KnottyClarence

I was thinking this was an early April Fool's joke

Does proximity to ewes during breeding season affect intact ram lambs--if there are no breedable ewes around is the affect on the meat flavor the same just due to time of year?

I have heard it referred to as being white factored for head, white factored for body, or white factored for both.

Can a trial be too hard? Can a trial be too easy? Should we grade them?

they say it's in the online journal PLOS ONE Will continue to try and hunt it down

Popped up on my facebook page today. Mark B et al tell me what you think http://dx.plos.org/10.137(journal.pone.0096618) Wonder what kind of news this is .

wow. wondered what it would look like if one crossed some shar-pei into GSD. Now I know. Didn't really want to know.

I have a unilaterally deaf split face (black ear doesn't work per Baer test). Both parents go back to Arthur Allen's Spot (dad is now 15, mom is deceased, the split faced is 8 1/2, tested at 4 months). Dad's father threw one blue eye in several litters. Always wondered about those blue eyes.

good info thanks! we are dry and sandy and well drained. I have mostly cheviots and they have hard little black feet. The rocks in the sand seem to keep their feet shaped well. Steady as she goes and a bookmark on this page.

It's like Sally Rogers said on the old Dick Vandyke show, "If two people tell you you are sick, lay down". Opinions coming from different directions but with similar conclusions make those conclusions look more like the truth.

Working border collie people are a strong group ourselves. Our stated opinion on a piece of bad legislation, appropriately placed, has a valuable, powerful, and particularly well informed angle from which to come and defend against these bad local, and sometimes much larger, potentially unhelpful laws.

So Mark, the farm work standard is also fraught with peril. So the notion of standard is by definition self limiting. These dogs have such potential, we don't want to put ourselves in the position to miss any advancement or added nuance, even if it comes with a flashy color, or a calm version of our beloved black and white. Margaret Lass-Gardiner (Knotty Clarence)

Interesting replies to course difficulty. When I think of the future of these dogs and the future of using them to help on a stock farm, I can't help but think in a trial context, as this is how I entered into the examination of the interaction between dog and sheep (helped or hindered by a handler) which is "herding" as It is today. We speak of breeding decisions for the "improvement" of the breed, and also with great fondness for the dogs of the past as well as the ways of living which created them. An interesting balance. If there is a course "standard", in which the grass is neither too tall nor too short, the sheep are wild, fresh, workable and healthy, as well as agreeable and dependable with a particular fondness for the pen but not so much for each other that they won't shed, the hills are not too high to scale, nor low--can't see the dog, the outrun is huge and impressive but not too far, the sheep are well held on a beautiful day, do we breed to "this" standard? I'm teasing a bit but I do think the art of this thing we love is this sort of balancing act. I think there is room in this activity for the occasional merle--know a couple really cute ones that get the job done quite well HERE IN THE UPPER MIDWEST, where there are all kinds of trials and all sorts of sheep.

we have talked in this story about courses made too easy--what would constitute a trial course made too hard?

I had a "Lassie" type collie who always walked in a clockwise circle, bigger or smaller circle depending on her excitement level. Thought this sounded familiar.