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How working breeds are lost


Denise Wall
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Okay, here's my attempt at explaining what I think happens when working breeds are lost. Assume the border collie is the theoretical breed, where many strong workers existed in the original breeding pool and the need for their work was not lost or reduced but instead the dogs became less and less useful for it.

 

I believe it helps to think of the different levels of workers in more concrete groups, even though, in reality, the scale from all to none is graduated. Imagine something such as a dart board, with a bull's-eye and several circles that indicate areas farther and farther from the middle target. Let's say the bull's-eye circle is red, the next circle is orange, the next yellow, and the very outside circle is white. The actual area within these circles varies depending on the number of dogs in each class at any one time.

 

Now let's define the groups of dogs in the different colored circles. Please remember all of these categories in this hypothetical situation represent the genetic potential of these dogs. In other words, this is what's in the gene pool. I'm not talking about what people think the dogs are or don't know whether they are or not due to not having tested them:

 

Red circle (bull's eye) = The very top working border collies. A working definition might be dogs who are exceptional enough to save a great deal of time and manpower for a livestock operation.

 

Orange circle = Useful dogs who save time and manpower for the operation but who are not top quality.

 

Yellow circle = Dogs who will work a little, but wouldn't be considered useful workers on a real livestock operation because they would cost time and cause too much trouble. IOW, someone may want to pretend they're actually helping, but they really aren't and sometimes they're hindering. Although they may show some herding instincts, it's not the right package for work.

 

White circle = Dogs not interested or not capable of doing anything with stock except maybe chasing. So, not useful or way less than helpful.

 

 

Livestock working ability is comprised of many complex traits. These traits all need to fit together just right and in the right amounts for the dog to be the complete package, and be considered a top worker -- the bull's-eye. Achieving this package with the consistency needed requires stringent evaluation and selection for working ability every generation. Because of the complexity of reproducing behavioral traits such as these, it's difficult to get this package that is a top worker, in every pup, or even close, despite crossing the best to the best. This is partly because some dogs, for whatever reason, aren't good breeders, no matter how good they, themselves, are. So let's say if only red circle dogs were crossed, only 80% of that number of red circle dogs would be produced in the next generation. (This is a hypothetical number -- it may actually be less.) Therefore, breeding only red circle dogs will not replace all of the red circle dogs, and the number of red circle dogs will drop each generation if only these crosses are used.

 

As with other breeds used for other purposes, many a top sire gets bred to a mediocre bitch. Because the working genes are still highly concentrated in the border collie gene pool, the chances of hitting upon a dog who may not be a top worker herself but is a good breeder, are still pretty good. This type of good breeder would be mostly in the orange circle with a few in the yellow circle, but almost none in the white circle. Breeders of these top working sires may take a stud pup from these crosses to increase their chances of hitting on a good breeder should their top bitches not be, or not cross well their sire. In other words, the top breeders still rely on the peripheral pools of dogs who are not as good themselves but who are good breeders, to provide some of their next generations of top red circle dogs. As long as the emphasis is on breeding for work and the momentum of most of the breeding is going toward breeding for the bull's-eye and concentrating only the working genes, the number of red circle dogs will be replaced each generation and maybe even expanded.

 

Now, suppose the breed becomes popular for dog shows, pets, and dog sports such as agility. Suppose these people do not only buy puppies from the working bred dogs. Now instead of a mostly dead end gene pool -- dogs that will not be bred, these dogs with no working ability will be bred. The number of white circle dogs increases. And since people seem to want to claim their "borders" can still herd with the best of them, or the sport dog people need to tap into the working traits for success in their endeavor, they will look to the working circles for breeding to try to get these traits in the pups. Regardless of how it happens, however, now the momentum has changed and the working genes are being diluted, instead of concentrated, in this peripheral gene pool that has formerly been the source of good breeders to help replenish the red circle top workers. As this progresses, the good breeders in the peripheral gene pool become more rare, the yellow circle fades more to white, the orange fades more to yellow and the red fades more to orange. Unable to replace themselves without the help of the strong working genes formerly present in the peripheral gene pool, over time, the number of dogs truly in the red circle diminish until the gene pool is too small.

 

*******************

 

When I recently presented this scenario to a canine genetics list, a sophisticated group consisting of many knowledgeable professionals, including population geneticists, members with other working breeds said it was an accurate analogy. Points brought up in the discussion included the problems with people thinking their dogs were in a higher quality "circle" than they were and trying to pass those dogs off to the public as being in that class of workers. Non-working people and inexperienced owners/breeders of working breeds often demonstrate a profound underestimation of the quality needed to be considered a top class worker.

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Denise,

To your knowledge, have there been any studies done to determine dominant and recessive gene traits in the border collie, and how they effect working ability? I get the feeling if there have been, this type of data would be helpful to the breeder in determining good crosses and best potential for success in breeding specific sires to bitches (of course, this would go hand in hand with proven workers). 'Course, that would also depend on the breeder knowing the specific genetics of the dogs to be bred, I guess, and how they relate to to the genes determined in any studies, if there have been any. Ugh, would probably require DNA sampling $$$, eh.

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Well, I am neither inexperienced or a non-working breed person and I still see probelms with the theory if you are using it to explain how we will eventually lose the herding ability of working dogs completely. Again, I would agree that the theory explains the ruination of a working breed OVERALL, but it still does not explain how a breed loses it's working ability because of the pet breeders. I would be interested in reading the list you refer to since I would completely agree it explains a breed as a whole but not a specific part of the breed. Would you please share the group link where you posted this theory to the experts? I'd be very interested in reading the thread.

 

It doesn't matter how many crapper dogs are out there for the public to buy, if the working breeders are keeping their great dogs, selling them to fellow herders, and importing for new blood in their lines, the gene pool doesn't get diluted with crap unless they infuse crap dogs in to their lines. That is a breeders fault if they breed to crap it's not the fault of the crap breeders.

 

The serious working breeders will alway breed to working dogs. If they don't like anything in the US they import. Sometimes they import regardless of what's local. No matter how many crap dogs they might breed their quality studs to (which is THEIR lack of responsibility to the breed) they still have the ability to import and to breed to quality dogs. As long as this is around the ability of the breed does not die, it may become a smaller portion of the breed overall by simple numbers, but it doesn't affect the small group of serious breeders.

 

Pick one breed where this theory has panned out. The popular retriever breeds still have excellent working kennels. GSD's still have excellent working kennels. All these breeds have and still do suffer from the pet, show, and sport breeders. Are the excellent dogs a smaller % of the total breed? Sure they are, but that doesn't mean the workers are gone completely.

 

Working lines die because working breeders let them die.

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Hi Denise,

 

The only flaw in your theory that I see is in this paragraph:

 

So let?s say if only red circle dogs were crossed, only 80% of that number of red circle dogs would be produced in the next generation. (This is a hypothetical number ? it may actually be less.) Therefore, breeding only red circle dogs will not replace all of the red circle dogs, and the number of red circle dogs will drop each generation if only these crosses are used.

 

The bull's eye would not be self-replacing if dogs bred like humans -- one to five offspring per lifetime living to reproductive age. But that's not the case. A good stud dog might have 40 or more offspring that live to reproductive age. And a bitch might whelp three or four litters -- say 12 to 20 pups reaching reproductive age.

 

So the bull's eye can replace itself, even if only 80 percent of the pups born to it remain within it -- and indeed probably with a much lower percentage. The question in my mind is whether the having a self-replacing bull's eye is a goal to strive for. I would argue that it is not, as it would tend to decrease genetic diversity and increase the odds of the laws of unintended consequences coming into play.

 

The goal should be, in my opinion, to make the bull's eye bigger and to eliminate the white zone -- or at least minimize it. And for that, we need to cross out to the orange and occasional yellow zone dogs.

 

Once again, I think you and I end up at the same place, but take different routes after looking at the same map.

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HKM's mom,

 

There's a big difference between working breeds and working lines within breeds. I think Denise is getting at how working ability within a breed peters out. Even when the momentum is going against the way we think it should, there could still be working lines -- indeed, the absolute numbers of red zone dogs could be increasing. But if they are declining as a percentage of the breed, I think the breed is in trouble. It is in particular trouble if the white zone is expanding at a rate faster than the yellow and orange zones -- again when considered as a percentage of the breed.

 

What generally happens (I'm thinking of the Australian Shepherd breed here) is that the definitions get changed, or dumbed down. I have heard of a breeder of Australian Shepherds who uses one dog because he's a great worker. He just has to be kept on a leash all the time. If you were to ask her, he's a red zone dog, and probably a lot of people would agree with her. He's keen, at least. Personally, I would place him well into the yellow -- more trouble than he's worth -- category, but relative to the rest of the gene pool, heck, he's not that bad.

 

There are some real serious working lines within the Australian Shepherd breed, I'm told. But the breed as a whole is not what I would consider a working breed anymore.

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I think what Denise is saying is that the gene pool becomes diluted in the orange and yellow concentric circles that are also used by breeders of working border collies. It seems to follow then, as the orange becomes yellow, etc., you'll eventually have a seperation of the breed, especially if working ability is what defines the breed. If the red dogs are unable to replace themselves, when this happens, you'll end up over time loosing the working border collie. Is this an accurate description of your model, Denise?

 

What assumptions do you make about breeding - 80% over the lifetime of the dogs or 80% per litter or doesn't this matter?

 

Kim

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The quote from Bill is my exact point. Denise initially said this was how we lose a working breed completely and I disagreed. I did agree that it's how the breed as a whole gets diluted, but we don't completely lose them this way.

Yes, overbred breeds get diluted to the point that not everyone sees them as a working breed but that doesn't mean there aren't working lines or working dogs anymore. I mentioned the working lines because the subject of "working potential" was brought up. We can't determine potential if it's not tapped so determining potential is a pure guess. Tapping it is up to the people serious in the sport. How do we keep new human blood in the sport? Read on

 

I keep using the GSD because it's a breed most people recognize as overbred and has strains that have been ruined by show people (overangulated, etc). Within the breed there are still great working dogs and great working lines. Heck, the American GSD is known to have what we call "show" lines and "working" lines within the working kennels. This is within the group of working dogs. I'm not talking AKC show lines, but dogs that title in SchH and such sports. Working lines are all about the ability of the dog (the red dogs if you will). Then we have the show lines within the working lines (the orange dogs), then the rest. No working GSD owner would ever breed to anything but a red dog. If you can't find a red dog in the US then you import, get frozen semen, or ship you do there for breeding.

 

The number of working lines being worked is determined by the number of people we bring in to the serious aspect of the breed/sport. If we run all the newbies off by being rude, being to closeknit, and being snotty, then our definition of a working dog may very well die out. Heck, we all can't live forever and keep herding/working dogs forever.

 

As for the example dog you gave we see those in all working dogs. The question you have to ask is why must he be on leash? Was it poor training, incomplete training, poor leadership, inability of the dog to control it's drives (which I see as a training issue). It's always a problem when you talk ability because the human factor is so big here. The dog may have been a red with a different trainer/handler. He may also have been a yellow or orange. That's where knowing bloodlines, etc can be a big factore in the breeding game. A great dog can work like crap with the wrong trainer/handler. An average dog can look good with the right trainer/handler. But this is not really the issue it's simply a cog in the wheel of what makes a dog crap, average, good or great.

Cindi

 

Bill wrote:

There are some real serious working lines within the Australian Shepherd breed, I'm told. But the breed as a whole is not what I would consider a working breed anymore.

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HKM's Mom wrote:

 

"Denise initially said this was how we lose a working breed completely and I disagreed. I did agree that it's how the breed as a whole gets diluted, but we don't completely lose them this way."

 

Here is the exact exchange from:

http://bordercollie.heatherweb.com/cgi-bin...=1;t=006287;p=2

 

HKM's Mom wrote:

 

 

"As I have already said, it's obvious that ridding the US of all the pet BC's isn't the answer to perserving the herding instinct in BC's. But we have to be realistic in what we are doing here. We will no more rid the US of pets than BYB will make it impossible to find a good herding dog. I doubt BYB will infect the great herders of this country and ruin their stock. We will always have good herding stock as long as those interested in it are responsible breeders."

 

I wrote:

 

"Unfortunately, this is probably not true. I want to be specific here in that I am talking about BREEDING non-working dogs, not owning them. Many working breeds have been lost in part because people thought what you think. If you look at the working gene pool from the viewpoint of population genetics, the dilution of the entire gene pool from people breeding show dogs, pets and sport dogs with no working ability WILL likely be the downfall of the breed."

 

Perhaps this is difference in what we consider a downfall of a breed. I don't consider a breed with only a few strong working lines that are getting fewer in number all the time, a viable working breed. The working gene pool would be too small for future health of the breed. I also consider an entire breed of formerly good dogs with little working ability "ruined."

 

I never used the word "completely" but there is a point where a breed is on such a downward trend that it can't be saved.

 

As to your question about the canine genetics list:

 

The address is:

 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Canine-Genet...yguid=110633338

 

One thing you should know is there are a number of show people on the list. Like most other dog show people, they're determined there's no problem with any of the working breeds and that they know more about working breeds than the people who work them. They can be very tiresome in their domination of working topics. Many times, working people get sick of messing with them and take the topic private. Therefore, much of the best input I got was from private email. However, enough working people replied on the list that you should be able to verify what I wrote if that's your goal.

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Tucks BC Buddy wrote:

 

"Denise,

To your knowledge, have there been any studies done to determine dominant and recessive gene traits in the border collie, and how they effect working ability? I get the feeling if there have been, this type of data would be helpful to the breeder in determining good crosses and best potential for success in breeding specific sires to bitches (of course, this would go hand in hand with proven workers). 'Course, that would also depend on the breeder knowing the specific genetics of the dogs to be bred, I guess, and how they relate to to the genes determined in any studies, if there have been any. Ugh, would probably require DNA sampling $$$, eh."

 

Here's a summary of old herding studies:

 

http://www.stilhope.com/heritabilitysummary.htm

 

It's not much. The only other ones I know of were one at Berkely in the 1990s, which yielded nothing, and one started by the government in the 1940s, I believe, which yielded nothing. Seven or eight years ago, at the request of his son, I drove up to Washington, DC to interview the researcher, then in his 90s, from the 1940s study. His study was fraught with problems, not the least of which was a distemper outbreak that killed most of the dogs. We spent an entire day trying to find some data that could at least be useful in combination with more work, but there was none.

 

Herding traits, like many behavioral traits, normally have complex inheritance patterns. In addition, often their expression tends to be influenced by other traits. Along with a geneticist friend, I've been studying these traits for about 12 years. I consider it a life's work.

 

So the answer is I don't see the heritability of herding traits being figured out for a long time, if ever.

 

Denise

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Denise,

It seems we keep losing something in our reading of one another's posts. My initial post that you reposted says I don't think BYB will make it impossible to find a good working dog but that I agreed they dilute a breed down. You then posted that you disagreed with that. It seems that as we continue this we actually think along the same lines but can't seem to be clear enough in our posts to meet in the middle.

 

As for the genetics topic I didn't want to verify anything you wrote I honestly find such topics very interesting. If my request made you feel defensive or that I was doubting you, I apologize. The show people don't bother me like they bother other people on this board. I may not agree with what they breed for but I respect their right to do it. I started in the AKC show world back when I was eight so I am not ruffled by any of it. I just say a Serenity Prayer and move forward.

Thanks for the link

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Bill F wrote:

 

"The only flaw in your theory that I see is in this paragraph:

 

So let's say if only red circle dogs were crossed, only 80% of that number of red circle dogs would be produced in the next generation. (This is a hypothetical number -- it may actually be less.) Therefore, breeding only red circle dogs will not replace all of the red circle dogs, and the number of red circle dogs will drop each generation if only these crosses are used.

 

 

The bull's eye would not be self-replacing if dogs bred like humans -- one to five offspring per lifetime living to reproductive age. But that's not the case. A good stud dog might have 40 or more offspring that live to reproductive age. And a bitch might whelp three or four litters -- say 12 to 20 pups reaching reproductive age.

 

So the bull's eye can replace itself, even if only 80 percent of the pups born to it remain within it -- and indeed probably with a much lower percentage."

 

I think you're assuming all of them are good breeders or cross well with who they're bred to. But maybe you're right. I'm not going to say whether you're right or wrong. Just think of it this way -- think of some really good working dog kennels. Now, ask yourself how many of them have been able to replace their best dogs only using their best dogs for breeding. This is incidentally the question I asked myself that led to my dart board theory. I found they almost without exception ended up buying in other dogs or getting the odd stud pup from the unlikely bitch who worked out when the ones from their bitches didn't (or at least not all of them).

 

Someone on the canine genetics list brought up the point that even when the red circle could replace itself genetically, Murphy's law would have it that the best dogs ended up in the wrong situation, thereby not being able to replace their parents as breeders.

 

I'm not sure how they don't replace themselves, I just think they don't. And I believe that's the answer to why a strong working pool still needs a good supportive peripheral pool of pretty good dogs to help it stay strong.

 

"The question in my mind is whether the having a self-replacing bull's eye is a goal to strive for. I would argue that it is not, as it would tend to decrease genetic diversity and increase the odds of the laws of unintended consequences coming into play."

 

I agree. I think this diversity is one reason the border collie is such a great healthy breed still.

 

I've always said the difficulty in breeding exactly what you want has provided diversity and saved the breed from many of the ills many other breeds suffer.

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HKM's Mom,

 

You might enjoy the genetics list. However,

 

"The show people don't bother me like they bother other people on this board. I may not agree with what they breed for but I respect their right to do it."

 

The show person that got me on this topic to start with was someone from the UK claiming there was no use for "livestock herders" anymore.

 

That kind of thing wears pretty thin after a while. I've been on that list for years. Unfortunately the show people are taking it over little by little and many of the good working people have left or only lurk now.

 

Denise

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Kim wrote:

 

"I think what Denise is saying is that the gene pool becomes diluted in the orange and yellow concentric circles that are also used by breeders of working border collies. It seems to follow then, as the orange becomes yellow, etc., you'll eventually have a seperation of the breed, especially if working ability is what defines the breed. If the red dogs are unable to replace themselves, when this happens, you'll end up over time loosing the working border collie. Is this an accurate description of your model, Denise?"

 

Yes, this is the way I'm thinking of it.

 

"What assumptions do you make about breeding - 80% over the lifetime of the dogs or 80% per litter or doesn't this matter?"

 

I'm not sure if I had that well defined but over a lifetime makes more sense. I think you could make the 80% (which was a hypothetical number BTW -- it only needs to be less than 100% for the theory to be correct) work out if you made the standards for the red circle tight enough. IOW, most really top dogs don't actually reproduce themselves or better. Most new top dogs come from other crosses.

 

What do you think?

 

Denise

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Denise writes:

IOW, most really top dogs don't actually reproduce themselves or better. Most new top dogs come from other crosses.

 

This is true, but most new top dogs aren't exactly bolts out of the blue either. And while top working breeders certainly go outside of their own kennels and lines, I would venture a guess that most of them do not go very far out of the red zone, if at all.

 

That said, I have seen enough littermates and full siblings that were variable enough -- all bred from bull's eye parents -- that I think there's something to what you're saying.

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I wrote, "What assumptions do you make about breeding - 80% over the lifetime of the dogs or 80% per litter or doesn't this matter?"

 

I guess the reason I was asking was because I, like Bill, was trying to decide if a replacement value of less than 1 was realistic. However, even if this assumption is wrong, I think your model has face validity. In practice, I'll bet the number of incorrectly identified dogs (unrecognized potential or inflated potential) could be as high as 50% or more resulting in poor breeding decisions that favor the peripheral pools.

 

Kim

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I dimly recall that Denise wrote the first version of this essay a year or more ago in response to the assertion that only top dogs should be bred at all. As a result, I think it may have been clearer in the first version that dogs in the orange circle provide healthy diversity. The point was the same, however.

 

Penny

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Bill wrote:

 

"This is true, but most new top dogs aren't exactly bolts out of the blue either. And while top working breeders certainly go outside of their own kennels and lines, I would venture a guess that most of them do not go very far out of the red zone, if at all."

 

They only need to go out of it some, expecting replacements, before the quality of dogs "out there" will start to affect the red numbers for the next generations.

 

Remember though that for this model, orange zone dogs are useful dogs. I know some top trialers for example (although I hate to drag trialing in in this) who readily breed out to regular,probably orange zone, farm dogs and happily take the stud pups, and hitting on good ones not that infrequently.

 

Replacement red zone dogs from non red dog parents wouldn't be expected to occur as frequently as from two red dogs. One might consider them "bolts out of the blue" if they came from a white zone dog but less so if they came from an orange zone dog.

 

I'm not tied to this theory. It's just the best I can come up with so far. You're helping me poke holes in it in places. That's good. Thanks.

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Kim wrote:

 

"I guess the reason I was asking was because I, like Bill, was trying to decide if a replacement value of less than 1 was realistic."

 

I know it seems unlikely genetically that less than 1 replacement value could happen, even given that all of the reds aren't bred, or aren't bred as much. I tried to test this theory by sorting through as many breedings as I could think of, using my own classification system. Your classification system may yield different results, as may Bill's, Penny's, etc.

 

"However, even if this assumption is wrong, I think your model has face validity. In practice, I'll bet the number of incorrectly identified dogs (unrecognized potential or inflated potential) could be as high as 50% or more resulting in poor breeding decisions that favor the peripheral pools."

 

You may very well be right. It may be that the actual replacement is less than one because of factors other than genetics.

 

Let's keep thinking about it :rolleyes:

 

Denise

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I dimly recall that Denise wrote the first version of this essay a year or more ago in response to the assertion that only top dogs should be bred at all. As a result, I think it may have been clearer in the first version that dogs in the orange circle provide healthy diversity. The point was the same, however.

 

Penny,

 

If you can help flesh that out more it would be great. I honestly don't remember that part and the original post is gone since they purged the list after a certain number of posts.

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I also recall taking away from the first incarnation (here, anyway) of Denise's interesting model is that one needs to keep a viable "orange" group if the Border Collie is to remain the dog that we love, if not improve it.

 

And, I either read or inferred that NOT rigorously breeding for working ability (real, bona fide working ability - not "my dog will stalk sheep and lie down when I tell her") will eventually undermine the orange group thus destroying the world as we know it.

 

Of course, that doesn't mean she wrote any of that!

 

charlie

 

EDIT: Oops, Eileen found the original post. I can't bring myself to read it; it'll just show my addled, failing memory.

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Denise's original dart board:

 

Denise started a new thread for that post. I now hazily think that the thread which prompted her to do so discussed which dogs should be bred and whether there should be something like a working certificate with various grades of registration.

 

Penny

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Thanks Eileen for finding that thread. That really helped since I didn't remember some of the good points brought up the first time around.

 

Charlie, don't be hard on yourself for not remembering. I started the dang thing and I didn't remember it too well.

 

I think my emphasis in that older post was on diversity because of a discussion going on at that time. This time it was in response to how the top workers could be affected by diluting the rest of the gene pool. Although my "mission" was different in the two times I've brought this up, I think the analogy can be upgraded to include both of these points.

 

I believe we're a long way from anything truly scientific from this model. However, I've hooked into some population geneticists, in hopes they can help me evolve this analogy into more of a mathematical model from the standpoint of population genetics.

 

Thanks to everyone, both this time around and last, who helped me to refine this analogy.

 

Denise

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Thanks, Denise for your explanation of the decline of working characteristics. Your notes brought to mind what three GB men have said about my dog and breeding of Border Collies in recent years. These men were in the US to judge big US trials on three separate occassions, older men with more years of experience than maybe any of us but a few. Two of these men saw my dog work, and his line was discussed by all three. All three said that "those dogs are not being bred any longer". They seemed to think that the decline of large flocks and fenceless hillsides in GB has caused a shift in the type of dog bred recently. They said that dogs are bred, in recent years, that are easier to train, easier to handle, softer, with less of some unnamed quality that they felt was essential to the Border Collie in earlier times. Two of the men told me that "those dogs (of that kind)" are nearly all gone now. It seems that they believe a change in the selection of characteristics and degrees of characteristics have changed the breed, in a relatively short time. They might very well agree that fewer red dogs are bred now, and more of the orange and yellow are bred, those that may have never bred had they lived in past years. Obviously, they think the red pool is vastly diminished, and that by herding people. They made me sad that I missed that period of time when I could have watched "those dogs" do their work.

 

Disclaimer: I am a relative novice compared to many on the list, so forgive any faux pas I may have committed in my comments. My dog is nearly 10 yrs now, and never had a fair chance to show what he might have been, had he not spent his first five years as a 4-H star with my daughter, and the next five teaching me all he could about

sheep and Border Collies. Thank God, he has a profound sense of humor.

 

Sheryl

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I think that one point that hasn't been addressed directly is that there are only so many homes for Border Collies. The major damage that breeding the "white circle" (WC)dogs does, is to take away homes from potential progeny of the "red circle" (RC)dogs. This creates less of a demand for these dogs and thus less breeding. You can't just look at the WC dogs as some harmless island that doesn't touch the RC dogs. Their existance is competition for the RC dogs. We know that every pup from an RC cross is not going to be useful in a working home. They could be just fine in a pet home, but if those pet homes are being filled with the progeny of conformation, obedience, agility, or pet crosses, then not as many RC dogs can be bred.

 

Besides selection, you need expansion to maintain a healthy gene pool. Otherwise, you are inadvertantly selecting against rare beneficial alleles that get lost by chance when the breeding population is small enough.

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