Donald McCaig’s The Dog Wars is an important book to me, and it should be to anyone who reads this blog as well. I mean, come on, the Dog Wars and the Border Wars…. both about Border Collies… McCaig and I are soooo clever.
The pages of insight into the workings of dog registries and the philosophies of the people who run them, both the AKC and the ABCA, are fascinating and informative. The theories presented on why the two camps are so different in their views is also compelling.
But as much as I enjoyed the tongue lashing that McCaig gave the conformation cult of the AKC, I must say that the picture he paints of the motivation and beliefs of the trialing community paint a troubling picture for the Third Estate as well.
The plight of the Third Estate is to be continually marginalized in philosophical importance by the spin-meisters of the first two estates while they try and sell us (and the Fourth Estate) their numerous culled puppies demonstrating our practical importance to them.
The issue doesn’t go unnoticed in McCaig’s book, although even his astute observations fail to appreciate the scope and power of the Third Estate; nor does he recognize the slight we feel by being seen as second class citizens by many members of the first two estates.
McCaig is a good author, and he’s about to become even more famous. But let’s not let his well deserved literary ego distract us from his logical shortcomings.
The issue I have with McCaig is his myopic arrogance and contradictory values that place trialing on a pedistal that has no room for any other aspect of the Border Collie. His non sequitor conclusions are easy to miss if you belong to his congregation of Border Collie thought and simply don’t question the commandment that trialing is god and thou shalt not blaspheme the name of god. Take this example:
Heavily promoted, [McCaig’s book Nop’s Trials] introduced several hundred thousand readers to Border Collies. Its virtue was the warning on the last page that “Border Collies do not make good pets,” a warning the community has repeated often enough it has reached the general public.
– p22
Ok, so his book was Babe, before Babe was Babe. The idealized and romantic tale that popularized the Border Collie with, as he admits, several hundred thousand people.
Just like every other sappy dog story from decades before and after that dealt with lost, wayward, or imperiled dogs that finally got to their ideal forever homes (Lady and the Tramp, 101 Dalmatians, Benji, Homeward Bound, The Incredible Journey) or heroic dogs (Rin-Tin-Tin, Lassie, White Fang) or famous dogs (Pete the Pup, Toto, Asta), it is likely more than a few people went out and bought a Border Collie on McCaig’s recommendation, anemic last page warnings or not. Dan Brown’s warnings didn’t stop legions of cultists from having a coming-to-Mary-Magdalene-moment and he posted his warnings up front.
If steering people away from Border Collies is the desired “virtue” of McCaig’s works, then I have to say that his books are wantonly inadequate to the task.
The NYT review of Nop’s Trials said:
In one instance, Mr. McCaig writes that, ”anyone who’s ever seen a red fox slipping up behind an unsuspecting young groundhog has seen Nop’s delicacy.” Yet we might add that anyone who hasn’t seen such a thing will still experience a keen sense of Nop’s ”dog wisdom,” so convincing is the novel’s rendering of canine thoughts, sensations and even dreams.
– 4/15/1984
With glowing praise for your glowing prose, how can you not expect to sell many a border collie along with your books? The way to un-sell your breed to the masses isn’t to romanticize and glorify them and tie it together with a “not good pets” ribbon any more than you can expect to turn people off to chocolate chip cookies by baking a batch of them in their home and as you pull them hot out of the oven remind them that they are high in fat and sugar and don’t make good desserts.
It also seems odd that McCaig would hypothesize that the masses are listening to his warning yet later in his book The Dog Wars, he reveals that the Border Collie is in the top ten in breed popularity in the USA despite the AKC only capturing one tenth the breed pool. He rubs it in that the breed is so popular and yet very much out of the AKC’s grasp; obviously people aren’t getting the message that Border Collies make for poor pets. Of the 25,000 registered Border Collies born each year (and an appreciable number of unregistered dogs that are not so easy to count), very few are ever going to see a conformation ring or a trialing field and the ABCA is just as dependent on cash from pet-only sales as the AKC is.
Although there must have been informal competitions earlier, the first modern sheepdog trial was held at Bala, Wales, in 1873. The historian and sheepdog handler Albion Urdank notes that this trial was intended as a country entertainment: aristocrats enjoying bumpkins at play. But sheepdog trials were swiftly appropriated by the bumpkins and their patrons, agricultural improvers who decided trials should not seek friendly, pretty, aristocratic, or even competitive dogs. Instead they sought dogs that would make it possible for a man on foot to handle a thousand sheep on mountainous, unfenced ground, dogs that could work on their own, take whistled instructions from over a mile away, and travel a hundred miles a day in the foulest weather without complaint. That’s what trials are for: to choose the sires and dams of the next generation of sheepdogs.
p25Sheepdog trials are not self-referential: they are designed to produce dogs useful in the practical world.
– p23
What McCaig doesn’t emphasize or even tell you in his book is that he and the others involved in the Dog Wars (like Eileen Stein) and even in the publishing of this book, aren’t WORKERS, they are HOBBYISTS. Now maybe their hobbying is closer to real work than the difference between a cross country train engineer and a guy with some scale models in his basement, but McCaig and Stein and Molloy and Nadelman aren’t career or generational ranchers/farmers, they came to the activity as a hobby and it is likely that their current and former big city careers are supplementing their sheep habit. They are the Third Estate masquerading as the First Estate simply because the activity they do much more closely resembles the working of the First Estate.
As such, their oft heard claim that trials, and only trials, are what made the working sheepdog what it is, ring false. McCaig himself injects a wonderful story of a sheepdog performing all the admirable traits we admire in the Border Collie…. in the 15700s… in what would become Colorado (whoot!). His reference regarding the establishment of trials speaks to their entertainment base, not their practicality or necessity. For that matter, working sheepdogs existed in no less a refined form long before trials and continue to be bred to a work standard divorced from the trial standard today. No serious farmer or rancher should need a trial to tell him what dogs can do the work and which can’t.
Trials should not seek friendly, pretty, aristocratic, or even competitive dogs. Instead, they sought dogs that would make it possible for a man on foot to handle a thousand sheep on mountainous, unfenced ground, dogs that could work on their own, take whistled instructions from over a mile away, and travel a hundred miles a day in the foulest weather without complaint. That’s what trials are for: to choose the sires and dams of the next generation of sheepdogs. They are a paradigm of the dogs’ daily work, made more difficult.
– p25
The notion that trials don’t seek or promote “competitive” dogs is sheep shit. The top trialers in the country have long since proven their dog’s merit and worthiness to breed, yet we see them out there again and again. Why? Because they are competitive. They like to win. There is nothing wrong with this, but merit based competitions are a mark of the Third Estate, not the First.
As for the thousand sheep bit… I doubt any or many of the trialers own that many sheep or have ever worked that many with their dogs. If they do, they certainly don’t need 4 sheep as a proxy for 1,000. I know of trials in the mountains, but not on any mountains. Sure, the ground may be rough and tough, but nothing like the nasty shores of Scotland or remote desert pastures. The dogs and the sheep in trials are likely more familiar with fences than without. As McCaig notes later in the book, the vast open Western grazing lands are now being used to house Buffalo and exotics for Ted Turner. Trial dogs aren’t really asked to work on their own, and certainly not at a mile away. There might be a handful of trials that have outruns past 500 yards, even 800, but that’s still too short by half. And trials last 10 to 20 minutes, certainly not enough time to cover a hundred miles.
McCaig claims that this is the daily work of sheepdogs made more difficult, but it seems to me it’s much more regimented and simplistic, the way sport is regimented and simplistic. The difficulty doesn’t come in the work per se, it comes in the scoring and the rules of the sport. These dogs are talented and able dogs, and when one fails on the field, it might be due to the limitations of a timed and judged sport and not on the animal and human’s ability to work.
Working faster, with more precision, and with clean communication between shepherd and sheepdog are obviously critical traits that need to filter from the trial dogs to the working dogs who don’t trial. And as far as I can tell there’s no better distillation of farm and ranch work than a trial. The essential fairness of a sport is to bring the teams to a level playing field, in one place, and on one day, so they can be judged objectively. Barring the changing conditions in temperature, composition of the flock, and temperament of the sheep, trials appear to do this very successfully and is likely the reason they have lasted more than a century and are as popular as ever.
Trialing is not a minimum standard of performance kind of sport like some means of scoring Obedience and Agility, where you can qualify towards titles without winning first place, it is strictly a ranking and when a champion is declared, the word means what it says. That dog is THE champion.
It seems logical to me that if this truly were about selecting dames and sires, the prizes wouldn’t be trophies and plaques for the handler, but breeding contracts and obligations for the winning dogs. And for that matter, you’d think that success at trials would lead to a licensing of dogs eligible to keep their breeding status in the registry, with qualifying runs and earned standards, strikingly like dog sport.
As a tool of genetic selection, the sheepdog trial has done exactly what its creators had hoped. Very few Border Collie pups won’t work stock. That’s not to say that all Border Collie pups will grow into first-class dogs, or even that they’ll all make trial dogs.
-p25
I doubt that there were many, if any, Border Collies that couldn’t work stock before sheep trials. As a method of preserving working ability, of course trials can do that, but as a matter of creating it, McCaig gives his friends too much credit.
McCaig describes a revolution in trial participation that happened in the early 1980s:
More and more, younger handlers were entering trials and doing well. Friday afternoons, Bill Berhow would put his bitch Scarlet on the back of his motorcycle and drive eight hours from Florida to Bill Dillard’s, where they’d work dogs until Sunday night. Kent Kuykendahl decided he was more interested in sheep dogs than the sheep his family was famous for. Cheryl Jagger, who’d grown up with her father Walt’s Border Collies, started giving clinics.
These keen, competitive younger handlers started beating men who’d previously been unbeatable. Their clinics taught hundreds of new handlers.
They raised the bar.
– p22
These aren’t the tweed-wearing grey beards you’d envision pushing sheep on hills in Scotland, they are existentially dog sport people.
You might think this is a minor point, because after all, I’m here yelling about how the Third Estate should be taken more seriously, or at least the Third Estate should have the moral right of self determination (read: breeding rights) with their dogs. But it’s a major point because the moral authority of McCaig and others is derived from their argument that breeding for anything other than trialing (lets distinguish this from work, despite their liberal exchange of the two) is going to ruin the entire breed and bring an end to the vital and crucial WORK (not play) of sheep farming.
I have no objection if you want a collie. I won’t demure if you say that “he still has all his herding instinct. You can’t keep him from rounding up the children.” Love is notoriously blind. But I had hoped to convince the AKC dog people what every sheepman knows: If your livelihood’s at stake, get a Border Collie.
p55
Let’s be clear, the supply of sheep that McCaig and others are bringing to the market is not being driven by the demand for sheep, but rather those hobbyist’s demand for the lifestlye. They play at sheep and compete at trials. It is fun, it is a (retirement) hobby, and it is a game, a sport. Their livelihoods are clearly not at stake, as I doubt any or many of them actually turn a profit in their “work.” I don’t imagine many of them are even trying or would stop if the sheep market in the US continues its decline. Their flocks number in the tens and hundreds, not the thousands or tens of thousands. But over and over again, they usurp the authority and prestige of those who do work, those who are in the business….not leisure….of sheep.
Work and the true sheep and cattle industry has little or nothing to do with this, any more than giant pumpkin contests have to do with the filling in your pie or the jack-o’-lantern you carve every October. So in snobbishly turning away from all other Border Collie proving grounds, not just conformation, the hobbyists in sheep worker’s clothing have tossed out merit based objective activities that bring out the best of the Border Collie’s intelligence, trainability, and athleticism. They also condescend to that same crowd who views trialing as a weekend project or a sport instead of a high art, no matter how well the sport trialers do.
Turning their back on the then-Obedience now-Agility/Flyball/Rally/Frisbee/etc. group was not an unconscious decision on the part of the ABCA, and this book has inspired several other future posts where I will explore what became of the Obedience handlers who signed the “AKC: Hands Off The Border Collie!” petition that McCaig reproduces in the book, why someone would side with the AKC over the ABCA, and why the the ABCA has turned their sights on Versatility breeders as well as Conformation breeders.
More to come inspired by this important book and the important debate over the true future of this great breed.
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Chris, you are pretty new to the world of border collies. Nothing wrong with that, but I would not play “kick the can” too soon with folks that have been around quite a bit longer and do it for a living and whose reputation is very secure based on what they have brought to the table for more than 20 years.
A couple of points:
** You are the hobbyist. McCaig derives most of his income from sheep. He had sheep before he had dogs. McCaig lives in Highland County, Virginia which has more bears than people, and where sheep and cattle are the entire economy. It is named Highland County because it LOOKS like the highlands of Scotland. I have sat in sheep auctions in Highland County and know the country, and it is not “hobby” country. It is rough sheep country — modern roads can barely get across it, and the Cable company has not yet made it there. It has fewer people today than it did in 1860. Because of where he lives and where he works his sheep, I suspect McCaig knows quite a bit about working dogs on hills and mountains — and about Border Collie trials too. If you have not been to a sheep trial on a hill, then you need to get out farther. Not all of the world is flat California scrub desert, and not everyone in the world is a hobyist (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
** The Border Collie is NOT a top 10 dog in the AKC, and McCaig does not say it is. In fact,the AKC border collie is #55 — below Airedales (not a dog you see too many of, eh?) You are confusing the AKC with The Kennel Club (UK) which is a different thing and a different history.
** Don McCaig does not have an ego that I have seen in our small (and now quite old) correspondence, and others who have met him (such as Gina Spadafori) say he is very self-effacing. He certainly makes no claims for his dogs being exceptional trial dogs, or for his abilities as a trainer; quite the opposite. And yet, in the world of sheep-working dogs, he is very well respected and others have very nice things to say about him. When others say nice things about you, that is not their ego talking — is commendation of others.
** Your core thesis — that McCaig bashes dog sport folks — is completely unsupported by quotes, and when I clicked through my copy of the book, I could find none of it. To what are you referring?
** You are confused in one section about dogs and people. McCaig is talking about dogs, and you are talking about competitive people. Quite different things, I think. McCaig’s point is that for what a border collie does uniquely well (herd sheep), you want a dog that works well with others and does not have an ego or competitive side. The dogs at a Border Collie trial are not on a leash; at AKC events they are. A dog that cannot be kept in control off leash around other dogs and sheep is not a dog you want in the field. As McCaig says on the preceeding page, “In a quarter century, I have never seen a dog fight at a sheepdog trial.”
** You seem genuinely confused about what makes a Border Collie special or what has made a Border Collie what it is. Yes, Border Collies do well at agility, flyball, frisbee, rally, etc. That is all good and McCaig says nothing bad about that. But a Corgi, a Jack Russell, a Poodle, and a Viszla can also do agility, flyball, fisbee, rally, etc. If any dog can do something, it’s not that special. What makes a Border Collie special is what it does with sheep. Only a Border Collie works sheep like a Border Collie, and it is the sheep and the hill that made it, not the Whammo frisbee company or the just-invented sport of dogs running through PVC weave poles. Nothing wrong with agility or frisbee, but it’s not a particularly special thing in the world of dogs. Nor is it what made the Border Collie. That is the point of those who keep the breed a working breed (and by work, I mean sheep-work). After the Border Collie’s gene stock has been wrecked by 25 years of loose breeding by agility and frisbee folks, it will be to the sheep-working dogs that they will return in order to introduce a shot of “the real thing” back into their now-degraded lines. The “real thing” is a sheep dog. Yes, any sheep dog can probably do well at agility, frisbee or flyball, but not just any any agility, frisbee or flyball dog can work sheep even poorly. Blur the lines (or confuse the issue), and you will eventually lose the Border Collie. Ditto for Jack Russells and other types of working terriers in their field of very differnt work.
Patrick
Patrick,
I am not new to Border Collies. I’ve grown up with them and they have been in my family for generations. Longer than Babe, before the ABCA, and before the AKC got a hold of them.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t important parts of the “world of border collies” that I am new to. But I am not blissfully ignorant. I have instead made a committed effort to become more familiar with trialing, herding, and even conformation. I am training both of my dogs in herding and being trained as a handler at the same time. If what McCaig says is true, then I have about 9 more years before I could call myself a trialer and my dogs have 2-3 more years before they should step out on the trialing field.
I am new to trialing and other serious dog sport, and self admittedly so. And I am also a self admitted (aspiring) hobbyist. That is my definition of the Third Estate. Dog Sport Hobbyist.
***
I didn’t say the Border Collie is a top 10 AKC dog. If you read back a few posts, I show exactly where the Border Collie falls in the AKC ranks. The Border Collie is a Top 10 AMERICAN dog despite being so lowly ranked within the AKC.
As noted by McCaig and you and others, it is one of the very few breeds whose AKC numbers are not reflective of the population at large. (Nor do I believe it should be).
The Border Collie is a popular dog, and 9 out of 10 of those Border Collies are ABCA registered dogs. But that’s the point of that observation, the dog is highly popular as a pet.
***
I think Donald McCaig is wonderful. His writing is excellent and he comes off as quite a charming man. I have no problem with big egos or small egos, or his ego. But wether by choice or by happenstance, he is the voice of the working/trialing Border Collie in America.
He is more than diplomatic in his treatment of the AKC and the dogsport people, but that doesn’t change the fact that he has signed his name to documents which aren’t as even handed. There’s more on this to come.
But am I wrong in calling him a hobbyist? Would you prefer “lifestyle farmer”? He says himself that he left a high paying copywriting job and 90% of his income to be a sheep farmer.
When he traveled to Scotland to find a border collie, was it because he couldn’t find one good enough to do the work here, or because, like any hobbyist, he’s wrapped up in the majesty and romanticism of the history of the dogs and the motherland? Was it a business decision or a lifestyle decision?
You can appreciate that he coming to BCs through an activity (and as an adult) and me coming to activities through BCs (as a child) are likely to have different perspectives and core values.
Your other point deserves a longer treatment than a comment.
Cheers.
.
Chris, you have two very young border collies that cannot possibly be trained yet. My understanding it that you had a border collie as a kid living with your folks. From what I understand, you have little or no experience working sheep. You yourself, at age 27 or 28, have not yet lived the lifespan of two dogs you owned dead from old age. Where I come from, that’s not just new to border collies — that’s pretty new to dogs.
And no, when your money has mostly come from sheep for more than 25 years, you are not a hobbyist. It’s called a job. All jobs are choices. What you do to put bread on your table is called work. In the case of farming and ranching, it’s very hard and dirty work.
As for getting a good working Border Collie in the U.S., I cannot speak to that. I do know that you cannot get a good working border *terrier* in this county and would have to go overseas to do that. Ditto for a good police dog, as the U.S. Secret Service will tell you. I know that a lot of trained border collies come from overseas as they are harder to get over here in large part because a working border collie is age three before it starts to really know its work — maybe four to be ready to trial. If you want more than a handful of choices for an ADULT trained working border collie, you consider going overseas as it’s a cheap flight. McCaig is not the first or the last to do that, is he?
Bottom line: I would suggest slowing down and showing a little more respect for folks that didn’t learn it out of a book and have spent decades in service to the dogs. Ask questions and hold opionions until you have earned them. Enthusiasm is great, but it goes down better if it is tempered with humility. It’s your blog, but part of blogging is finding the right voice and tone. Knocking the hats off of more experienced and well respected people in an area you want to be treated seriously in is generally not a good way to win respect. I am not the flattering kind (as you can tell), but I do give a nod to folks that have a hell of a lot more experince and knowledge than me (and there’s no shortage of them).
Go over to the littlehats web site ( http://www.littlehats.net ) and check out their approach. They are trying to provide information, knowlede, tips, etc., and their tone is “I’m no expert, let’s learn together, etc.” They are upfront about being “wannabes” (I suspect they know more than they let on) and though I have not spent much time cruising the site (not my dog world), it’s a nice and useful tone. Just an idea …
Patrick
Dublin and Celeste are my 5th and 6th dogs, 4th and 5th Border Collies. I put down 14 year old Bonnie Belle a year ago this week, and 14 year old Black Jack the Christmas before that.
I’ve lived with these dogs and I won’t apologize for a single day.
They are my life breed, and every time I hear some trialer wannabe pull rank and claim that my dogs are deficient and that if I ever dared breed them I’d be ruining the breed lest I retire to a sheep farm and play farmer Joe for a decade first, my blood boils. The matrons you discuss so often, we have them in Border Collies too.
The trialers are scared and losing power and so they have aimed their guns at everyone else. That doesn’t make them very many friends, nor do they deserve them. I’m not here to win friends away from them, there are plenty of nice breeders who are doing that already, I’m here to expose lies for lies and faulty logic for what it is on both sides of the war.
You can see from my AKC vs. ABCA post that I pull no punches and have no favorites.
I don’t expect my views on breeding autonomy to ever convince you. Your views on the subject are clear and reasoned and honest, and radical. And I don’t mean that in a pejorative way.
But I don’t see the trialing community spaying/neutering their dogs and adopting rescue dogs in large numbers. Nor the conformation people. But the Third Estate is full of people who place the population issue and the rescue issue above their own desire to breed.
Should I give up my dogs until I can ostensibly retire to a lifestyle farm and give up 90% of my income for the luxury? Will I have to be 60 before I can exercise any judgment?
I spoke before my State Congress before I could drive, defending the rights of gifted students not to be treated like special needs students. Some brilliant Senator thought that the government was spending too much money on special needs students with their own custom “lesson plans” and care takers and specially outfitted classrooms. Some other idiot lawmaker had also written the law to fund G/T programs in with the money to fund special needs students. So when it came time to cut back on the luxuries the special needs kids got, G/T was going to be wiped out entirely.
You know, I could have respected my elders, the people who had more experience with the law than I did. People who had more education and degrees than I did. I could have left the job to G/T teachers, or lobbyists to fight. I could have assumed that they were all doing their job well, that they had actually read the legislation they were going to vote on or that they were making an informed decision.
Well, I didn’t, and I prevented a bill that was by all accounts going to pass with ease from passing and ruining all G/T education in my state. I was the lone student who spoke against that bill, and one of only two people who spoke up at all. A parent of gifted children and I.
Together, the two of us saved the job of every G/T teacher in the state of Colorado. The idiot who sponsored the bill withdrew it when she found out what harm she was really about to cause. She didn’t even realize, nor did the Education sub-committee, nor did the entire governing body.
To this day that Senator probably thinks I’m the nasty little asshole who embarrassed her in front of all her colleagues. Good, maybe she’ll rub two brain cells together next time and not torpedo what makes this country great.
If my arguments aren’t good enough when I’m 26, they won’t be good enough ever. Keeping my mouth shut when others are telling lies and fallacies is not my style.
I’m not making a logical fallacy based on an appeal to authority or an appeal to numbers or an appeal to fame.
Unlike the most popular Border War arguments, I won’t appeal to authority, to belief, to common practice, or fear or emotion or flattery or popularity or ridicule. Certainly not an appeal to Tradition, or the false dilemma, or the poisoned well.
The closest I’ve come is perhaps noting that breeding for dog sport is a common practice, but I didn’t justify it on those terms, I stated that it needs to be examined and critiqued because it is common.
We live in a country where farmers are given subsidies to not plant. We don’t need their crops, but instead of letting them go out of business, we put them on welfare.
Well, the trialing community is asking for welfare. They have stated that they can’t maintain the breed without having a virtual monopoly on the pet market, and thus, they want artificial supply controls to keep their self admitted inefficient and non-self-sustaining enterprise to thrive. The enterprise, as they claim, is to get ignorant yahoos to buy animals that make “terrible” pets. Or in their words “save the breed.”
I don’t buy that the working dog is not self sustaining, nor do I buy that border collies need to be terrible pets. Inbreeding and sacrificing temperament for performance ruins breeds. Both the trialers and the conformationists do both of those two things freely.
Quote:
As a tool of genetic selection, the sheepdog trial has done exactly what its creators had hoped. Very few Border Collie pups won’t work stock. That’s not to say that all Border Collie pups will grow into first-class dogs, or even that they’ll all make trial dogs.
-p25
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So what HAPPENS to the pups/dogs that do not end up making good trial or sheep dogs?
A. They go to PET HOMES
B. They fill up shelters after being dumped.
C. They are stuffed into potato sacks and thrown into the nearest river.
D. They are sold at livestock auctions like 2nd rate goods.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Honestly?
The argument has gotten so old and tiring… bleh.
I, personally, threw out the likes of Herr Stein (and her cronies) with the bathwater a long time ago.
Chris, you should do the same.
Thankfully, I realized that anyone with enough time on their hands so as to devote more than half of their day filling border collie blogs with their pious rants & drivel – designed only to elevate themselves into self-proclaimed expert status, needs serious pyschological assistance, and would benefit from spending the same amount of time asking themselves why the topic of dogs is the scale with which they measure their, and other’s, worthiness.
The beauty of working dogs & their farmer is seen ONLY in those who TRULY work their dogs for the original purpose: to manage sheep and sustain a livlihood. It is an undeniable, magical sight to behold. There is no argument in that.
The rest (hobbyist nazis), are just wannabes who shamefully cannot invest the same effort & time to prevent and/or discourage over-breeding by their “own” as they do in their self-promotion.
In the end, they’re just dogs, people.
Special dogs, yes, but dogs nonetheless.
Their devotion & loyalty to the person who feeds them, loves them, cares for them, and does good by them will be the same if they’re flanking a flock of sheep, catching a frisbee, or searching for a lost child in the woods. The amount of joy dogs give to those privileged to enough to be their “person” cannot be measured by who protested the loudest on the internet.
Chris, your most valid point is that the very folks who protest the ownership of BC’s by the unworthy public are the same ones supplying them with puppies, and who fan their popularity in the first place! How? Through their crowing about how such a smart dog doesn’t need to be owned by Joe Scmoe.
What could be more tantalizing to J. Schmoe than to be told they CAN’T have something?
Wake me up when the herding-nazis realize this… THEN there will be something to write about.
Quote:
As a tool of genetic selection, the sheepdog trial has done exactly what its creators had hoped. Very few Border Collie pups won’t work stock. That’s not to say that all Border Collie pups will grow into first-class dogs, or even that they’ll all make trial dogs.
-p25
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So what HAPPENS to the pups/dogs that do not end up making good trial or sheep dogs?
A. They go to PET HOMES
B. They fill up shelters after being dumped.
C. They are stuffed into potato sacks and thrown into the nearest river.
D. They are sold at livestock auctions like 2nd rate goods.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Honestly?
The argument has gotten so old and tiring… bleh.
I, personally, threw out the likes of Herr Stein (and her cronies) with the bathwater a long time ago.
Chris, you should do the same.
Thankfully, I realized that anyone with enough time on their hands so as to devote more than half of their day filling border collie blogs with their pious rants & drivel – designed only to elevate themselves into self-proclaimed expert status, needs serious pyschological assistance, and would benefit from spending the same amount of time asking themselves why the topic of dogs is the scale with which they measure their, and other’s, worthiness.
The beauty of working dogs & their farmer is seen ONLY in those who TRULY work their dogs for the original purpose: to manage sheep and sustain a livlihood. It is an undeniable, magical sight to behold. There is no argument in that.
The rest (hobbyist nazis), are just wannabes who shamefully cannot invest the same effort & time to prevent and/or discourage over-breeding by their “own” as they do in their self-promotion.
In the end, they’re just dogs, people.
Special dogs, yes, but dogs nonetheless.
Their devotion & loyalty to the person who feeds them, loves them, cares for them, and does good by them will be the same if they’re flanking a flock of sheep, catching a frisbee, or searching for a lost child in the woods. The amount of joy dogs give to those privileged enough to be their “person” will not be measured by who did or did not protest the loudest on the internet.
Chris, your most valid point is that the very folks who protest the ownership of BC’s by the unworthy public are the same ones supplying them with puppies, and who fan their popularity in the first place! How? Through their crowing about how such a smart dog doesn’t need to be owned by Joe Scmoe.
What could be more tantalizing to J. Schmoe than to be told they CAN’T have something?
Wake me up when the herding-nazis realize this… THEN there will be something to write about.
Anon:
That comment was so good, I´m glad you posted it twice, because I think it´s worth hearing again.
The one thing that I think my critics miss or overlook is a simple point. I have never, and will never say that people should not breed Border Collies to work, in all its forms and with all the good and bad that comes with that.
They don´t seem to appreciate that the opposite of this argument: “border collies should only be bred for work” is NOT “border collies should never be bred for work.” I´d get into the logic terms like converse and contrapositive and what is a tautology, but at the heart, the argument is not anti-work or anti-herding or anti-trialing.
I have never said and will never say that legally or morally any of those people, be they professional family business shepherds in England or once a month hobbyists in an apartment in Alaska, should not do what they do or breed to meet their whims and desires.
They mistake their own desire to control others with what I am saying.
It´s subtle, but it`s important. Patrick on Terrierman suggested that I am putting dog sport forth as THE new paradigm… but I am only pointing out that it is ALREADY an existing paradigm (of several) and that it is not exclusive, or even preferable, but it is extant and growing. Only a small group of people of two certain persuasions are truly suggesting that they have THE (only) paradigm and that others should not exist.
The Nazis you mention also miss the point because they mistakenly believe that to advance your own cause is to denounce all other competing causes. For instance, that is the only way they can make the jump from “do what you want, we´re not saying anyone can´t breed, just that they shouldn´t” to “they will ruin the breed and the herding dogs can´t support themselves.”
People who work and serious play with Border Collies will NEVER have to turn to anyone else but their own for dogs. They have never done so in the past and there is no reason to think they will ever need to do so in the future.
Formula 1 doesn´t buy sedans from the dealer down the street. Nor do they say that people should not buy any car that isn´t top spec and built to race at the highest level.
Now, people might put up posters of Formula 1 cars on their walls, and no one does this of sedans. And people who are Formula 1 wannabes might trick out their consumer grade car with aftermarket parts and pretend every day on the way to and from work that their initials are MS and that their bumper stickers are actually sponsorship tags. It is those people who will tell all of their normal friends that their cars are inferior and it is those people that will defend the honor of their hero to the death with insults and absolutes, and it is those people who declare themselves the honor guard.
But they are like roadies to great music. Sure, they might service the ego and needs of the band, but they don´t make the music and their presence is as much about feeding their own egos as it is some kind of payment to the band. A million fans who buy the CD and leave the band alone are economically more significant than the few dozen who follow on the heels and worship.
As for me, I make no pretense that I´m some expert with special knowledge… I lay it all out, take it or leave it. Nor am I particularly interested in getting anyone to agree… my arguments will and can be used by others who care at a time and place suitable for persuasion and conversion, and for that I´m happy. I´m throwing out as many facts and ammo as I can find and that informs the debate.
I have shown that certain pertinent facts remain undisclosed by the elite. When I find them, I expose them.
You might also say that I am harsh with McCaig. Well, when you speak for the community you have to answer for the community as well.
Again, another example where people apply their own absolute bias in their arguments to mine. Patrick is insistent to clarify that McCaig is a worker.
I have no problem with that, since a serious hobbyist has to do everything that a pro does, and if you do work, you are a worker. You can dig ditches for fun or because you are on a chain gang, but since the work is the same, the difference, in my eyes, is not very meaningful.
BUT, what Patrick doesn´t get is that McCaig and others make the distinction. THEY find it important. They make their arguments that the Trials are the all and end all of the breed, but they don´t make the same arguments for work. REAL WORK. Even hobbyist work.
McCaig tells nice stories about his work on his lifestyle farm. But he doesn´t say ¨this is the reason I bred my dog¨… see, if he and the others did so, they´d open the door to all the ranchers and farmers to have the same status as the trialers.
I think they should.
I don´t think it´s an insult at all to be called a hobbyist nor to call anyone such. I don´t believe that the moral rights are any different.
That´s the beauty of my position, they find horrible insult, but I don´t suggest such. They find insult because of the faults of their own position, their own bigotry and bias. It´s the same conflict as you might have found in baseball 60 years ago. Women aren´t lesser, Blacks aren´t lesser, but they just can´t play in our league.
I see no reason to support rural ¨sensibility¨ in matters where they are clearly out of line, despite the value they bring to the table in other areas.
That´s in a way the value of the Third Estate, we chose not to take the good with the bad. We will cherry pick the good and try and get rid of the bad.
Patrick should stick to little dogs that kill rats of various stripes, dogs that don’t listen unless you beat ’em.
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Frisbee reference in The Dog Wars
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If you think the dismissive Frisbee/dog sport/dog toys! references in the book are telling, I should show you see what the Sheepdog-L and BC Boards did when they were talking about other BC activities they might highlight during “halftime” at one of the big trials.