Anti merle prejudice

[FireFly]

 

 

Well, remember that in USBCHA trialing, there are no "titles." And there are plenty of dogs running in Open that are never bred. They may have enough working ability to get around a trial course, but they're just not of the quality people look for when searching for pups. So, trialing alone is not a reason to breed.

 

However, I'm not sure I understand your question. Can you clarify? If someone breeds working dogs and they pick a dog for their own use because they like the pup's color, I have no problems. I don't care if someone owns or trials a dog that is neon purple.

 

But most of the working dogs out there will NOT be fancy colors, so for breeding purposes, the working gene pool is generally found in the standard colors: black & white, tri color and sometimes red. (For whatever reason, I seem to see more red dogs from cattle working lines.)

 

Now, if a working breeder holds out to find a quality tri color male for his quality tri bitch, I don't think that would bother me, because he wouldn't be excluding 3/4s of the working border collie population to get that color combination. I think that's what the prejudice against breeding for merle boils down to. I have no idea how things are in the UK, but in the US, most merle border collies come from AKC and/or sport breeding, and that is not selecting for the best working dog.

 

Just my thoughts, everyone's mileage may vary.

 

~ Gloria

Sorry about that! I don't really know anything USBCHA "trailing"(if that is what it is referred to as), or really anything about working ability.

 

Basically the bolted part is what I meant. But this breeder was even more selective, due to want a "candy color", rather than an "original" color.

 

I hope that makes sense. I'm horrible at explaining.

[Laurelin]

This whole topic confuses me because it always seems to run so anti the boards message that a good dog is not a bad color.

 

People seem to admit that there are good merles out there, though the population is smaller than in sport/show lines. So it would seem that if the merles are out there and nice dogs that some of those merles get bred in hopes of also producing nice dogs. Statistically, 50% of a litter with a merle parent will be merle as well. Is it that much of a stretch that one of those dogs is not also a nice dog? How do breeders choose their keeper puppy in any litter? They're too young to really evaluate, right? Is it that big of a stretch that you would have a farmer with a blue dog he likes and he chooses a pup from his dog because it was blue like it's father? Then if that dog is worked and subsequently bred then 50% of his litters would also be merle.

 

I just don't get where the assumption about motive is coming in- at least not any more than in any other instance of owner preference?

[juliepoudrier]

Kian's Mom,

If I had to guess I would guess that some breed (or, really, type, since breeds weren't a concept the way they are now) of dog that was used to help create the breed eventually known as the border collie carried the merle gene. Before there was a "border collie" there were various collie types spread throughout the UK. Some of these may have included genetics from breeds that came in merle.

 

The tricky thing is that you have to have a merle to get a merle, so somewhere along the way, even if merle collie dogs existed they were not being bred from to a great extent, leaving that color just a small percentage of the overall working population. Also back then, breeding was local, so you might have had "enclaves" (so to speak) where merle was common, or at least more common.

 

But over time, if farmers and shepherds preferred black and white dogs and they didn't prefer merles then it would be easy enough to reduce the incidence of merle (and this may not have been a deliberate thing as in someone trying to remove merles from the population) by simply choosing the black and white dogs in litters, using them, proving them, and breeding from them.

 

It's kind of like the prejudice against white dogs. Ask anyone who has bred a litter that included a white puppy or puppies. The litter can be completely spoken for beforehand, but once those people realize there's a white puppy, they will say, "I'll take anything but the white one." So human preference becomes selection against white. Whether the reasons for being against a white dog make sense to anyone else (or everyone else), generally people won't want a white dog, so breeders aren't going to opt to risk producing that color if they want other farmers/shepherds/trialists to take a pup. If there was a similar prejudice against merle, then that would be reason enough for farmers/shepherds generally not to breed from it. The difference between white (or even red) and merle is that merle is easy to avoid. You just don't breed a merle dog. But white and red can appear unexpectedly, and especially with white, other modifying genes (e.g., ticking) can make an unacceptable (e.g., white) dog acceptable (e.g., because it's heavily ticked and doesn't appear white). Just my two cents.

 

P.S. to Laurlin,

Most of these prejudices are rooted in perceptions about working ability and/or health. So while it may seem as if they are strictly color preferences, they are actually color preferences based on perceptions (right or wrong, proven or not) of working ability or health. In my white dog example, most people will tell you that sheep will not respect a white dog, and even if the dog has tons of power, it will eventually lose confidence as it's repeatedly challenged by stock who don't respect it because of its color. There are some very well known working dog folks who believe red dogs don't hold up as well physically to work. There may well have been a similar prejudice about the working ability or health of merles that also led early users and breeders of these dogs to choose against breeding that color. Maybe those beliefs have some foundation in truth. Who knows? If you had several white dogs and all of them were regularly challenged by the stock, then you may come to the conclusion that the stock don't respect white dogs. Then it becomes sort of a chicken-egg thing. Are the stock really challenging the dog because it's white or is it just the luck of that shepherd that all of his white dogs had some weakness that invited the stock to challenge them (that is, had the dogs been traditional B&W might the stock still have challenged them, only then it would have been ascribed to just a weak dog rather than a white dog)? Still the main argument against breeding merles now is that although there are some nice working merles out there, they aren't necessarily so good that I'd choose one to breed to over any other dog. And yes, that can be seen as a prejudice/choice based in color only, but it still comes back to the fact that merles make up a small percentage of the gene pool and statistically speaking there should be way more dogs of more traditional colors who meet the working criteria of any breeder, so that choosing to breed to a merle is still likely a choice based mainly in color. I don't know that I'm saying that very clearly, but that's the best I can do. (The grey thoroughbred analogy is one that comes up a lot. If, statistically, greys win a much smaller percentage of races than bays or chestnuts, then would you deliberately breed a grey if statistics told you you'd have a better chance of winning the KY Derby or the Triple Crown if you had a bay or chestnut? I personally love a grey horse and will almost always root for the grey horse in a race, but if I were betting my hard-earned money, it probably wouldn't go on the grey.)

 

J.

[Laurae]

Re trialing not correlating with real work, for those who have not seen this:

 

 

Thanks, Denise, for creating this informative video!

[Donald McCaig]

Dear Doggers,

 

Years ago Barbara Carpenter showed me a postwar B&W photo of the last known Welsh Gray. Merle? Might have been. No shepherd cared about "breeds" nor worried about "outcrossing" so the Welsh Gray may have been where the gene came from. I never saw a merle in this country until some outfit in Texas started breeding them in the mid 80's (and agitating for AKC recognition). I have no idea where their breoodstock came from: australia? where they'd been shown for maybe 15 years by then.

 

I've never seen a merle working stock or trialing in the UK. I have seen 4 merle open dogs here in the US. They were okay but not exceptional and sheepdoggers didn't rush to breed to them.

 

Donald McCaig

[Kian's Mom]

Laurae,

Thanks for posting the video.

 

Julie,

So the Candy colors would have come in where?

[ShoresDog]

As often happens here, this discussion is tending toward speculation about where the gene originated and creation of hypothetical scenarios where it would be just fine to breed working merle border collies. I'll be the killjoy. We should NOT want the merle trait to become common in working border collies. Puppies that receive the trait from both parents are at severe risk of birth defects including micropthalmia, blindness, and deafness. And the merle gene is DOMINANT. Most merle dogs are heterozygotes, carrying one copy of the merle gene and one normal gene. If two merle dogs mate, on average one-fourth of the puppies will be homozygotes, carrying two copies of the merle gene. Those puppies are very likely to be seriously compromised. Again, I challenge you to Google "lethal white aussies" to see what that looks like in a breed where merle is common.

 

We should and do love individual merle dogs, but, in fact, I do think we should be prejudiced against breeding a merle dog, for the sake of the overall health of the breed.

[Eileen Stein]

So the Candy colors would have come in where?

 

"Candy colors" is a term used to describe the array of unusual colors that color breeders breed for. Most people would class merle as a candy color. It's the only one that's dominant. Some people would class red (what the KC folks call liver or chocolate) as a candy color. It's recessive, so only when two red alleles (alleles are alternate forms of a gene, in this case the gene for black color) combine would you get red offspring. It's not all that uncommon in working-bred dogs, because it can pop up in the offspring of two B&W or black tri dogs who carry the recessive red allele. Wiston Cap carried a red allele, and his genes contributed heavily to the breed. Red is not found in working dogs as much as you'd expect statistically, probably for the reasons Julie so well explained -- if a dog is "different" in some readily identifiable way (like color) and it has a working weakness, often people will associate that weakness with the color and be disinclined to choose another dog of that color. I would call that prejudice (but then I don't feel any negativity toward red dogs per se, while many of my betters do). If you breed two red dogs together, you know that all the offspring will be red.

 

The colors pretty much everyone would classify as candy colors are those produced by the dilution alleles -- lilac and blue. Being recessive, these colors too can pop up in working bred dogs, but very seldom, because those alleles are rare in the working gene pool. If a breeder is offering a lot of blue and lilac dogs, you know s/he is breeding for color, because as a practical matter there's no way you could accumulate them any other way. And then we have what's called Australian red, or ee red, which is actually more of a cream or gold color. I consider that a candy color, and I've never encountered a single working dog with that color.

 

Not really sure if this is what your question was getting at, but I hope it's some help.

[CMP]

Re: trialling. Hey, I know when I'm beat

 

Civil disagreement is good enough for me. Although I will say that I think, either because I am a poor communicator (or just plain old annoyingly uninformed/stuck in old school ways from your perspective) or because it's a raw nerve, that there is no real way to discuss this topic without a couple of cups of coffee, some eye contact and a whole lot of listening from everyone.

 

Until then, I respect your position and should probably stop popping up in unexpected/inappropriate places with the topic.

 

Namaste.

[Maxi]

It's kind of like the prejudice against white dogs. Ask anyone who has bred a litter that included a white puppy or puppies. The litter can be completely spoken for beforehand, but once those people realize there's a white puppy, they will say, "I'll take anything but the white one." So human preference becomes selection against white. Whether the reasons for being against a white dog make sense to anyone else (or everyone else), generally people won't want a white dog, so breeders aren't going to opt to risk producing that color if they want other farmers/shepherds/trialists to take a pup.

 

As Mr McCaig has stated so eloquently "No shepherd cared about "breeds" nor worried about "outcrossing" ". My own feeling is that white dogs were not necessarily liked because their whiteness makes the dog harder to see in heavy mist/fog/drizzle/snow.

You have to remember that Border Collies originate in the Borders of Scotland & England... a fair proportion of the year has exactly those weather conditions!

 

Similarly coloured dogs are harder to see in the Bracken/heather & so they may have been less popular (though from the old B&W photos it is not obvious that Old Hemp and some of the other early dogs were only Black)

 

JMO YMMV

 

oh and with regards to working Merles, there are a few around the UK..not many and like all working sheepdogs some are better at their job than others. Julie Hill's in her "Natural Way" book write that her first dog was a merle from an accidental mating with the farm dog. I guess this would have been in the early 1980s. She describes this dog as being full of natural talent.

[juliepoudrier]

Maxi,

I agree with the comments about white dogs being hard to see in the mist. One time I was trialing early in the morning and the fog suddenly dropped down over the field. I could see my white dog fine as long as he was facing me (he has a black mask/ears), but the minute he started driving away, he blended right in.

 

That said, what I have always heard from folks here, including folks who came here from the UK, with way more experience shepherding than me, is that people believe sheep will challenge a white dog. I've never bought into that argument because I never understood why white would be the one to challenge, given that sheep (and predators) come in many colors, but there it is.

 

The visibility argument makes much more sense to me. And I have seen how difficult it is to see a red dog in a brown field. Then again, in climes such as the one where I live, my white dog is like a great beacon in the distance.

 

J.

[Mark Billadeau]

And if all your sheep are white with a few small black patches you might start giving commands to a sheep instead of your dog.

[Eileen Stein]

Re: trialling. Hey, I know when I'm beat

 

Civil disagreement is good enough for me. Although I will say that I think, either because I am a poor communicator (or just plain old annoyingly uninformed/stuck in old school ways from your perspective) or because it's a raw nerve, that there is no real way to discuss this topic without a couple of cups of coffee, some eye contact and a whole lot of listening from everyone.

 

Until then, I respect your position and should probably stop popping up in unexpected/inappropriate places with the topic.

 

Namaste.

 

Naw, you shouldn't -- it's a hardy perennial as topics go, and always good for discussion.

 

I'll concede a little more than I did in my earlier post, by saying that it bothers me greatly that excessive commanding is not penalized on the fetch in trials these days. It should be, IMO, but nowadays it isn't, and that takes away from a trial phase that should be testing more for instinct and initiative, which are obviously important in real work. Don't like to see us going in that direction. It's that kind of modification and "refinement" that has led other types of working tests into the realm of stylized exercises divorced from reality (though the overcommanding trend certainly wasn't started by weekend warriors, but by "real work" handlers padding their parts). But we haven't gone far enough down that road to take much away from the trial as a test of real working ability, IMO, and I hope we don't. Oh, and I don't mean to sound like I'm minimizing the importance of stamina in a working dog. The longest trial run is 30 minutes -- albeit of sustained, demanding work -- and that's not the same test of stamina as working all day by any means. I wish it were possible to test stamina in trials, rather than innately impossible. But again, I don't think you can fairly say that trialing doesn't test working ability merely because it doesn't test every single facet of working ability. It still tests a heck of a lot of the package.

 

Anyway, no raw nerves struck, and it would be nice if we could continue this offshoot from the topic someday over a cup of coffee.

[Mark Billadeau]

Anyway, no raw nerves struck, and it would be nice if we could continue this offshoot from the topic someday over a cup of coffee.

.......under the handlers' tent at several different trials.

[juliepoudrier]

Humans would have introduced (by selecting for) the candy colors. All you have to do is look at conformation breeding and breeding dogs for the public and you will find people that will produce rare colors because someone will buy them. Why do you think you see lots of merles in sports venues? Because there's a demand for them.

 

I can remember way back in the dark ages when I was working at the vet and someone came in with their rare blue doberman, which of course they had paid more for because of the rarity of his color. (This speaks to what someone else already noted about people liking to have the special whatever, the horse of a different color, etc.) What that person didn't know was the health issues that were associated with that color.

 

So if it's human nature to want something different, unique, whatever, and certain genes exist in a general population of some breed, then it's only a matter of time before someone will start selecting for those unique colors. Merle exists, dilute exists, sable exists, so if someone really wanted to they could try to produce puppies that were dilute sable merles (I don't know if that's genetically possible, but maybe). Someone posted a picture of what appeared to be a sable merle in another thread (don't remember which one now). Pretty dog, and folks would "ooh" and "ahhh" over the pretty color. So if I recognized a market for such dogs, all I'd need to do is go out and find the dogs I could use to produce that color combination and voila! I'd have dilute sable merles for sale.

 

This phenomenon is not confined to dogs either; you certainly see it in horses, for example, where people will breed stuff no matter what it looks like conformationally (meaning whether or not it's sound enough to do an actual job) just for the "pretty" colors. If you ever look at horse sales ads, you can find all sorts of ads for horses whose only selling point seems to be their splashy colors.

 

J.

Julie,

So the Candy colors would have come in where?

[juliepoudrier]

Well, there was the time I was commanding Tommy W's set out dog at Edgeworth thinking it was my own (while my own faded into the brown grass at that distance).

 

And if all your sheep are white with a few small black patches you might start giving commands to a sheep instead of your dog.

[Maxi]

That said, what I have always heard from folks here, including folks who came here from the UK, with way more experience shepherding than me, is that people believe sheep will challenge a white dog. I've never bought into that argument because I never understood why white would be the one to challenge, given that sheep (and predators) come in many colors, but there it is.

 

 

 

J.

 

Yes I've heard that too, but then I've also heard the reason that I gave in my earlier post - about not being able to see your dog in certain terains/ weather conditions.

 

No doubt the real reason has got lost in the mists of time (kinda like white dogs on a foggy hill)

[TEC]

The sheepdog trials I have run and observed are dominated by professionals who train/practice frequently. They have numerous dogs in training at all times. They have the ability to get the best out of any dog. The dogs' and handlers' work must be precise, often requiring scores of commands. Dogs usually have a good deal of eye. They typically run a course that must be completed in 10-15 (plus/minus) minutes of time, and that is often the length of training sessions. Trial sheep are normally medium-light to light. Terrain flat to undulating, sometimes sloping to some degree. Vegetation is generally mowed or grazed to a low level, with few trees and little brush on the course itself. Significant artificial structures, other than trial panels and pens are missing.

 

In contrast, farm work is accomplished by experienced and inexperienced handlers. Sheep are heavy to light, sometimes open range ewes. Dogs who can think for themselves without command are needed, as well as those who follow routine patterns. Dogs must be able to work up to hours at a time in all conditions of weather, terrain, light, and vegetation, sometimes for long stints out of sight in tall grass/brush and behind ridges. Strong eye can at times be detriment, if the dog has not learned to reduce pressure when required. Terrain can be mundane to dangerous with ravines, streams, sharp ridges other natural obstacles. Character of dog in terms of heart and stick-to-itiveness are tested.

 

I have heard old-timers bemoan that the best farm dogs will not show well at trials, and that the same is true for the best trial dogs on the farm. The above is merely a summary. There are essays written on the farm-trial dichotomy.

 

CMP, have those eyeball to eyeball conversations mentioned above, because this thread only touched the tip of the iceberg evident above the surface. You have not been beaten. It's an issue that needs to be worked-out among all segments of Border Collie culture. -- Best wishes, TEC

[GentleLake]

Years ago Barbara Carpenter showed me a postwar B&W photo of the last known Welsh Gray. Merle? Might have been. No shepherd cared about "breeds" nor worried about "outcrossing" so the Welsh Gray may have been where the gene came from.

 

Quite possible. In the late 1980s, Glyn Jones told me there were still pockets of working merle border collies in Wales, and a Welsh friend, a contract shepherdess, has confirmed that some are still seen, although there are also a lot of purpose bred crosses and unregistered dogs being used there, so it's not certain they're ISDS. And earlier this year I posted a picture I found on Aled Owen's website of an 1899 photo of his uncle with a merle sheepdog. Not definitive, but lends some support to the supposition that they may be of Welsh origin.

 

I never saw a merle in this country until some outfit in Texas started breeding them in the mid 80's (and agitating for AKC recognition). I have no idea where their breoodstock came from: australia? where they'd been shown for maybe 15 years by then.

 

I know who you mean. Her name is Leslie Samuels Healy, and he kennel name was (is?) Pepperland. She's an American who lived in Britain for quite a few years before returning the the US and her foundation sire was Sadghyl Shadow.

 

The Sadghyl line was bred by A. V. Wichkam Hart of Roxburghshire, Scotland. I think she started out doing some sheep work, but primarily obedience. This was pre KC recognition. Her dogs eventually became show dogs when the KC recognized border collies.

 

Before Leslie brought her dogs to TX, there was another Sadghyl dog imported to the US, Sadghyl Quill. I don't know who originally imported her, but she ended up with Rose Spicuzza in MI. I don't think she ever worked, and I believe was bred only twice, to Gail Dapogney's Moss, an obedience dog she got from Arthur Allen. Gail did some training clinics, but Moss certainly couldn't have been considered a working dog.

 

My first border collie, Mirk, was from one of the Moss x Sadghyl Quill breedings. Although not from working parents, he was a good farm dog.

 

Lynn Deschambeault's Dandy went back to the Sadghyl lines, though a different branch than Mirk did. There was some some common ancestry in their pedigrees. Lynn's in ME (USA), and AFAIK is still breeding working merles, though I don't know how often she breeds.

 

ETA: IIRC, Lynn's Dandy won the NEBCA championship one year. He was definitely an open trial dog.

[Maxi]

It should be, IMO, but nowadays it isn't, and that takes away from a trial phase that should be testing more for instinct and initiative, which are obviously important in real work. Don't like to see us going in that direction. It's that kind of modification and "refinement" that has led other types of working tests into the realm of stylized exercises divorced from reality (though the overcommanding trend certainly wasn't started by weekend warriors, but by "real work" handlers padding their parts). But we haven't gone far enough down that road to take much away from the trial as a test of real working ability, IMO, and I hope we don't.

 

 

I heard that a few years ago there was a motion put forward in the UK to stop using the international shed (separating out 5 collared ewes from a group of 20) during the final day of the ISDS supreme trial.

 

I was told that this motion was put forward by ISDS directors who were not working farmers/shepherds because they perceived that this difficult manouevre tested the shepherd more than the dog. Fortunately, this alteration was blocked by a majority vote.

 

The working dog needs to have many attributes (including using his initiative as well as taking commands promptly) but one of these also includes working in close partnership with his human while performing a wide variety of challenging tasks.

 

Admitedly this story is just hearsay, but i do hope that trials (especially those at the highest level) do not gradually drift to become lesser than they once were. because (as others have written much better than I can), the winning dogs often have a large influence on the future genetics of the breed.

 

JMO

[Mark Billadeau]

If the job is to get sheep from a field through a gate and the dog's natural outrun is a keyhole and the fetch is a banana; the job gets accomplished but is this working farm dog worthy of being bred (will improve the gene pool) simply because it can get the job done?

 

The problem with getting the job done on the farm is the same problem with saying the dog does well at trials. Until we all know the job and how it was accomplished or the difficulty of the trial field and the nature of the trial sheep there is no good way to know how high of a standard was set when using either of these for breeding selection. At least with trials many different handlers will know the difficulty of the tasks.

 

[Donald McCaig]

Dear Trainers,

 

Tom writes, in part,"In contrast, farm work is accomplished by experienced and inexperienced handlers. Sheep are heavy to light, sometimes open range ewes. Dogs who can think for themselves without command, as well as follow routine patterns are needed. Dogs must be able to work up to hours at a time in all conditions of weather, terrain, light, and vegetation, sometimes for long stints out of sight in tall grass/brush and behind ridges. Strong eye can at times be detriment, if the dog has not learned to reduce pressure when required. Terrain can be mundane to dangerous with ravines, streams, sharp ridges other natural obstacles. Character of dog in terms of heart and stick-to-iveness are tested.'

 

Farm work is more variable than most trials but some trials (Kerr Ranch (aka the Big One) in the west and Steve Wetmore's trial in the east) are far more difficult terrain than most farm dogs ever face. Understandably, these difficult trials are popular with handlers.

 

Trial people have been breeding away from eye because "eye" makes a dog less biddable. I don't think I've ever heard a trial handler complain that a dog "doesn't have enough eye". The contrary is common.

 

Before I ran a dog well enough to go myself, I heard about a Texan who invited trial handlers to his ranch (in the fall?) to bring in his goats. He supplied a bunkhouse and may or may not have fed them. Handlers vied for an invitation to work their dogs hours over the roughest terrain to bring in near feral goats. I am sorry I missed it.

 

Believing that the trial dog who's whipped out after fifteen minutes can't work for hours doing routine farm/ranch work is a category mistake. Performance, doing one's uttermost, takes it out of you. I've never known a trial dog who didn't revel in an afternoon of farm work. On my farm I ration that work as a reward.

 

We do and will breed for the blue ribbon and, like Eileen, I'm sorry to see no points taken off for excessive commanding. That practice produces one kind of dog and silent gathers, no fetch panels and points off for commanding produces another. Fortunately, trials are so varied and the gene pool so open to workaday farm and ranch dogs it hasn't affected the dogs. Yet.

 

I don't believe the dogs are one whit better or worse than when I discovered them thirty years ago but certainly we're much better, and while most (northamerican) farmer/ranchers rely on the dogs' genetics rather than the trainable skills (like shedding) that farmer'rancher can learn as much as he wants to/has time for. That wasn't true thirty years ago.

 

Donald

[TEC]

If the job is to get sheep from a field through a gate and the dog's natural outrun is a keyhole and the fetch is a banana; the job gets accomplished but is this working farm dog worthy of being bred (will improve the gene pool) simply because it can get the job done?

 

The problem with getting the job done on the farm is the same problem with saying the dog does well at trials. Until we all know the job and how it was accomplished or the difficulty of the trial field and the nature of the trial sheep there is no good way to know how high of a standard was set when using either of these for breeding selection. At least with trials many different handlers will know the difficulty of the tasks.

IMO you are under-estimating the standards of modern day shepherds, as well as the precision of many farm dogs.

 

The typical ISDS style SDT course has the virtue of usually testing the same skills, but I believe it sacrifices much of the real-world on the altar of administration efficiency.

 

I suggest a two-tiered system of trials. Perhaps in order to qualify for National Finals dogs should, in addition to ISDS style trial placements, be required to place in the top 20% of a longer (not necessarily in distance) somewhat standardized course that tests as many farm skills/characteristics as possible. The farm trial would not have to be more difficult than typical ISDS trial, but different in the kind of work tested. Yes the ISDS trial purports to do that, but IMO it does not go far enough. A two tier system would help make valid breeding decisions for a variety of purposes. -- TEC

[Mark Billadeau]

IMO you are under-estimating the standards of modern day shepherds, as well as the precision of many farm dogs.

That cannot be verified by either of us because most of that work is done in private. Plus the number of shepherds either one of us knows is a very small percentage of all modern day shepherds and not likely a representative sample of the entire population.

 

You seem to think farm work involves precision, I don't. How many require sheep to move in a straight line when doing farm chores (stand there flanking the dog to fix the line) as opposed to doing something else while waiting on your dog to bring you the sheep?

[Sue R]

I think these ideas have a lot of merit. When you look at the variabilities both of farm/ranch work and trial fields/sheep/conditions, it stands to reason that one size does not fit all. A dog that does well on smaller fields and lighter hair sheep that can be common in the East maybe be totally boggled by the immense courses and range sheep that can be found in the West. Similarly, a dog that is great on big fields and heavy or tough sheep might be way too much dog on a smaller field and light sheep. Some fields have great acoustics and others have variable acoustics, with "dead" spots that may appear and disappear with the weather or time of day.

 

This is why I think the testing of dogs is benefited by both farm/ranch work *and* trials, because the testing is carried out in a real world situation and in varying situations. A dog that can do well in multiple situations is a well-rounded dog.

 

If the job is to get sheep from a field through a gate and the dog's natural outrun is a keyhole and the fetch is a banana; the job gets accomplished but is this working farm dog worthy of being bred (will improve the gene pool) simply because it can get the job done?

 

 

The problem with getting the job done on the farm is the same problem with saying the dog does well at trials. Until we all know the job and how it was accomplished or the difficulty of the trial field and the nature of the trial sheep there is no good way to know how high of a standard was set when using either of these for breeding selection. At least with trials many different handlers will know the difficulty of the tasks.