. But which is more likely? And if people came to no longer want to hunt with them, or to like another breed better, might that not be because the Cocker Spaniel, thanks to the AKC's influence, was being bred in a way that made it less suitable for its job than it was before? You can't know -- we don't have a way of accessing all of the facts. But we have good reason to believe that the AKC was the principal cause.

 

Even when it comes to strict science, the people who concluded that cigarettes were harmful back when there was no more than a correlation between cigarette smoking and cancer, heart disease and other maladies were sensible to alter their behavior accordingly and to encourage others to do the same. There were enough good reasons to think they were right, and that waiting for conclusive proof (which was eventually possible in that setting, though not in ours) was not a good idea.

[Gloria Atwater]

(Note: This is a response to Eileen's post above)

 

I meant to mention this before, but the problem with this and earlier arguments is that you use percentages to predict changes to numbers. An increase in the percentage of AKC dogs does not mean that there is a decrease in the number of working dogs. Why does 90% AKC dogs mean that there isn't enough genetic diversity to maintain a viable working line? What if that 10% consist of 100,000 genetically different working dogs? Your conclusion is based on the assumption that more AKC dogs means less working dogs, which does not have to be true.

 

 

The thing that concerns me is that if 90% of border collies are AKC, even if there's 100,000 working bred border collies left .. the laws of averages and supply and demand are probably going to catch up. If 90% of border collies are AKC, then that 10% of working bred dogs, however viable the population, are going to become that much harder to find. People who are not shepherds or trailers but who might otherwise buy from a working breeder - whether they want a pet, an agility partner or a SAR prospect, etc. - will be most likely to go for that 90% availability, simply because that's human nature. Who want to scour every grocery store in the state for an exotic brand of tea, when they can go to their local markets and get a tea that tastes and smells the same without the Easter egg hunt?

 

That's the thing. There are more people out there hunting with labs than there are working farms with sheepdogs. Even the community of USBCHA trialing is not really that big, and let's face it, the "herding dogs" used in AKC, ASCA or AHBA trialing do not have to be nearly the quality of those doing well on an Open trial field. The fact that show-bred Aussies succeed in the arena venues is proof of that. So, sub-par border collies are just fine for the arena folks and degradation of quality would not really be noticed for a good long while.

 

Thus if the demand for true working dogs begins to sink due to the overwhelming availability of AKC dogs, breeders are going to cut back on breeding. And the working pool will begin to shrink, because John Q Public is more likely to go for that 90% availability than hunt out the 10% working gene pool. Bottom line, AKC is way, way more visible than the ABCA ever thought of being.

 

Anyhow, not sure that comes across the way I intend, I got a lot of sun today and need to shower and hit the hay. But them's my thoughts.

 

~ Gloria

[Mark Billadeau]

If there are more AKC border collies (or any non working bred) being bred there will be fewer homes for the excess working bred pups to go to (not all working bred pups go to working homes); fewer homes to place pups from litters means fewer litters of working bred pups (reducing the number of working bred dogs in the gene pool). The only way for this to not hold true is if the number of homes that will take Border Collies is increasing fast enough to take all of the new litters of non working bred dogs (seems unlikely).

[Root Beer]

It's a circular situation.

 

AKC breeders market to pet and sport homes.

 

Working breeders do not.

 

People respond to effective marketing, especially when alternatives (even better alternatives) are not readily visible, nor easily accessible, to them.

 

If working breeders were to market to pet and sport homes, more pet and sport owners would purchase dogs from working breeders.

 

But if working breeders were to market to pet and sport homes, they wouldn't really be working breeders in the truest sense.

 

So . . . people purchase what is made readily available and marketed to them.

 

There are some (obviously) who seek out working bred dogs, and I do believe there is a definite movement among sport enthusiasts to at least consider Border Collies from working breedings.

 

Still, it is way easier to get show/pet/or sport bred Border Collies, most of which are AKC registered these days.

 

As far as the name thing . . .

 

If any of you figure out how to get a group of people, with whom you are not directly affiliated, to willingly and unanimously change the name of something that they have no desire to change just because you think they should . . . I will be beyond astonished!!

[Mark Billadeau]

My post was on how the number of non-working bred pups will adversely impact the size on the working bred gene pool; it was not on marketing issues.

 

The fact remains that if there are more non-working bred pups competing against working bred pups for possible homes it will adversely impact the number of working bred litters in the future.

 

People who decide they want a Border Collie and end up buying a mislabeled "knock-off" due to slick marketing (by the AKC name thief) will not be available to buy a real Border Collie.

[mum24dog]

It can't not be a marketing issue Mark.

 

If you want a bigger gene pool you need to have a market for the surplus pups that will ensue - and if you want a market you have to work to create and maintain it.

 

Noone's going to come knocking if they don't know what you have to sell.