Border Collie Stuff
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Border Collies
Just a word about on of the greatest creatures on the face of this earth - the Border Collie.
Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings at a single bound.
The dog that all sheep talk about but never want to meet. The fur that legends are made of.
Makes coyotes cringe, sheep trip the light fantastic, and eagles soar somewhere else.
Invested with the energy of a litter of puppies and the loyalty of Lassie, they ply their trade on sagebrush flats, grassy fields, and
precipitous peaks, from sea to shining sea.
.Away to me,. I command. They streak and sail, zipping like pucks on the ice. Black and white hummingbirds in, out, up, down, come by.
Sheep. With head up, one eye cocked over their shoulder asking directions. To the gate, through the race. Mighty dog moves behind the
bunch like a towboat pushing barges around a bend.
And heart do they try? .Just let me at them, Dad!. Stay. .Come on, I.m ready!. Stay. .Can.t you feel me humming? Listen to my heart, it.s
purring like a cat! I.m primed. Aim me, point me, pull the trigger!.
Working dogs is like manipulating a screwdriver with chopsticks, like doing calligraphy with a plastic whip. Like bobbing for apples. Like
threading a needle with no hands. Like playing pool on the kitchen table.
There are no straight lines in nature, only arcs. Great sweeping curves of sight and thought and voice and dog. Always having to lead your
command about a dog.s length.
Sheep bunched like logs on a river. Dogs paddling in the current. Always pushing upstream. A ewe breaks loose. Then another, another.
The log jam breaks. Dogs and sheep tumble about in whitewater. Calm again. They start back upstream.
Border Collies. Are they truly smarter than chimpanzees? Cuddlier than a koala? More dedicated than Batman.s valet?
Can they change course in midair? Drag Nell from the tracks and locate the missing microfiche?
Yes, I believe they can. They are the best of the best, the epitome of .above and beyond the call of duty.. Head Dog. Top Gun. I salute you,
for man has never had a better friend.
-- Baxter Black
Developing the Breed
It is my contention that we are changing the breed quite radically. Even those of us who disregard or abhor
conformation standards and have the best interests of our favorite breed at heart. I've just been reading
Eminent Dogs Dangerous Men by Don McCaig. The book contains a number of photos of working/trialling dogs in Scotland during the late
1980s.A couple of nights ago I was watching the Agility contest on Animal Planet and something struck me about the 2
groups of BC: The "modern" (as distinct from 1980s) dogs appear to be bigger (both taller and broader framed... not fat,
but with more muscle development).
Trialling has become a sport, bearing almost as much relation to sheep farming as rodeo does to modern day ranching. There
was a time when rodeo was a contest amongst working cowboys and demonstrated the skills that they used on a day-to-day basis in their work. Look at old pictures, movies and
you'll see that the competitors tended to be rather battered-looking wiry guys. Now rodeo cowboys are professional
athletes first and cowboys second. Yes they can perform rodeo feats better than their predecessors, but I'd put my money on
the stringy little born-on-a-horse type of traditional cowboy when it came to doing a full day's work on the range.
Up till 10 or 20 years ago BCs were wiry dogs, with untidy coats. I doubt if many weighed over 35 - 40 lbs. They had
immense stamina, could (and did) work all day, often alone, on some pretty unforgiving terrain in a frequently miserable
climate. Sheepdog trials were relatively obscure events, with minimal prize money and served as "resume demonstrations"
for both shepherds and dogs... Shepherds got hired, dogs bought and sold, breedings were arranged. The trial was a way
of demonstrating the qualities of the dog and shepherd. BCs are exceptionally fine canine athletes, well, most of
them... there are a few that excel at the sport of couch potato, but not many. In addition to Trialling they excel at Agility, Frisbee,
Flyball (a sport which seems to have been invented either by or for BCs) and Obedience. And a whole bunch of other
activities that right now I can't remember. They have become professional athletes.
And we've lost something. In the development of short-term performance ability we've lost long-term stamina With the
attention to optimal nutrition for our star athletes, we've produced bigger, more muscular dogs and have lost a little of
the performance... There are trade-offs between size, speed, stamina, and agility (as in the ability to maneuver, not the
sport) This can be seen in human athletes. A sprinter and a marathoner have quite different metabolisms... A Sumo
wrestler and a basketball player are virtually different breeds. Traditional BCs tended to be marathoners, not sprinters, but
modern canine sports require a more sprinter-like metabolism.
If we continue in this way we'll end up with a breed that can't do its traditional job any more than a modern poodle can
function in its traditional role as a water-retriever.
This has happened before. GSDs excel at police work, but are lousy herders. Labs and Retrievers make great guide dogs, but
in general couldn't manage a day's hunting if you asked it of them. We may well end up with BCs who excel at canine
sports and trialling, but who could no more do a day's herding than I could.
This is not the same transformation as that of the poodle or Irish Setter from a working dog to a
Barbie-dog, but it is a transformation nonetheless. Something has been gained in
creating our wonderful athletes, but something else has been lost.
However, out on farms in the back of beyond, there will be a few good dogs. Of no particular lineage, of no particular
appearance, who can work all day on whatever food is available. Good workers will be bred to other good workers,
ability and temperament will be valued over conformation. These will be fine dogs. Probably pretty rough-looking,
intensely intelligent, willing to please, hardworking, energetic, tough. They will have a wide variety of external appearances
covering a common indomitable spirit. If they're lucky, their owners will keep them a secret. If not, they'll get taken up by
the public, become a "breed" and it'll be downhill from there on.
Some of us will complain about the "damage" to this "wonderful breed". Some of us will maintain that we're being
responsible in breeding so as not to lose the "vital" qualities of the breed. Some of us will maintain that we can make
"cosmetic" changes without altering the nature of the breed. Some of us will end up swamped with rescue dogs.
Some of the dogs will spend their lives bored and frustrated without real work to do. Some of those will become
aggressive or be called "hyperactive" and be put down.
Some of us will just sigh, because we've seen it happen too many times before.
People just don't know how not to interfere. Our hierarchical social structure encourages us to inflict our desires on "lower"
creatures. We seem almost programmed to interfere, to meddle.
It's not all gloom and doom though. The dogs we have are wonderful. I'm just not sure if they are what they
were... And I'd hate to see them become anything less.
-- Jen Grace
August, 1999
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A Border Collie's worst nightmare! |