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jdarling
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The number of livestock I have worked with in my life would most likely suprise you so please don't presume that I do not understand the need for working dogs.

Uh, but RIGHT BEFORE you said that, you said

 

I live in the middle of the largest cattle producing county in my state and the number of working dogs is next to none.

Alot of dogs riding on the tool box of the trucks,right in front of the atvs but they stay put as the atvs do the job.

 

Soooo, you claim to know the need for working dogs, then proceed to tell everyone of your county where working dogs are not used. What point are you trying to prove? Your arguments are all over the place and it's very difficult to even understand your point of view when you flounder about.

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Jodi;

The breeder in question does not work her dogs AT ALL [ETA ... I don't actually know that ... there is a pretty dog working a few pretty ducks in one photo] ... so Iron Horse, what do you suggest would be the best method to convince said breeder to prove her dogs' working ability on livestock to a very functional level, above and beyond being a hobby herder -- as you so agree with Deb on this issue?

 

This is where you and I have totally different concepts of what other people should or shouldn't do.

I do not feel I need to convince this breeder to do anything nor do I feel she has to prove her dogs to a purpose that she clearly states she as a breeder is not breeding for.

I feel that this breeder is successfully as well as responsibly conducting her buisness according to the critia that she targets for.

I may or may not personally agree with her critia but that is a matter of personal opinion.

I do however defend her right to responsibly pursue her endeavor.

 

You on the other hand seem to be on a witchhunt for anyone that varies from your own personal opinion/s.

What was your reasoning for bringing this paticular breeder's pratice to the attention of these boards (which has a clear definition of what its breeding philosophy is).

It certainly wasn't to elicite intelligent discussion of the issue by your tone.

It was to encite distain and negative comment with maliciousness toward someone who does not share your view.IMO

Now had this person come to these boards of their own intention then I certainly would of been willing to have intelligent debate with her.

By openly advertising her website to these boards you defeat your own purpose and actually promote the side your opposed to.

Wouldn't a topic discussing the the increased volume of "pet bred Border Collies" without a neon link been more conducive for these forums?

Perhaps instead of spending energy attempting to be the "Border Collie breeder cop" you could better serve your view by promoting your concept of breeding purpose in a more productive manner.JMO

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This is where you and I have totally different concepts of what other people should or shouldn't do.

I do not feel I need to convince this breeder to do anything nor do I feel she has to prove her dogs to a purpose that she clearly states she as a breeder is not breeding for.

I feel that this breeder is successfully as well as responsibly conducting her buisness according to the critia that she targets for.

I may or may not personally agree with her critia but that is a matter of personal opinion.

I do however defend her right to responsibly pursue her endeavor.

Do you have the same opinion of Andrew Hunte and his breeding practices and business goals?

 

Mark

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Do you have the same opinion of Andrew Hunte and his breeding practices and business goals?

 

Mark

 

Absolutely not.

The Hunte corp is a wholesale distributor and not a retail breeder.

Two totally different entities in my book.

The Hunte corp has no influence over the ultimate end user of its product nor do I believe they have any desire to.

Also as far as I am aware the Hunte corp in of itself does no actually breeding of dogs.

They are simply the middleman out to skim the dollars off the operation while maintaining themself in a nice comfortable and unfortunately legal position.

I am in favor of Legislation to curtail this type of pratice.

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Soooo, you claim to know the need for working dogs, then proceed to tell everyone of your county where working dogs are not used. What point are you trying to prove? Your arguments are all over the place and it's very difficult to even understand your point of view when you flounder about.

 

Ridiculous.

It appears that you are floundering about between the lines and not paying attention to the text.

Just because I make a statement that working dogs are not utilized in this county in no way implies that I don't feel they could be.

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I stand corrected, a distributor and producer are different.

 

You and I agree that "Border Collie" (as defined by the general public) is changing due to the changing use of the breed (as a whole) and the breeding goals used to produce pups (larger percentage of pups are produced for other reasons than for stock work). Your attitude is we should accept this and let the general public's view of our breed change; I don't agree. The change in the perception of our breed WILL change the breed and therefore the gene pool. With the change in the gene pool the characteristics (function and personality) of the breed will change; history has proven that with the change in function the personality of a breed changes. So unless you want to see the personality of your future Border Collies change from your current Border Collies, you SHOULD care how and why pups (additions to the gene pool) are produced.

 

Mark

 

Sound familiar?

The Irish Setter was brought to the United States in the early 1800s. It commanded great respect in the field and was one of the most commonly used dogs among the professional meat hunter fraternity.

 

In 1874, the American Field put together the Field Dog Stud Book and registry of dogs in the United States was born. The FDSB is the oldest pure-bred registry in the United States. At that time, dogs could be registered even when bred from sires and dams of different breeds. At about this time, the Llewellin Setter was bred using blood lines from the Lavarack breeding of English Setter and, among other breeds, bloodlines from native Irish Setters. Around the same time, the red Irish Setter became a favorite in the dog show ring.

 

An AKC National Champion Pointing BirdThe Irish Setter of the late 1800s was not just a red dog. The AKC registered Irish Setters in a myriad of colors. Frank Forester, a 19th-century sports writer, described the Irish Setter as follows: "The points of the Irish Setter are more bony, angular, and wiry frame, a longer head, a less silky and straighter coat that those of the English. His color ought to be a deep orange-red and white, a common mark is a stripe of white between the eyes and a white ring around the neck, white stockings, and a white tage to the tail."

 

The Setter that was completely red, however, was preferred in the show ring and that is the direction that the breed took. Between 1874 and 1948, the breed produced 760 conformation show champions, but only five field champions.

 

In the 1940s, Field and Stream magazine put into writing what was already a well-known fact. The Irish Setter was disappearing from the field and an outcross would be necessary to resurrect the breed as a working dog. Sports Afield chimed in with a similar call for an outcross. Ned LaGrange of Pennsylvania spent a small fortune purchasing examples of the last of the working Irish Setters in America and importing dogs from overseas. With the blessing of the Field Dog Stud Book, he began an outcross to red and white field champion English Setters. The National Red Setter Field Trial Club was created to test the dogs and to encourage breeding toward a dog that would successfully compete with the white setters. Thus the modern Red Setter was born and the controversy begun.

 

Prior to 1975, a relationship existed between the AKC and the Field Dog Stud book in which registration with one body qualified a dog for registration with the other. In 1975 the Irish Setter Club of America petitioned the AKC to deny reciprocal registration, and the AKC granted the request. It is claimed, by critics of the move, that the pressure was placed on the AKC by bench show enthusiasts who were unappreciative of the outcrossing efforts of the National Red Setter Field Trial Club, as well as some AKC field trialers following a series of losses to FDSB red setters. Working Irish Setter kennels today field champion dogs that claim lines from both the FDSB dogs and AKC dogs.

 

Over-breeding (or poor breeding goals, my edit) in the 1960s and 1970s, combined with ignorant ownership practices, seems to have branded the Irish Setter with the reputation of being over-excitable or even stupid.
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Your attitude is we should accept this and let the general public's view of our breed change;

 

 

What do you think the general public's view of the Border Collie is right now?

 

Hey, that would be an interesting deal, to go and set up a poll and ask the people that haunt Craigslist to vote as to what their view of the breed is, list it both in the pet section and the livestock and farming section.

 

Deb

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I think that depends on your area. in my experience around here(and I live in the city) the general public perception of a BC is as a Sheepdog. very very very rarely do I come accross people who percieve BCs as sport dogs(unless they are already in the dogsport world) or as pets or as show dogs. nope when people see my BCs I get one of 3 resposes "Border Collies" "Collies" or "Sheep dogs", then they ask if mine work stock. the only people I have run accross that ever questioned anything about my BCs that did NOT relate to them as stock dogs, has been from sport and conformation folks. absolutly NONE from the general public lol

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What do you think the general public's view of the Border Collie is right now?

 

Deb

One of the most energetic breeds and the smartest breed.

 

I don't think the general public makes as close a connection to livestock work as the breed really has, simply because the general public doesn't think about livestock. I believe they may connect Border Collies to livestock like they connect Huskies to pulling sleds; it's simply something that the breed was developed for but not really used for any more. The general public is too disconnected from their food sources to think about it.

 

The majority of the population lives in urban and suburban areas. Rural dwelers will likely have a different view of everything including our breed.

 

Mark

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What was the point of this thread?

 

Is this section to be filled with threads discussing a different breeder each week that someone has found while surfing the web?

 

Personally, I think it's appropriate to discuss a breeder if someone has asked about the breeder because they are considering purchasing from that breeder. But I see no point in critiquing every Border Collie breeder who has a web page and I see it as a waste of bandwidth. Everyone on this thread knows (or should know) the position on breeding Border Collies the owner of the forum has; do we really need to measure every breeder who has a website against this position?

 

Mark

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Back to the general public's view of the Border Collie now - since the vast majority of people live in situations far removed from the farm/ranch setting and the vast majority are also easily able to watch dog shows and performance events on TV, it stands to reason that (in the US) people's view will be that of what they are most familiar with - the "Border Collie" as a show dog and performance sport dog.

 

Intelligent, trainable, active, and a member of the "herding group". The dogs in people's minds will be black and white (hence all the brouhaha about "rare" colors), and either the chunky, hairy show-ring version or the sometimes less-chunky and hairy performance sport version.

 

The first thing most of the population think of will NOT be a lean and whippy-looking dog (with coat or without) working in partnership with a person to accomplish real work on real stock in real situations, or put in breath-taking runs on the trial field. Your results will vary according to location but, in general, I think this is not the picture that the general public sees when folks think "Border Collie".

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What was the point? I'm not sure there was one. Someone sent me the link to it, and I'd never seen it before. I was floored when I saw it (even the best puppymills and BYBs out there claim their dogs do something) and thought it was so over the top, I'd put it out there for others to see, and so it would come up in the future if anyone were to search it.

 

I think this thread has turned into something more interesting than it started out as and a lot of opinions have been revealed -- even those of a long-timer who feels the need to defend this breeder's "right" to breed and sell dogs as revenue so long as it is done "responsibly." This is the same person who initially promoted and then defended an all-out miller several years ago in much the same manner (who ended up getting raided due to their poor breeding practices.) So, I guess the thread was worth it to me in that I've learned that just because someone is a long-timer here doesn't mean they agree with the position of the boards, or that they've learned much over their time here. I have the "right" to do a lot of things -- even the right to do them responsibly -- but it doesn't make them morally or ethically okay, especially if they will affect the future of [mankind] [the planet] [the country] [my breed of choice], etc.

 

Off to a trial ... Have a good weekend!

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I wrote an editorial for the USBCC newsletter last year that addressed the subject of how the general public sees our dogs. I'll start a different thread with it because it's a slightly different topic from what we've been discussing here.

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Actually I would think that as a board that encourages and promotes the working Border Collie and breeding only to that standard, that calling out breeders of any size or volume that breed for anything other than working ability would be considered a good thing.

 

Many people new to the breed come to this board before buying a BC to look for advice or recommendations. Some come after buying from a breeder with other than working ability in mind to lament their decision to buy from that breeder only to find that had they known earlier, they would have avoided that breeder like the plaque.

 

If a breeder feels they have been maligned in these pages, they are always free to join and question or rebut any allegations about their operation.

 

With the current state of the economy and more pet animals being thrown away every day, most to their eventual premature demise, anything that can be done to discourage wreckless and useless breeding operations, not to mention dilution of the breed is something I will not find fault with, even if some consider it a waste of bandwidth.

 

edited

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What was the point? I'm not sure there was one. Someone sent me the link to it, and I'd never seen it before. I was floored when I saw it (even the best puppymills and BYBs out there claim their dogs do something) and thought it was so over the top, I'd put it out there for others to see, and so it would come up in the future if anyone were to search it.

HuH? you "would put it out there for others to see"

Isn't that called advertising?

I am sure that this breeder has an opinion on how and where she wishes to advertize.

It certainly wasn't them who came to a very populated forum ( 9,365 registered members and who knows how many guests) that has a clearly stated breeding philosophy that differs from their own and advertised thiers.

#2 with a bullet under the READ THIS FIRST

* For the good of the breed, border collies should be bred only for working ability.

Perhaps you would of served your personal interests better had you taken your point of view and communicated it directly with this breeder and left the direct public link to their site out of this thread.

 

I think this thread has turned into something more interesting than it started out as and a lot of opinions have been revealed -- even those of a long-timer who feels the need to defend this breeder's "right" to breed and sell dogs as revenue so long as it is done "responsibly."

Aren't opinions really what are sought when a thread is started? especially in the political and culture section of this site.

 

 

 

This is the same person who initially promoted and then defended an all-out miller several years ago in much the same manner (who ended up getting raided due to their poor breeding practices.) So, I guess the thread was worth it to me in that I've learned that just because someone is a long-timer here doesn't mean they agree with the position of the boards, or that they've learned much over their time here. I have the "right" to do a lot of things -- even the right to do them responsibly -- but it doesn't make them morally or ethically okay, especially if they will affect the future of [mankind] [the planet] [the country] [my breed of choice], etc.

 

Off to a trial ... Have a good weekend!

 

For the sake of clarification this "all-out miller" was not raided in the sense that you use the term.

She was contacted by the authorities responsible for the oversight of commercial dog kennels for the state of Missouri, The Missouri Department of Agriculture and given a choice of options.

1-Comply with the laws pertaining to commercial dog kennels within 72 hours or forfeit all but 6 of her dogs (which by law she was able to keep as pets) if she desired to continue to operate a commercial dog kennel in the state.

 

2-Dispose of all but 6 of her intact dogs by either giving them to other people or by destroying them or a combination of both and suppling documentation of the dispersal of each of the dogs within 72 hours to the MDA.

 

3-Forfeit all but 6 of her intact dogs within 24 hours to the MDA

 

4-Do nothing within 72 hours and forfeit all dogs on the premises and be charged with a number of criminal offenses.

 

The breeder chose option #3 at which time the MDA took possession of 35 to 40 of her dogs.

 

These actions were implimented due to the breeder's poor managment resulting in inadequate care, lack of shelter and poor health care which created an inhumane enviroment for the dogs.

Also operating an unlicensed commercial kennel.

 

No criminal charges were filed against the breeder.

 

How do I know these facts? Because it was I who contacted the authorities and provided them with documentation that this person was operating a commercial kennel illegally and maintaining thier dogs in an unlawful fasion that constituted inhumane and cruel conditions.because I had accumulated detailed information on the dogs that the breeder owned I was kept in the loop until the time that the MDA took possession of the dogs.

 

I have never stated that I agree nor disagree with the breeding philosophy as stated in the READ THIS FIRST statement.

However I do believe that I respect it to the best of my ability while visiting these boards.

What i have stated in this thread is a matter of what is a legal right.

morality and ethics are a personal matter to me as long as they do not infringe upon our legalities.

 

My last post on this thread.

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How do I know these facts? Because it was I who contacted the authorities and provided them with documentation that this person was operating a commercial kennel illegally and maintaining thier dogs in an unlawful fasion that constituted inhumane and cruel conditions.because I had accumulated detailed information on the dogs that the breeder owned I was kept in the loop until the time that the MDA took possession of the dogs.

 

I know you just said you wouldn't post any more on this topic, but I am wondering how you learned the legal specifications about what constitutes inhumane and cruel conditions. Maybe you could start another post about it or something... I don't know. I'm just curious about the legal definition of cruelty, and how you went about finding out about that breeder's practices.

 

I ask because there is a breeder near me that I'm leery of, but I'm not sure if what they do is legally inhumane, and I'm not sure how to find out more about the subject.

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I know you just said you wouldn't post any more on this topic, but I am wondering how you learned the legal specifications about what constitutes inhumane and cruel conditions. Maybe you could start another post about it or something... I don't know. I'm just curious about the legal definition of cruelty, and how you went about finding out about that breeder's practices.

 

I ask because there is a breeder near me that I'm leery of, but I'm not sure if what they do is legally inhumane, and I'm not sure how to find out more about the subject.

 

There are two different places to check depending on if the operation in question is licensed with the USDA or your State. Here in Iowa if an operation is with the USDA then our more strict state laws do not apply and our inspector has her hands tied. You don't want to go by what other people tell you, you have to read the current law that would bind the establishment. Many times what a person believes is not backed by the law. In the state of Iowa the Iowa Dept. of Agriculture and Land Stewardship handles the kennels. If you can't find anything locally you could go to Iowa's website to get an idea of what some states require www.agriculture.state.ia.us

 

Some of the biggies based on what we need to do (Iowa Lic Breeding Kennel), housed where they can get out of their feces, food and water in at least 24 hour interval in clean dishes, be aware of and treat sick or injured, annual inspection by vet. They worry about the dogs can get into shelter, some shelters are not legal, in those cases depending on the other violations the inspector will usually say please get this fixed before I come back. Many many of the mill operations are in complete compliance with the laws, personally I don't like to see dogs kept in the conditions they are keeping them it but it's not illegal. If they are healthy, fed, watered and overall not to stinky it's a pass, maybe a couple of please fix comments. We have at most 2 dogs in a run, for the most part they are in individual, they 6 x 15 runs with inside access, compared to most the inspector says ours dogs are living in a palace. She still writes us up, last time because I did not have my kennels cleaned yet that day, go figure one day of poop gets me written up and that our whelping box is not made of materials that are legal, it needs to be chew proof and can't absorb water (no wood). In talking to the inspector she said the biggest thing she is looking for with kennels that pass is a financial ability to care for the dogs along with massive population increases, if your breed 20 females and sells pups and all of a sudden 100 females are there she gets concerned, red flag for economic change or a hoarder in the making. BTW, Iowa requires a license if you have more then 3 intact dogs, you don't have to breed them, just own more then that. If you breed and advertise you may get a courtesy visit, she don't get out of her car and she don't look, she just hands you a copy of the laws and said to get yourself familuar and if they apply get your license.

 

Deb

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I don't think the general public makes as close a connection to livestock work as the breed really has, simply because the general public doesn't think about livestock.

 

I was trying to think of a way to say this and you said it perfectly!

 

Before I had a Border Collie, I had no clue that there were still dogs that worked with livestock. I thought that was something from a long time ago.

 

I was intrigued when I found out that the Border Collie developed as a sheepdog, and I was even more impressed when I found out that Border Collies are still sheepdogs!!

 

Now it's such common knowledge that I don't think anything of it, but I think that a lot, a lot, a lot of "average" dog folks aren't really aware of Border Collies in livestock work. It's just not on their radar. I also think that's why a lot of first time Border Collie people don't go to working breeders. Many would not even know there is such a thing as a working bred Border Collie, much less the merits of getting a Border Collie from a working breeder!

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  • 1 year later...

I only renew this old post because, when I was told someone dear to me was going to buy a puppy from the breeder for which this thread was started, I searched it here and found this post. I forwarded it to her prior to her purchase and she bought the puppy last year. The puppy had an undescended testicle and now has hip displasia.

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