Pearse

I disagree. Remedial training, or to put it another way, approaching training from another direction may enable these dogs to compete normally regardless of the cause. Someone with Asperger's Syndrome may not learn the same way as someone without. That doesn't mean they can't learn. They just need an approach to education that fits their needs. These dogs may respond to being trained or handled very differently from other agility dogs. That is the danger of too much emphasis on genetic testing. Variation comes to be interpreted as "defect" or "disease". The problem isn't with testing individual dogs although that will get out of hand. What happens when you have a genetic test for speed, biddability, height, response times etc., etc., etc.? No, the problem is that then people start BREEDING on the basis of the genetic test without having any clue as to why the dogs are like this in the first place (remember, it is being claimed that many of these dogs are top perfomers before this condition manifests). For all we know, these neurological syndromes may be the right hand end of the bell curve of what makes Border Collies, Border Collies. Just as it is suspected that the right hand of the human bell curve produces the most creative human minds, some of whom suffer from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, Asperger's syndrome, so too some of these syndromes may be the consequence of having dogs with genius level brains. Would we be willing to give up having future Van Gogh, Mozart, Beethoven, John Nash if we could eliminate those conditions from the human population? Would we be willing to do the same in the Border Collie population? Not every dog will be affected, but it may be the case that the cost to having Border Collies be Border Collies is having a small number of Border Collies with some of these neurological syndromes. The argument against this in this case, is that this "syndrome" is showing up in a variety of dog breeds, some of which have been bred for traits other than mental acuity. Label this a "defect", develop a test for the "defect" and people will breed away from it. You are already seeing people talking about spaying and neutering affected dogs with no clue what causes this or what positive traits are associated with it.

That's a completely valid point and I don't have any issue with Agility people wanting to pursue research into this performance trait, or performance disability, any more than I would object to Agility people wanting to pursue research into making dogs run faster or jump higher. If I suddenly noticed a cohort of sheepdogs that were good working dogs and suddenly stopped working normally and started missing sheep and cutting in out outruns and taking wrong flanks at the prime of their working life, I'd want to know why (Early Onset Deafness in some, Lyme in others), but in the case of the deafness, the clinical condition was well defined before anyone started hunting for a genetic cause. Imagine if someone had noticed a bunch of dogs stopping short on outruns and diagnosed it as "Early Cut In Syndrome" and started hunting for a genetic cause when, in fact, those dogs were all chronically affected with Lyme disease. Obviously, I'm opposed to breeding dogs for Agility but that's my position and you are entitled to yours. What puzzles me in this case is the rush to label this as a genetic defect when there has been so little work done on characterizing what the actual deficiency is. Is it visual? Is it mental? Why does the presence of electronic eyes/timers before the jump seem to exacerbate the problem? Why does working the dog from behind through jumps alleviate the condition? If this is a visual problem, why don't these dogs have problems with other elements (misjudging contact zones, slamming into weave poles? There's a lot of work on the clinical side that needs to be done before spending tens of thousands of dollars searching for a genetic disease that may not exist. I go back to what I said before: not all variation is a genetic defect. Furthermore, without fully understanding complex traits, one breeds away from them at one's peril. If you don't fully understand all of the elements that go into causing this condition, what will you lose by breeding away from it? Will you lose "drive"? These dogs appear to be among the "keenest".

I read her article, and I don't see anything approaching research at this point. What I see is a description of a pattern of behavior. She states that she has ruled out "vision problems" which I interpret to mean gross physical lesions detectable by a veterinary ophthalmologist (although she doesn't say how many of these dogs have been examined). She also states that these dogs appear normal upon "physical examination". Whether that means that radiographs, MRI's have been done to rule out joint or vertebral problems, she doesn't say. She does say that the dogs tend to do better when the handler is out of their line of sight. It also seems to affect highly motivated, "frantic" dogs. This could mean it's a similar issue to EIC in Border Collies. It could also mean that it's a behavioural problem of highly motivated dogs focusing on the handler rather than the obstacle, and "spazzing out" as they get ramped up. \ Reading her article on this, convinces me that it's way too early to start looking for genetic causes and breeding around this problem. I can't find anything on it in the actual scientific literature, so my guess is that there has been no real reasearch done on it yet. Maybe it's just too recent a phenomenon.

Also, just because something is not a training issue does not mean that it is a genetic disease. It could just be normal genetic variation. For example, there are many people who can hit a 3-point jump shot 7/10 times or better. I am not one of them. Does my "Three Point Deficiency Syndrome" mean that I have a genetic disease or simply that in the genetic lottery I didn't get the combination of genes that an NBA star did? You could say the same for anything else. Some people are musically gifted, some are artists, some can run the 100m in under 10 seconds. Others can't. The ones that can't don't have a genetic defect. So how about; dogs that consistently take down bars when jumping in agility are simply not suited to be agility athletes. They don't have the athletic gifts necessary to do so. We recognize this in working dogs too. One can breed two good working dogs and get offspring that are just not that talented. Usually, you'll get all the dogs in the litter that will work to some degree, but maybe only a portion that have enough talent to be a dog you could trial with. That's just genetic variation when you are dealing with multi-genic traits, perhaps with multiple alleles for given genes. It's useless to speculate that it's due to depth perception or anything else. Think about how many body systems go into taking a command to jump over an obstacle: identifying the obstacle, judging the height, judging the distance, judging the speed, telling the muscles to perform the sequence necessary for the jump, tucking up the front legs, clearing the jump while processing the information for proceeding the next obstacle - all in about 1/10th of a second. So, there may be populations of dogs who can't do agility. Don't do agility with them.

As far as I know, neither the clinical syndrome nor the genetic lesion (if there is one) has been fully determined. It certainly seems like a real condition. Dogs show neurological signs after moderate exercise even in mild temperatures. They lose some hind end control and stagger. After a moderate period of rest, they seem to recover just fine. Dr. Susan Taylor in Saskatoon is working on defining the clinical side of things in Border Collies. Dr. Jim Mickelson in Minnesota is working on looking for an underlying genetic cause. Neither has published any results yet. They do know that the genetic mutation that causes EIC in Labrador Retrievers is not the same mutation that causes EIC in Border Collies. Pearse

I have a hunch that when we know more about this, we will change the name from "Exercise Induced Collpase" to "Stimulus-Induced Collapse". It seems to me that the most affected dogs share a trait of being described as "intense". You can even see this in non-affected dogs at field trials. Super intense dogs heat up faster than plain-working chilled out dogs, or so it seems. I have a feeling this will turn out to be a "brain turned up to eleven" syndrome.

My first thought. I've seen a lot of it lately. And, no, I don't think it's abuse. Many dogs spend a good part of the day in kennels or crates when their owners are at work. The temps aren't dangerous. The van is open. They have water. They appear to be in good condition. Apart from the noise, they aren't really doing anything you wouldn't see every weekend at a dog trial or agility trial. Pearse

There's the first problem I have with the argument. The majority of dogs being bred do not improve the breed. The reasons they are being bred are financial or because the owner wants a pup from their favorite dog. So, right away the argument "only breed a dog if it is exceptional and deaf" fails most of the time. If we could rely upon people to make truly objective and altruistic decisions, then fine, I buy into this argument. But, we can't. Lots of people who either don't know better, or do know better but like most of us can rationalize anything, will convince themselves that their average stockdog is exceptional and worth breeding despite whatever maladies it has. Except, that is not the way things work in the real world either. Most breeders will not cull (and by cull, I mean kill) the affected or carrier pups that they don't mean to keep. Almost no one will sell a pup with a spay/neuter contract (especially if the stated reason is for health defects meaning the pups will not sell), and it's doubtful if those contracts are worth the paper they are printed on in the first place. There may be some highly ethical breeders who really care about improving the breed who would take the necessary steps to prevent affected or carrier pups from reproducing, but they would be in the minority. Therefore, assume that 80% - 90% of carriers would enter the population unaltered. The estimated incidence for CEA in the Border Collie population is 2.5%. The estimated carrier rate is 25%. That pretty much means that every breeding should require DNA testing of both parents to make sure you aren't going to have affected pups because you have a 1:8 chance (0.25 x 0.25) that any given breeding will produce some affected pups. We don't know what the carrier and affected rates for EOD are yet, but anectdotally I don't know anyone who has a dog with CEA, but I know at least five people with dogs with early onset deafness, and I don't know that many people. To me, that argues for an abundance of caution until we have a better handle on this. I'm not convinced by this argument either. While it may be true that, in the past, dogs who had undiagnosed genetic problems (or problems that were diagnosed but for which the genetic basis was unknown) and those dogs went on to great things and produced great lines, now that we understand and, in some cases, can test for genetic problems, those same lines can be perpetuated using unaffected siblings, parents, or other close relatives. Not to nitpick, but at this point in time the argument over testing for EOD is moot. There is no genetic test. The genetics have not been elucidated. We don't know how many genes are involved. We can't test progeny. So, to my mind, the only prudent course at this point is to not breed deaf dogs. Pearse

All very valid points, but regardless of the gene frequency in the population, why would one knowingly increase the frequency by breeding a litter of pups, every one of which is going to be a carrier, at the very least? The only reason to do so is when that particular sire or dam can contribute something to the breed that no other dog can. That is almost never the case. So, to my mind, there is almost never a good reason to breed a dog with a known genetic condition, where we are almost certain that a major contributor is an autosomal recessive mutation, and where that condition severely limits the working ability of that dog and any others who inherit the condition. Furthermore, the true gene frequency in the population may never be known because it's unlikely that the research necessary to determine that will be done. So, it seems to me that the most prudent course is to do all we can to prevent any increase in the gene frequency by not breeding dogs known to be deaf, unless there are extraordinary reasons to do so. Pearse

I disagree with Mark on this. Unless the dog is truly exceptional (ie: in the top 0.1% of working dogs), I see no reason to breed a dog that is homozygous for a deleterious mutation that has a profound negative effect on the ability of the dog to work. A deaf dog can't work effectively. A dog that is deaf because it carries a recessive mutation (and all the available evidence points at a recessive mutation in at least one gene being a major factor in this) will ALWAYS contribute a copy of the mutated gene to ALL of its progeny, regardless of whether the other parent is affected or not, thereby increasing the frequency of the deleterious mutation in the population. Furthermore, since at this point we have know way of detecting carriers, breeding an affected dog risks producing a litter where 50% of the pups will go deaf. I can't see any good reason to breed that dog when there are so many other good dogs available. The only reason would be if that dog was so exceptional in every other way that losing those genetics would be a major loss to the breed (and I would argue that we know so little about the heritability of working ability that even that argument is a weak one). DNA test or not, I don't see a good reason to breed a dog you know is affected with this condition. Pearse

The complaint isn't that the living conditions are primitive. The complaint is that the living conditions are primitive, the work is hard, AND the workers are not fairly compensated for working hard and living in primitive conditions. Average pay for these workers is less than $900/month for working 14 hour days, 7 days per week for an entire season. That's about $2.00/hr (and that does not include any compensation for being "on-call" 24 hours per day). The employers try to justify these wages by claiming that they provide "room and board" but the "room" is primitive and the "board" is minimal and neither justify the difference in wages paid versus a decent living wage. I've worked in tree planting camps for months on end where "room" was a tent that I supplied and I got paid piece work (cents per tree planted) but at least if I worked hard, I could make good money. These guys, when they get paid at all, get paid crap wages. Like most of these jobs, the employers justify hiring migrant workers (including undocumented or illegal migrants) with the excuse that "no American will do the job". Americans would do the work, but not for $2/hr.

You can sugarcoat or rationalize this any way you want people but the behavior that the veterinarian reported on in the email forwarded to Nancy is what will spell the end of stockdog training and trialling in the United States. There are far too many people out there who have no business calling themselves "trainers" allowing untrained dogs with no talent for stockwork to routinely chase and abuse the 10 - 20 sheep they own. Think about it. "Eight to ten dog owners" probably represents 10 - 15 dogs "working" the same 4 or five packets of sheep, two or three times a session, three times a week, every week, supervised by someone who has maybe ProNovice level training but is holding themselves out there as a "trainer". It's the blind leading the blind and the motivation is money with no regard for the stock. Fifteen dogs, three times a week at $30 a go is $1350 a week, over 5K/month which is decent money even if you are selling your 20 sheep as culls/utility ewes every month and buying 20 more. On the handler side, we're talking largely about people who won't be doing stock work with their dogs and likely will not be trialling at USBCHA Open trials. These are people who think either that their dog needs to chase (sorry, "herd") livestock to be fulfilled, or who have the idiotic belief that allowing their dog to chase sheep around will cure it of its behavioral or temperamental problems stemming from their inability to put manners or socialization on the dog. I know people who have sheep and will let others work them, but if they see rash work or their sheep are being run around and harassed, the person is politely asked not to come back. There are others who actually are great trainers of dogs and who will step in when necessary and prevent unnecessary harassment of the stock. That's not what we're talking about here. Training young dogs is not always pretty, but with proper training, the rough stuff doesn't last long and people who know what they are doing can train young dogs without having their sheep routinely abused. That's not what we are talking about either. We are talking about the clueless training the credulous, or the callous training the ignorant which will lead to people like the veterinarian in the original post alerting the local Animal Welfare authorities followed shortly thereafter by moves by local authorities who don't know stock work, and animal rights lobbyists who oppose the use of domestic animals for anything, to start moving against the use of dogs to work stock altogether. The question we all need to be asking ourselves is; why are we doing this? Are we really all concerned about keeping the Border Collie as a stock dog and preserving the craft of moving stock calmly and humanely in partnership with dogs, or is that just the rationalization we use to justify entertaining ourselves at sheepdog trials? If the former, then it is incumbent upon us, as a community, to bring what ever peer pressure we can to bear on eliminating situations where stock is being ill-used. If we don't, others will and we will not like the results. Pearse

I'm sorry Pam but I have to disagree. If a working-bred border collie is not for someone, then they should get themselves a different breed. "Watered-down" Border Collie should be removed from the gene pool, not bred for. I have working bred dogs. I work them on stock when I can. I did own a small flock up until this year and will again soon (I hope) but most of the time, my dogs hang out at home. They aren't hyper. They're not destructive. They behave themselves in an urban environment. And, on days when I'm at work for 10 - 12 hours, they wait patiently and calmly at home for me to come home and take them for their run, or take them to sheep. That's not in spite of them being decent working dogs in my opinion. It's because they are decent working dogs who haven't been "watered down" by someone trying to make them into something else. Most of the basket case Border Collies I've met are "watered down" dogs from sport-bred lines. Having looked at the video, most of those dogs looked perfectly normal alert dogs to me. Most of them, in fact, showed none of the dead-eyed, exaggerated form, looks you see in top show dogs. Pearse

Has she been spayed? Some spayed bitches develop incontinence due to relaxation of the sphincter that controls their bladder. It can be controlled by medication but it is a lifelong condition and the urination happens most commonly when they are asleep and unaware. Pearse

This was my first thought too. At this time of year, it gets cold and dry. Indoor humidity drops and static is more common. Dog getting zapped every time he put his nose on anything would make him flinchy and explain the sudden runs across the room away from the shock.

The papers are produced from a database. The database gets updated when someone files a transfer of ownership request. If you buy dog in 2005, and in 2005 John Smith owns the Sire - Moss, then John Smith will be listed as the owner and the breeder will be shown as the breeder (let's say John Smith is also the breeder) But, if you request new papers in 2009 and John Smith sold Moss to Tim Jones in 2008, the database field "OWNER" now lists Tim Jones as the owner. The breeder should be the same. I can't see anyway of doing it any other way that would create a nightmare in designing the database and in data management. I also can't see why it matters. The pedigree is useful for listing ancestors and breeders. Owners aren't really of any interest since they often change over a dog's life. A receipt shows from whom you bought the dog. Pearse

The argument is that if you are running one dog, you don't get to choose where you run that dog. It's the "luck of the draw". You may draw up first thing in the morning when it's 62F and the sheep are quiet. You may draw up 3 in the afternoon when it's 95F and the sheep have been run once or twice already. If you are running two dogs, you are likely to draw a spot in the top of the order and one in the bottom of the order. If you know the sheep/conditions are going to be more favorable to a better score early, you may choose (if given the choice) to run your better dog in the more favorable spot. It also happens at some trials, that some handlers running two dogs, send their entries with the dogs' names on them. They get drawn spots. Other handlers send in simply Dog1 and Dog2 (mostly because it's 4 months before the trial and they honestly don't know which of their 4 dogs they are going to have ready but sometimes to gain advantage). That affords them a possible advantage over other handlers. That gives you an unfair advantage over anyone else who is not afforded a similar accommodation. That is where the dispute arises. Herbert says he gets three or four complaints a year. There are probably as many again instances where no one complains. There are about 500 sanctioned trials per year. It's not a widespread problem it would seem. Pearse

The argument is that if you are running one dog, you don't get to choose where you run that dog. It's the "luck of the draw". You may draw up first thing in the morning when it's 62F and the sheep are quiet. You may draw up 3 in the afternoon when it's 95F and the sheep have been run once or twice already. If you are running two dogs, you are likely to draw a spot in the top of the order and one in the bottom of the order. If you know the sheep/conditions are going to be more favorable to a better score early, you may choose (if given the choice) to run your better dog in the more favorable spot. It also happens at some trials, that some handlers running two dogs, send their entries with the dogs' names on them. They get drawn spots. Other handlers send in simply Dog That gives you an unfair advantage over anyone else who is not afforded a similar accommodation. That is where the dispute arises.

This is why no draw is truly random. Here's what happens at most trials. The draw is done, more or less the way it is laid out in Sec 15 of the rules. If someone draws at the bottom of pool A and the top of pool B, the trial secretary will either redraw Pool B or, more likely, finish drawing Pool B and simply move that team down three or four dogs so that they aren't running back to back. I've spent many hours fiddling with algorithms to do random draws for trials and handlers running multiple dogs really messes with making the draw random. The same thing happens with trials where the handers are doing et out. The draw is done and the setout assignments are done as best as can be managed with the draw as it is, but if someone needs to be moved around to let them set, it is often done. In neither case is anyone gaining any advantage. In the first case, the handler has no say in which dog gets moved where. In the second case, setting sheep at a trial is more of a disadvantage than an advantage and offsets any gain you might get from being moved around in the order. The intent of the motion is to reduce complaints about handlers being allowed to pick when their dog runs. Perhaps the rule could be ammended: 15(A)A. Any competitor running two dogs will run his/her second dog after all other competitors with two dogs have run their first dog. A handler MAY NOT designate which dog is to run first. 15b The HA suggests, to implement this, all handlers with one dog will be drawn randomly, one at a time, and divided alternately into two lots. Entries of handlers with two dogs will be added to the first lot. Entries of the first lot will then be drawn for running order. First dog drawn runs first, second dog drawn runs second, etc. That way the rule applies to part A. The implementation of the rule is left up to the trial committee with a recommendation as to how that might be done. Pearse

No trial host wants 60 handlers on the phone demanding refunds because they deliberately jiggered with the running order to give someone an unfair advantage (which I believe is really really rare), and in my opinion, when that kind of jiggering happens it's usually due to pressure on the trial host from certain handlers. Giving the trial hosts a rule to fall back on almost certainly eliminates this practice. The biggest problem this rule introduces is that at most of the trials we host/attend, hosts are trying to keep costs down by having handlers rotate sheep setting and pen duties. This usually requires some adjusting of the running order. So how do you ensure as fair a draw as possible while giving trial hosts the flexibility to meet their needs in running the trial? How big a problem is this? How many complaints is the HA getting per year, and how many appear to be actual cases of manipulating the order to give someone an advantage? Pearse

I don't read it that way at all. Section B makes no determination on how the lots are to be drawn. Any computer algorithm would, by necessity, divide the running order into N groups (N being the maximum number of dogs run by any given handler), randomly assign teams to one of the N groups and then randomly seed the groups from 1 - N. Which is exactly how section B requires it to be done and which guarantees that handlers running more than one dog all run their first dog before any of them run their second dog. Pearse

The motivation behind the random draw is to make is as fair as possible for ALL competitors. Your rationale unfairly disadvantages anyone running one dog. Someone running two, or in some trials, three dogs has several chances on each day of the trial to place their best dogs to best advantage. Splitting the single dog handlers into two groups doesn't negate that advantage at all if each day's running is an independent trial. That would only work if the trial were one trial, two runs over two days. What you are arguing is that it's OK to disadvantage someone with one dog at one trial if you don't disadvantage them at a completely different trial (held on a day when conditions might be completely different) The luck of the draw is part of trialing. I don't think your approach levels the playing field at all. It stacks the deck in favor of handlers with more dogs and greater familiarity with the trial flock and local conditions. I disagree with Mark that the HA has no way of enforcing the rule if passed. Any trial not adhering to the rule gets their sanctioning pulled, after the fact if necessary. The first time that ever happens, handlers will make their displeasure known. If the HA should legislate how the draw is managed at local trials, what should it legislate? From what I can see there are absolutely no standards at all for sanctioned trials. Any trial can be sanctioned regardless of how it is run. The rules for the Finals and local trials do not need to be the same because they are different beasts, but there ought to be some standards for local trials and a fair draw ought to be the bare minimum, regardless of how that is mandated. Pearse

Find a room in your house where the nasty dog won't be. Keep your dog there for most of the time the visitors will be in town. Let him out when you are going for walks or when they can hang out supervised in the back yards. Get a crate. Put the nasty dog in the crate or in another room while you let your dog out to socialize. Simple. It won't kill your dog to be confined for part of five days. Won't kill the other dog either. Less stress. Everyone is happy, and no need to fib to the relatives, plus when you want to visit CO, they won't have any excuse for you not to bring your very well socialized dog. Pearse

Could it be numbers? I've seen this often in small groups of sheep <10. I haven't seen in with large flocks >50. Maybe sheep in small groups feel more exposed and figure the best defense is to leg it or fight. In larger groups, you only have to be faster than one other sheep so you can amble around until the dog gets too close. Pearse

No. I wouldn't. I think anyone is entitled to charge as much as they want for any good or service they wish to offer for sale. If no one wants to buy it at that price, they will likely lower their price. If everyone else is selling Border Collie pups for $500, there won't be much of a market for $2000 pups, but if someone has a pup they think is worth $2000 or $20000, who am I to tell them to sell it for 1/4 or 1/40 as much. I think it's silly for someone to pay $6.5 million/year for David Beckham to kick a soccer ball around for 90 minutes a week, but if someone offered it to me, I wouldn't turn it down. Likewise, if I was selling pups and someone offered me $2000 for one instead of $500, all other thing being equal, I wouldn't say no and I don't know too many people who would.