Dragoon 45

Donald, For Agility Trials the only game in my state is AKC agility, no one does USDAA around here anymore. So to compete I will have to get him a PAL/IDL number. As far as herding trials, ABHA is pretty much the only game around here, which I have been told requires some type of Breed Registry tracking number to enter. USBCHA trials are few and very far between here. I don't travel much anymore due to physical limitations courtesy of the US Army, so traveling 200 miles or more to the closest USBCHA trial is probably not going to happen. Because of the same limitations I do not have livestock, but I do have a location fairly close where I can go to work sheep a couple of times a week.

AKC agility unfortunately is the only game in town, so I will have to get him a PAL number. AHBA requires some type of registration number to track the dog's performance in trials. .

Thanks all for the replies. I believe I will name him "Tye" but would prefer to use the Gaelic spelling. Does anyone know what is the Gaelic spelling for Tye is? I've looked on the Web but come up empty. A suggestion was made that when I go to register him for Agility and Herding, I should use "Tye One On" as his registered Name.

As I said earlier Zipp and I have both met him on neutral ground. He is fast, but I don't think as fast as Zipp. He has prick ears and very light amber eyes coupled with his dark red coat. His foster mom has had him for about a month, so I am not sure he knows his name or not. I've considered Cap, Roy, Rope, Finn, and a few others but they don't seem to fit him.

Put in an application on a R/W 1 YO Male. After the initial screening call, it looks like I will be approved for him. The application screener for the rescue said barring something entirely unforeseen I would be approved for him. I have met the dog, and he is more or less a blank slate. Gets along well with other dogs, but lacks manners in dealing with people and knows only a couple of basic commands. I first saw him when his foster brought him to see if he had any herding ability, and he was a little over the top, but that can be dealt with. The initial plan is plenty of obedience classes before he is even considered for herding or agility. Trouble is I am so far unable to come up with a name for him if I get him. His current name given him by his foster is Toby, which is not a bad name, but is far to close to the name of my male I lost a couple of years ago, Cody. I've looked through the name list on the BC Museum, but nothing there seemed to fit. My current dog is named Zipp and I need something short but different from either Cody or Zipp so I don't get confused when giving him commands. Any and all suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you.

I have a red dog. Something I have noticed is that heat and humidity seem to have more of an effect on his coat than the sun has. His coat only starts to fade when the heat gets over 100 degrees and the humidity drops like a rock. For Oklahoma that seems to be from late July to early Sept. His coat is fine the rest of the year.

Thanks all for the advice and information. I'll have a talk with my instructor and see what we can come up with. If I could figure out how to post some pictures I would to show what I am talking about, but I must have some kind of mental block I just can't figure out how to do it. Again Thanks

His official height measurement is 20.5" and he is a little over 5 YO now. He turns in some very fast run times when we do everything right. I've had his hips checked and he got a clean bill of health from the vet. The only thing the vet could find was some very mild indications of arthritis in his knees and the vet said don't worry about that.

I don't think this is a problem, but I am curious about this. I had Zipp at a trial earlier in the month and a professional photographer was there. Now Zipp rarely knocks bars, but I was almost flabbergasted when I saw photos of him clearing a bar by a good 6-8 inches and that is with him normally jumping 20" in one venue and 24" in another. There is one photo that I swear his belly is higher off the ground than the upright for the jump is tall. Other than possibly this costing time, is there anything to be worried about with him jumping so high? I guess my concern here is with injuries.

My current BC has never met a stranger as long as there is nothing moving fast around him to kick in his herding drive. He ignores people if there is another dog, squirrel, sheep, Frisbee, etc. in the area. He has developed this little trick around people. He walks up to people wagging his tail so hard you wonder how he walks a straight line. Then when he gets to them the first thing he does is sit and stare up at them. Them he accepts petting as if it is his due. Then if the person is not careful they will get slimed by what I think is the fastest tongue in the state. I've had him over 4 years now and he has never met a person he did not like. At home he will meet me at the door for a quick pet, but the first thing he wants to do after that is go outside. He does not get on furniture, even though I don't care if he does. So he does not really cuddle at home. He will come up to me and stare if he wants out. Overall he has a very nice off-switch in the house.

I live in Oklahoma and we are starting to get into the heat of the summer; and it gets hot here, normally 30-40 days of over 100 degrees. While I understand that conditioning makes a huge difference in how BC's handle heat, I have to wonder if the traditional B/W dogs are at a disadvantage here vs the lighter colored dogs. Have there been any studies done to see if coat color makes a difference in how well the dog handles heat, all other things being equal? I ask this, because my deceased B/W male did not handle the heat well, yet my current R/W male does. With any type of outdoor activity I had to cool down my B/W male regularly with water, yet my current R/W male just keeps going and going, heat does not seem to phase him. I am in the process of trying to find another BC to adopt and do not want another dog that does not do well in the heat. I don't want to be one of those people who pick out a dog because of coat color, but I do have concerns about handling heat in the summer.

We got the puppies into a local rescue here in Tulsa on Sunday evening. I made a donation to the rescue that should keep them fed for a couple of months and help with their vetting. As much as it tempted me, I could not keep them. My R/W male has no patience with puppies, they get one warning and then a very harsh correction.

When I have a really bad distaste for the Human Race. I got home from Agility Class this afternoon around 5 PM to discover someone had dumped two female Husky or Shepard mix puppies (2-3 months old) in my neighborhood. No collars or anything else on them. No one claims them and no one came looking for them. The puppies were playing in the street when I found them, and were about half starved to boot with insect bites all over them. They weren't feral, as they came right up to me when I called them. My neighbors and I rounded up a crate, some food, and some flea and tick shampoo for them. Bathed them, fed and watered them, and then put them into the crate for the night. Another neighbor thinks she knows a rescue that can take them tomorrow hopefully. If not I may be able to find a rescue for them Monday. If they go to our local animal control they will be dead to two weeks probably. And it's a shame really, these are two pretty well behaved puppies for their age, both ate right out of my hand and never bit me once. Both are white with gray streaks in their coats and from the size of their feet will probably be large dogs. There are times it is extremely hard not to hate the human race.

Thank you.

The fiberglass stock sticks are not stout enough for what I need, I have already broken one last time I fell. I have nerve damage in my rt leg and it just gives out at unexpected times. I need something heavy enough to use as a brace when that happens, yet light enough to carry around and sort stock as needed. I have googled fiberglass stock canes and nothing came up but the stock sticks in the first 6-7 pages of results I checked. Tractor Supply is not an option yet, as the only store I know about locally is still being built.

I've got a pretty banged up body courtesy of the US Army, retired Infantry/paratrooper. I normally use a metal cane when I walk, but that is not something I should use sorting stock. I need something to use as a walking stick/ sorting stick. When I was a kid, we ran 200-300 head of cattle and the old stock canes that were used to sort cattle in pens seem to be my best option. I need something lightweight, but will support me if needed and will also do in a pinch to sort stock.

Anyone have a source for good, hardwood Stock Canes? I am trying to find one and all I can find locally are pine shepherd crooks. Thanks

With 5 people in the house, you will have to get everyone on the same sheet of music. If you are trying to correct some type of undesired behavior, while someone else in the house encourages it, you will have problems. Consistency in training is a must. As far as other activities for your BC, depending on temperament, therapy dog work is a possibility, as is search and rescue work. While I thought at the time it was a waste of a good BC, I seen them trained as gun dogs, flushing birds like a pointer and retrieving downed birds like a Lab or Golden. Pretty much with patience and the right temperament, a BC can be trained to do just about any canine job.

When I was looking to adopt, NBCR was the only rescue that answered my e-mails. As a result I send them donations from time to time even though I didn't adopt from them. I have never heard anything bad about them and my experience with them was excellent.

Zipp and I are off to our first USDAA Trial this weekend in OKC. I entered him in 20" P-I, as I did not want him jumping 26" in Starters. Every measurement he has had so far has him just a hair over 21", which if I read the rules correctly would require him to jump 26" if he was in Starters. I'm not a fan of AKC Trials, went to one and walked away with a very bad taste in my mouth. But I will say that the AKC Agility Program seems to be somewhat saner on the jump heights required for the dogs. Zipp is only required to jump 22" in AKC. Can anyone tell me why there is such a difference in jump heights between the two?

Anyone familiar with this rescue group? A friend of mine is trying to get me to foster a dog for them, but I am unfamiliar with this group. I think they are HQ'ed out of the Dallas/Ft Worth area, but info on the web site is a little sketchy. I have thought in the past about helping a rescue by fostering, but there is really not an active BC Rescue here in NE Oklahoma anymore that I can find. www.bcrrt.com Any info would be appreciated. Thank you.

I have seen the reference to Iris Combe before, but I have also seen other references that refer to Fox Collies as a separate type, maybe a landrace? And to further my confusion, there are a few old time ranchers around here that call their R&W BC's: fox collies. Also as I understand it, McNabs are unofficially called Fox Collies. Then I was poking around on the Old Time Farm Collie site, and found some info that claims Fox Collie was just another name for the old time Scotch Collie from before the time Collies became popular show dogs in England.. Pretty much the more I look into this, the more confusing it becomes. It fascinates me, digging into the history, but sometimes it confuses me to no end. Thanks for the replies.

I have seen the term "Fox Collies" crop up in a number of histories of the McNabb, and a couple of other semi-rare collie type herding dogs. I assume from the context of the histories this refers to Scottish type collies, as they are normally recorded as imports from Scotland. I have also seen the claim that Fox Collie refers to red and white BC's, yet I have seen nothing to back up those claims. As most references to Fox Collies come from the late 1800's and early 1900's, I am somewhat skeptical that it actually refers to any type of border collie. Does anyone know exactly what type of dog, Fox Collie refers to? Curious minds want to know. Thank you.

I grew up on a cattle operation. I never noticed any thing that would differentiate a BC bred for cattle work vs a BC bred for working other types of livestock other than size. In the area I grew up in you would not see a dog working cattle that was less than 50 lbs and most of the dogs were 60+lbs in size. Few people had ever heard of anything besides BC's and Collies for stock work back then. And while we had some excellent dogs over the years mostly B/C's, we also had some Collies. I have to say the best dog we had was an old time Scotch Collie, not a lassie collie. Big dog, probably closing in on 90lbs, but he could put the rankest stock anywhere you wanted them. He could work cattle no other dog could. That dog would not back down from a tornado. Yet you could go out to the barn in the morning to feed and find the barn cats curled up on top him sleeping. To me it is a great pity, those old time Scotch Collies have disappeared. I know there are a few dedicated breeders trying to bring them back, but none of their dogs I have seen match those old collies of my youth. I often times wonder if not more than a few of them ended up being registered as BC's by merit. My current R/W BC reminds me of him in many ways, except for size. It is an attitude that cattle dogs seem to have. I can't point to any one trait and say that is what makes them different from other dogs. It's not their willingness to use teeth or their eye, it is just something that once you get to regularly work with a good cattle dog you will recognize that aura, if you will, in other dogs. One last thing I will say, I have yet to see an AKC bred B/C that I would even contemplate starting on cattle. While most are nice dogs, not their fault they were bred the way they were, everyone of them I have seen seems lacking that indescribable something that makes a good cattle dog.

Question. Dogs with naturally docked tails, how long are they normally? His tail I'm guessing is about 4" long, no white on it. I have seen a number of pictures of McNabbs with very similar tails.