Did you ever see such a sight in your life? Three blind Collies.
And if thy right eye scandalize thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee. For it is expedient for thee that one of thy members should perish, rather than that thy whole body be cast into hell.
– Matthew 5:29
Even the "healthy" puppies look sickly. BUY TODAY! God approves.
Rik and Diane Stirling are collie breeders in Minnesota and they believe in divine providence over their breeding program. Apparently this means they don’t have to rub two brain cells together or do even a modicum of research before breeding their Blue Merle White-Factored dam Selina with their White-factored Sable Merle sire Sonny. God is doing the thinking for them and God wanted some severely screwed up puppies. And if you want some screwed up puppies, you have your choice of three, Available NOW!
Because Rik and Diane were too stupid to avoid this pointless suffering by making a better breeding decision, and because they were too callous to put the double merle white factored puppies down at birth, the scandalous offspring have to suffer while these idiots wait until they are 8 weeks old to confirm what we already know: that they are blind and likely deaf. Just in case they aren’t totally devoid of sensory perception, Rik and Diane will take your deposit money still… you know, just in case.
Talk about being expedient and letting three of thy members perish rather than spoiling an entire litter!
If you want to reenact The Miracle Worker with your very own Helen Keller dog, act now, supplies are running out, only three blind and deaf puppies left. Hurry on over to Stirling Collies and put your trust in them because they trust in the LORD! And while you’re there, be sure to join their NuVet pyramid scheme (they even offer a puppy guarantee as long as you join the scheme and buy their products!).
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I am quite offended you compared God-gifted collies to Helen Keller. One of Keller’s penpals was Margaret Sanger– a most vile woman who does not heed Jesus.
Gifts from God generally bestow positive abilities, how can you consider three innocent puppies which never should have existed who are now suffering from a myriad of conditions that deprive them of their eyes and their sight, likely their hearing, to be “God-gifted” ???
Why don’t you find it offensive that this breeder claims to be “prayerful” and “considerate” and yet clearly took no time to consider the morality of playing God with their breeding decisions when any informed breeder should know that they could easily create such stricken animals.
And the comparison to Keller is apt: these dogs are blind, deaf, and dumb, and it will take a miracle to make them happy pets. Even the link to Sanger is informative… this breeder clearly has a problem euthanizing these “dysgenic” dogs that they created and the animals will suffer because of it.
Hi Christopher,
We also bought a puppy from the Stirlings. It was the most heartbreaking experience, very long story. We tried for 10 months to make our puppy normal, & spent thousands on experts. Bottom line the pup was mentally disturbed.
We were fortunate to find a safe place for him, where he would be protected & not put to sleep. Tried to create a “Yelp Review” on them, to warn others.
Gosh Cynthia so sorry that many collie breeders, double merle breeders yet to address and will not address the scientific facts to an addresss an outdated un healthy breeding protocol. A Double Dilute, or “white merle,” is the only defective color pattern in collies. It is known usually both deaf and blind but also know how it creates other neurological disorders.
Sitting in your cozy lounge pants and writing philosophical bad comments about good people that’s the kind of sin which you should be worried about. Why to craft hypothetical
“Blind leading blind out here” Is god blind or are we blind? There are always good people and bad people; why only bad people come out.
Jesus cured the blind, he didn’t create them.
Chris thank you again well stated: Jesus just cured the blind he had nothing to do with its creation. Kathy
It is funny how many people who hate Margaret Sanger, also love Ayn Rand. They were both into eugenics, approved of abortion and other points of similarity, yet Helen Keller is ostracized for the friendship and and Rand is not.
Hereditary blindness is not God’s gift to Collies, it is the result of inbreeding and inbreeding alone. Dog eugenics (ie the AKC breeding style) is man playing god with a sorcerer’s apprentice’s knowledge and judgement.
Rand’s Anthem is a pretty scathing criticism of authoritarian State eugenics programs. Libertarianism is directly antithetical toward government interference in human reproduction. Rand herself wasn’t particularly fond of homosexuality, but her stance on the freedom of people to form relationships in the manner of their own choosing is decidedly more liberal and consistent than any Democrat or Republican’s ad hoc morality.
I don’t really know what Libertarian eugenics would look like. People already choose their mates based on their values, any number of strategies that people employ could be considered eugenic in nature. And that’s not really the threat of Eugenics… the harm comes in having someone else determine what is procreation worthy and enforcing that on others.
Inbreeding didn’t cause this problem. Inbreeding does cause a lot of problems, but not this one.
This one is the result of the puppies receiving two copies of the dominant merle allele. If you bred a blue merle collie to a blue merle Australian shepherd– a total outcross litter– you can still produce these eyeless puppies.
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Wow. Apparently Jesus doesn’t save dogs from inbreeding.
I looked at the website and mercy me –I do not know what cult uses Christian teachings in this manner. However, I hope they have a small membership. Kathy
Wow… I’ve been lurking the last little while, and this is by far the most disturbing thing I’ve seen in a while.
I also love how in bold they place “All Normal Eyed, Possible Non-Carrier” yet right above it they contradict themselves by saying “these 3 White Collies can possibly be defective whites”
I have many words for these people yet I’ll hold my tongue since I’m sure karma will bite them in the behind sooner or later.
http://www.ripoffreport.com/animal-shelters/stirling-collies-rik/stirling-collies-rik-and-dia-bczfd.htm
Wow, it seems like old Diane is getting some really quality temperaments out of her anointed breeding program.
This bit was interesting:
THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!
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WWJD?
Breed the merles together.
And one day Jesus will come back, spit in the dirt, make a poultice with his spit and the mud, and rub it on the eyeless collie pups’ eyes. Then they will see!
And then you’ll ask what sin caused the pups to be blind,
And Jesus will say, “Not a single one.”
And he will prove to us all that there is no sin that can be inherited, even when you breed the double merles!
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As someone pointed out, they have the nerve to trumpet that all of the dogs are “normal eyed”.
Really?
I would think normal eyes were seeing eyes, but that is just me. I guess I have higher standards then those with a breeding program that has divine consultants.
These clowns are also breeding German Shepherd and Collie crosses! Why!
Who in their right mind would post on their website the evidence of their stupid and irresponsible breeding activities? I guess it’s OK to have no eyes, as long as you test CEA negative? Who needs CEA when you have merle to do the same job for you? Sadly, these are just the ones who are too dumb to exercise a bit of discretion. There are even more out there just as heartless as these village idiots are brainless.
I’m amazed they need to wait until they’re 9 weeks to be able to tell. Just compare the white pups to their siblings; it’s obvious something is wrong with them.
Well if you check their website now one of the double merle puppies is conspicuously missing. My guess is that it didn’t survive.
They removed mention that it even existed at all. Classy!
http://www.stirlingcollies.com/id116.html
Of course, they’d have this under their health page!
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How did I know that they would be using Nuvet?
What’s the deal with Nuvet?
Nuvet is a supplement that contains tiny amounts of a whole lot of junk.
It’s a pyramid scheme. You make money through selling it, so some breeders will sell it to puppy buyers, and some really unscrupulous breeders will require that you buy it through them to maintain the health warranty in their contract. Stop buying it, warranty becomes void.
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I read up on it a little bit and it’s a real knee-slapper, getting rid of “Free radicals” baaaaaaaaaaloney.
Free radicals are a real cause of cancer though (in dogs and in humans), and dog food IS actually rubbish for your pet to eat.
It’s like feeding your child vitamin enriched cereal day in day out with no other nutrients. No one does that to their child (I hope) but people seem to think it’s fine for their dog.
I’m not supporting this NuVet thing (whatever it is), but I definitely don’t think people should feed their pets only dog food – no matter how expensive and “scientific” it is.
After all, it is processed food that has sat on a shelf for weeks or maybe months. Dogs, like people, do better on a diet of fresh food.
Natural antioxidants that will bind to free radicals are found in most fresh plant matter – salads, fruit, vegetables etc. You don’t need an expensive product, just feed yourself and your dog fresh greens with every meal.
Diane stirling is a demon women if u have to put on your website we are NOT a puppy mill then you are just in denial bc u know u are.
I just read this and checked the site page. I cannot believe that after posting those pics this person said she had to SEE if the pups had defects!!!
HOLY CHRIST ON A STICK?! R U KIDDING ME??!??!
She had to “see.” Hm. Was it a bad pun?
I got a dog from Stirling Collies a while back. I love my dog, but I have paid thousands of dollars to fix an injury he had when I got him (she knew about the injury and never treated it). I never bothered to ask her to reimburse me, because I would rather pay the money than deal with her again. When discussing the injury, she told me that “collies are so resilient,” and that one of her pregnant dogs broke her leg, she didn’t notice it for two weeks, and it healed just fine. How do you not notice a dog with a broken leg for two weeks!? Her facilities looked borderline like a puppy mill and she admitted that one of her German Shepherds she was breeding was aggressive – but then advertised what a sweet temperament she had on their website. I had mailed a non-refundable deposit in before I saw all of this, so I took my puppy anyway. I don’t regret getting my dog, because I love him, but I would never recommend Stirling Collies to anyone.
Now this is an unethical puppy maker worth going after !!! Between her practices and the pyramid scheme… Completely horrendous and nothing more than exploiting animals for money!
I knew of a litter of Shelties many years ago, it was an accidental litter produced by two merle parents. One of the pups was white with a few blue merle patches and blue eyes and had good hearing and vision. Another pup in that litter was a typical-looking sable merle with white factoring, one brown eye and one blue, and was completely deaf. The other pups were all normal. I would not trust the vision and hearing capabilities of any pup born from two merle parents, until testing has been done.
Ms. Stirling is one of the most popular breeders of our city . Even after reading all these crappy comments about such a wonderful business women me and my partner bought the pet from Diane. We do not have any problem with our pet. They are animals sometimes they tend to be irrational and we need to have a compassionate heart towards them.
You said it Miaai …Popular Breeder for how long? Breeding merle to merle is like playing with matches….sooner than later you are going to get burned. Breeding double dilutes is like carrying around a lit stick of dynamite. As I understand this is exactly how these puppies with Microphthalmia for sure…maybe Anophthalmia? . It is your choice to ignore sound breeding practices for health protocol by educated responsible breeders. Compassion?
Sorry Miaai for bursting your bubble but Merle Ocular Dysgenesis: Dogs affected with this condition will exhibit some combination of the following– Microphthalmia (abnormally small eyes), acentric pupils, coloboma (a fissure in the iris) or other irregularities of the iris, lens luxation, cataract, retinal dysplasia or detachment, persistent pupillary membrane, equatorial staphyloma and lack of a tapetum (the reflective layer at the back of the eye). Since the condition is produced solely by breeding merle-to-merle, it can be avoided by not doing so” Hello is anybody home?
In addition to these hearing, eye color and hair color genetic expressions, cleft lip or cleft palate or a colon problem are fairly common in some affected with double merle breeding of merle to merle or double dilutes in varies breeds.
Now not everyone who carries the gene has hearing loss or two different colored eyes. Symptoms may be so mild that large families with many affected individuals may be unaware they are affected carriers. But the gene is dominant, and inheritance runs 50% regardless of the intensity of expression in carrier individuals seemingly.
The cleft palate syndrome is a rare and isolated defect of (merle) in one family of Australian Shepherds that has been the subject of numerous scientific journal articles and symposia presentations. It is a sex-linked (on the X chromosome) defect, in which females have minor abnormalities, like extra toes, while males die of massive skeletal abnormalities and a cleft palate. “ – C.A. Sharp, authority on Australian Shepherd genetics for example. The known health issues exist beyond Breed specific the Collie.
There is now a DNA test for the merle gene and this can be totally avoided to produce genetic defects to live a life of limited abilities. Ignorance is not Bliss…Ignorning the Facts is your idea of a good choice of Breeder?
I actually have a collie from this breeder from a Selena/Simba cross not long after this one.I got a healthy, well adjusted dog. She’s a bit high strung as collies often are, but between jogging with her and putting her in a dog daycare twice weekly, she’s got a healthy outlet for the energy. The only issue she’s had is to develop a small calcium deposit on one eye that has not caused her any discomfort or done much to impair her vision.
I don’t know if I was just lucky or if the majority of dogs this breeder produces are good. I can say that when I toured her facilities the dogs and their outdoor runs were in good shape and there was a part-time caretaker on site who stopped to talk to me about how things were run. Given the above information, I’d hesitate to buy from this breeder again, but I do love the dog I got from her.
I don’t think she’s going out of her way to flagrantly abuse the animals, but it sounds like buyers should be concerned about her breeding lines. That said, yes she does pressure buyers to invest in her brand of dog food and she’s extremely anti-vax. I ignored the anti-science literature she gave to me and promptly switched the puppy to a commercial food line and vaccinated her for everything per my veterinarians recommendations.
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I was consider buying from them, but will no longer do so. I’m not against breeding a GSD/Rough Collie as I’ve had 2 of them in my lifetime and they were wonder dogs! I consider them a designer breed. However, the lack of ethics and knowledge you describe is most convincing this is not a safe breeder.