Liz P Posted October 7, 2014 Report Share Posted October 7, 2014 I am thinking of a commercial breeder that many people know well. This person imports and buys a lot of trained dogs then breeds them. Some dogs have run successfully in Open, others just in the novice classes. While this person is technically breeding working dogs, there are corners being cut. They put out way too many litters to screen all homes appropriately, to research health issues in the pedigrees adequately, to work all the dogs and know which ones will truly be a good match (the person is "breeding based on papers alone"). This person also covers up health issues in order to protect puppy sales (since profit from puppy sales is an important source of income). At first glance, this person might seem to be a great breeder. So many get sucked in every year... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maxi Posted October 7, 2014 Report Share Posted October 7, 2014 Teun van den Dool has put together a very interesting website based on the ISDS stud book. One of the pages lists the owners/breeders who have the most dogs/pups. http://www.bcdb.info/dealers.htm (The table can be resorted for different columns by clicking once or twice on the column title). I appreciate the information will mainly be relevant to UK dogs, but as some are exported to the U.S, it may be of interest to others because it may give some indication of the actual number of pups and dogs that some individuals have owned/bred. As Mr v/d Dool says, his data may under- represent how many dogs some owners have had for reasons he cites at the top of the page. It should also be remembered when looking at the table that the number of dog/ pups will be higher for those individuals who have been keeping registered dogs for more years and also some (many) of the handlers listed on this page will have bought dogs as pups in order to train them with the intent to sell many of them on to others. However, I thought giving the website link may be a useful addition to this thread. Another interesting page on this site is the number of pups per stud dog http://www.bcdb.info/pupsperdog.htm Is there a similar site for ABCA registered dogs? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juliepoudrier Posted October 7, 2014 Report Share Posted October 7, 2014 Interesting table.... Thanks for sharing. J. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eileen Stein Posted October 7, 2014 Report Share Posted October 7, 2014 Is there a similar site for ABCA registered dogs? No. How I wish we had a Teun van den Dool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gloria Atwater Posted October 8, 2014 Report Share Posted October 8, 2014 But when waving red flags it is important not to generalise unfairly. Take Gloria's assertion that it impossible to work 10-15 dogs regularly so as to be able to assess their breeding potential. What constitutes " regularly"? How many people are actively involved in a particular breeding / working operation Where are the sheep kept? Out on the range or fell or near to home? What other calls are there on the time of the humans? What may be impossible for a single person with sheep miles away and a day job may not be impossible for a couple of people who breed and train full time and whose sheep are close by. What it really boils down to is that we as individuals can only recommend or discourage patronage of any given breeder according to our own preferences and experiences. I can only speak for what I believe or hold to be true. Whether a breeder owns sheep or not, whether the sheep are close by or off down the road, whether they have a kennel staff of 10 or just a spouse to help hose things out, whether they work their dogs 5 days a week or only on weekends when they're home from their day job ... these aren't the criteria I look at. But the number of dogs they have together with the amount of work and training they can give each of those dogs ARE. How else can they know what they are producing? For example, if a person has 10 or 12 border collies and they work them regularly - read, a couple times a week - and trial them periodically and spend quality time with them each day, that's good. If they decide to have a litter and I've seen that the bitch and sire are dogs of a working type that I like, I may contact them about a pup. In fact, I know someone just like that. They're good people with nice dogs. But if someone has 10 or 12 border collies and a kennel staff and the dogs get out to play and exercise every day, and their pedigrees are great, and they even trial a couple dogs once in a while ... well, to me that is not enough if they are producing 5 or 6 litters a year. Sure, those ten or a dozen dogs are cared for. Sure, the dogs are happy and healthy and well-bred, but who are they? If they're not working, how can this breeder know? I can't get the calendar math to factor out in a way I like. 10 or 12 dogs with 5 or 6 litters a year means every year, half their kennel is out of commission making puppies. It's 4 months out of the year for a bitch to produce a litter. How much training or working are those girls doing, if they're cranking out puppies every year or every other year? If the dogs are not being worked and trained to a useful level, if the dogs are not doing jobs on a farm or running on a trial field, there is no way for me to even guess what their prospective pups might be. Sure, there's a good chance that a granddaughter of Aled Owen's Roy and a Dewi Tweed grandson will produce dogs with a strong working instinct, but if that's all the breeder is doing, over and over, that to me is not good enough. They're breeding the papers. And it's really not good enough for me if the breeder has a kennel full of nicely-papered dogs who just aren't trained or worked beyond a novice level. I can't think of anyone with a kennel full of umpteen dogs who cranks out multiple litters a year that I'd jump to get a litter from. In my experience, the people I find who do breed like that are breeding for other reasons: color, sports, AKC conformation, pet homes, etc. And they are not breeding for the betterment of the working border collie. Anyhow ... That's why I say the things I do and make the recommendations I make. If I am made aware of a breeder on this model who does manage to keep a dozen or so dogs trained and worked to a level sufficient for truly knowing the dogs' working abilities while also cranking out multiple litters a year, I may reconsider. But only for that individual case. It won't change my stance in general towards large kennels producing multiple litters a year. Respectfully, Gloria Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GentleLake Posted October 8, 2014 Report Share Posted October 8, 2014 ^^ Well said, Gloria! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tea Posted October 8, 2014 Report Share Posted October 8, 2014 yep, Gloria, well said, as usual hi, you traveler, you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sue R Posted October 8, 2014 Report Share Posted October 8, 2014 Thank you, Gloria, well said - as usual. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tea Posted October 8, 2014 Report Share Posted October 8, 2014 I do have to say this tho. I bred dogs to provide myself with dogs I needed for my work. I sold the extra pups. I did get folks that called me wanting to buy a pup, train her then sell. They were honest, which was great. But I wanted the pups to try to go to a working home where they hopefully would stay the rest of their lives. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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