Back to the BC Breeding PageIn the last issue, I defined a breed:
"To a geneticist, a breed is simply this: a population of animals whose breeding is controlled and outcrossing limited, so that genetic selection can be exercised on it. . . . Controlled breeding and limited outcrossing make it possible to select . . . for whatever genetic traits the organized breeders decide on."
This set of genetic traits constitutes the Breeding Standard. It may take many forms, but it defines the breed. The existing Border Collie is not a breed without a standard. It has a very specific standard by which dogs without registration papers and pedigrees can be Registered on Merit if they can demonstrate their herding ability to satisfy this standard; it is strictly a performance standard. Whatever appearance standard is designed by the AKC and its chosen Breed Club, it will not be the same standard to which the breed currently strives; it will therefore, by definition and unavoidably not be the same breed of dogs.
Even though the initial registration will come from the existing breed, the next generation of "Showdogs" will have been bred under a different set of selective rules, and will already be at least philosophically different. After three years, when the AKC closes its books and no longer allows dogs of the original breed to be used for breeding, the AKC breed will have become a separate entity, no matter what its name!
This already happened at least once, when the "Lassie" collie was created. The working sheepdogs used to be called "collies." They became "Border Collies" to distinguish them from the developing show breed. At the time of separation, there was no real distinction; anyone can tell the two breeds apart now.
It is currently happening again in Great Britain, where the Border Collie has been recognized by the Kennel Club. In the recent reissue of John Herries McCulloch's Sheep Dogs and Their Masters, Dee Woessner comments in her notes:
"According to Philip Hendry, secretary of the ISDS, the division between the working and show lines has become wider and wider. He attended Crufts, the well-known British dog show, in 1994 when a Border Collie took Reserve for the entire show. . . . An official of the AKC was there, and was heard to say that these dogs went from the show ring home to work on the farm. "Rubbish!" said Hendry . . .
. . . the dogs doing most of the winning in the show ring today are New Zealand imports or their offspring. The imports are much shorter in the leg, with a high-stepping gait, and are often grey or light brown and white."
When showing in Obedience at KC shows, Border Collies which are not registered with the KC are referred to as "Working Sheepdogs," suggesting that the KC, at least, fully recognizes that they are forming another separate breed of dog.
The division of a breed into "Show" and "Working" lines is common; it has happened to virtually all the hunting breeds, for example. Usually the AKC and the previously existing registries are in complete cooperation, so that all the dogs are part of the same genetic population. The Border Collie has been taken by force; our registries are not cooperating, and our dogs will not be welcome within the AKC after three years.
All of this is quite apart from the possibility of a standard being chosen which is simply inconsistent with the demands of the shepherding life. This may be in the written standard or in the fashions of judges who know nothing about these physical demands.
There has been some call for the USBCC to become the breed club so that we could set the standard and thereby avoid the problems of inappropriate physical traits being used. Unfortunately, although the problem will be made worse by the "wrong" standard, it is the existence of a physical appearance standard, and not its details, that is the danger. The currently proposed standard is flexible enough to appear to cover many of our dogs. In practice, however, an appearance standard, however broad it may seem, will subject the breed to all the problems listed above.
Although there is a popular belief that a dog that looks like his father (or mother) will work like his father (or mother) this is simply not necessarily true. Because of the way genes are scrambled at each generation, it is no more likely that the pup with his father's markings is going to behave like his father than the pup with completely different markings. If we were to set the show standard to duplicate in every detail the appearance of the latest International Supreme Champion, this would no more guarantee us a working breed than any other conformation standard. If we don't choose the pups that work like the latest Champion, we are not selecting the right genetic blend from the many possible combinations.
Currently, we have several registries, here and abroad, organizing the Border Collie breed and directing its selective breeding. They all communicate with each other, their breeding goals are all the same, and dogs move freely from one registry to another, so that they are effectively a single genetic population. From the moment the AKC closes its books on the breed they have derived from the existing Border Collie, they will have created a separate genetic population, on which new selective rules will apply. Whatever its origin, and whatever the standard of selection (even if it were to be a performance standard!) this new breed will inevitably begin to differ from the breed registered by the existing registries. It will not be a Border Collie.
Reproductive isolation, the genetic separation of one group of breeding animals from another cannot help but result in two distinct "gene pools," and thus two different breeds. In natural selection--evolution--this is the path to the formation of separate species. In artificial selection, it is the path to the formation of separate breeds. Even with a very similar standard of performance, two genetically separate populations will eventually diverge simply by the effect of drift, the accidental change resulting from the use of a few sires to produce large numbers of pups. In fact, there can be no other reason for the AKC to close the books and prevent future entry of dogs registered with existing Border Collie registries but this: to create and perpetuate a separate genetic population, i.e., a separate breed of dogs.
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