The two top Border Collies coming out of the Westminster Kennel Club 2014 show are the inaugural Master’s Agility Championship winner, Kelso, and the Best In Breed winner Tang Dynasty Rocky. You might guess that a little clone-collie like Rocky would be the more inbred of the two, but you’d be mistaken.
Surprisingly, Rocky was bred in China by Tang Nan and is owned by Tang Nan and Henry Su. I really had no idea that the Chinese were into breeding Border Collies for show, but giving a quick look over Rocky’s pedigree, it’s pretty clear that they’re very derivative in their choices. Specifically, like much of the USA show Border Collie scene, they’ve chosen to just buy their stock from Australian and New Zealand show kennels.
GCH Tang Dynasty Rocky
Breed: Border Collie Sex: Dog
AKC: DN 35937801 Date of Birth: May 16, 2011
Breeder: Tang Nan Owner: Tang Nan & Henry Su
Sire: Sportingfield’s Surfs Up
Dam: Kerrybrent NZ Kiwi Ray Of Lite
Show people in Border Collies are incredibly lazy and since the Oz breeders had a few decades head start on making cute little panda collies for dog shows before the USA got in on the game about 15 years ago, and apparently China in the last few years, no one really decided to create “show worthy” stock out of our own domestic dogs, rather they simply imported a bunch of offspring from winning dogs in Australia and New Zealand. Thus, those two remote and godforsaken islands of genetic isolation have determined what a show Border Collie looks like.
The cost, distance, and rather difficult import/export laws have stifled free flow of Border Collie genetics to and from Oz, although it must be noted that Border Collies and their relatives were being exported there since the British decided to use Oz as their septic tank for unwanted humans.
Amazingly enough, looking at 11 generations of Rocky’s pedigree doesn’t reveal a great deal of inbreeding. A public database for show dogs lists his COI(11) at just 5%.
Tang Dynasty Rocky pedigree, CHs in red
You can see that there are no common ancestors on a 3 generation pedigree, although the breeding is heavily focused solely on show champions which are shown in red. It’s still notable that even with no common ancestors up close, there’s still a COI of 5% that permeates down when you look a little further back.
Surprisingly, the performance bred agility winner at Westminster shows a much higher degree of inbreeding than the show winner Border Collie.
Kelso’s full name is Bo-Tyne Red Light District and his original call name was “Stripper.” No comment. I’m not sure if Bo-Tyne (Lynda Verna) is still an active kennel, but they did produce quite a few flyball and agility dogs in the Ontario area over the years and their offspring can be easily found on numerous Sporter Collie pages. They rose to prominence when Susan Garrett, who is a multi-sport trainer and successful self promoter of training materials, was highly successful with a Bo-Tyne dog named Encore.
Bo-Tyne Red Light District MX MXJ XF
Breed: Border Collie Sex: Dog Date of Birth: May 3, 2006
Breeder: Lynda Verna Owner: Delaney Ratner
Sire: Bo-Tyne’s Eye’s On Me “Focus”
Dam: Bo-Tyne Skittel
While you might think that the propensity to inbreed would be highest in the show kennels, Kelso is actually much more inbred than Rocky with a COI of 12%, about the level of first-cousins mating.
The 12% level of inbreeding, like the show dog, isn’t apparent on a short pedigree. But notice how many branches of the pedigree are Bo-Tyne dogs. Well, many of them are actually related. You can see that Bo-Tyne Copper on the top of the pedigree has the same parents as the dam, Bo-Tyne Skittel. Not only that, but also Shep and Katy appear elsewhere on the 7 generation pedigree as well as the Rambo x Waifer pairing being behind several of the dogs.
Not only is this pedigree a good example of the sort of local incestuous breeding pools, in this case Ontario Canada, that breeder culture often finds itself in, there’s a good deal of overlap here with successful and widely-bred dogs on the sheep trial circuit. Bo-Tyne Jimy and Bo-Tyne Sky both share Rambo ISDS 153847 x Waifer ABCA 7387 as parents. This breeding is from Amanda Milliken, a successful sheep trialer and breeder, and represents her main bitch-line that started with Bart and Meg, to produce Waifer. She bred Rambo to her Waifer and kept Hazel, the first dog she trained and sibling to two of the dogs on this pedigree. From Hazel she bred Grace, and from her Ethel, and from her Roz.
While I’m sure that the sheeple will be the first to point out that the world is coming to ruin because a sporter collie breeder like Bo-Tyne or Susan Garrett (who cling to their clickers the same way sheeple cling to their whistles) have used local working stock within their sporter collie focused breeding, it’s interesting and healthy for a gene pool to breed for a diversity of causes and mix lines that otherwise would stay stagnant on their own.
Sadly, you can see that even performance based breeding is no panacea for inbreeding avoidance. It’s sort of sad that some single-focused breeder in China using almost entirely Oz stock to pump out clone collies has managed to win with a dog that has less than half the inbreeding of a dog that actually has to have talent and training to win. Whereas there’s not a lot of options if one is looking for a Border Collie with just the right fluffy munchkin look that seems to be what the show world is rewarding, there are plenty of options for fast and biddable Border Collies. Shame that the Bo-Tyne breeder decided to stick with her own kennel instead of finding quality dogs that weren’t as related.
Ramping up the inbreeding to three or four times the ambient level in the breed isn’t really a recipe for genetic success even if it appears to be paying off with performance.
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I hate the show clones that the conformation BCs are, but these pedigree results are not surprising. Doesn’t mean I don’t dread what the BC may end up like in the hands of the Chinese in particular.
Definitely sharing this. I can think of many who could stand to read it.
Not horribly surprising (although the show dog is a bit of a, happy, surprise — sadly, his kids and grandkids will likely not have such a COI more than likely) — selecting for performance traits and selecting for looks traits are both selecting, so the possibility that people will stick with “what works” for the short game while forgetting the long game and the law of diminishing returns would work for both.
There’s market forces at play here too — breeders are going to stick with “what works” because that’s how you put money in your pocket; people want a winner, a “sure thing”, not an experiment more often than not. So, even though in the long run it could be disasterous for the here and now it’s the safe and secure bet.
The potential for a crippling Chinese import bottleneck is high, for sure. I’ve heard of it happening in Japanese Border Collies, but I’ve not seen pedigrees, just hear horror stories about their poor temperaments.
Breeding to fashion and fad with all the eye candy is historically recorded in conformation herding breeds. Overly competitive narcissist fanciers sabotaging the welfare and health with inbreeding for their conception of beauty. Regretfully, knowing nothing about the genetics of inbreeding or capable of connecting the dots. Simple as it should be to understand, but maybe they would mate to produce offsping with a brother, sister, father, mother or cousin?
But it’s good to keep in mind that the buying public also helps along with this — granted, the fancy are the ones who marketed it to begin with (and thus the onus is on them), but the people who want to buy a purebred dog — and they usually are what one might call newbies or fringies of the pedigree dog world, probably belong to the local dog club, and consider themselves fairly knowledgeable) are also very much doing their part to help this along. They help along the rescue issues too often.
I give the rest of John Q. Public a bit of a break because they are not at all dog experienced — although they could educated themselves as well.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and I’ve heard every bit of cow puckey that’s ever been spewed about dogs out of the mouths of the people I just described above…while they tell everybody on facebook how they are going to go get their new, almost show quality puppy from their wonderful breeder who has won so much and never had any health issues at all because they do OFA…right above their post about how everyone (who has a heart) should adopt this wonderful pit bull at the local rescue they volunteer at one day a week. (and anyone who doesn’t is obviously a VBP).
Breeders/the fancy are responsible for a lot of this, but it’s the culture overall that drives it.
“Remote and godforsaken islands of genetic isolation? ” ” Septic tank for unwanted humans?” Arrogant Yankee bastard! I’d think a BC person would be kinder to islands where there are more sheep than people.
seriously, though, Oz and NZ, having been forsaken by rabies as well as God, are in a favorable position to export dogs . . . commonly no quarantine, and reduced paperwork for many countries. From a Chinese perspective, they are hardly remote . . . pretty much in the same time zone . . . lots of import/export trade going on. And the Australian dog scene is hardly isolated. Ch (Imp XX) is widespread on OZ and NZ pedigrees, including dogs from both Europe and the Americas. One of my girls, bred in Oz, has Sweden, UK, NZ and US on her third generation pedigree. How often will you see that in the US? It’s likely that the amount of dog importation into Oz will be rising, as the quarantine period was recently cut from a month to two weeks. Importation of semen is also widespread.
I recently watched Oranges and Sunshine (2010) and thus am not in a charitable mood towards the UK and her export program to AUS nor the AUS culpability in the abuse, etc.
NZ is sort of a sheeple paradise though. No big predators. Lots of grass. Few people.
Interesting that the quarantine issue has changed. I have a nice little library of old posts about how xenophobic the locals were toward importing anything and how strict the quarantine used to be. I think I even have a sample of some of it on one of my German Shepherd posts.
“Arrogant Yankee bastard! I’d think a BC person would be kinder to islands where there are more sheep than people”.
Hilarious when one understands that these stuffed toys have less chance of seeing sheep than rabies. One can only hope that the cost of exporting these neotenous Bernese Mountain Pandas will keep them isolated in their island playpens.
This dog may not be overly in-bred but what does this Miss South Carolina of dogs offer? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww
Well, yeah, they have less chance of seeing sheep than rabies, but, uh, who cares?
Not that I am an advocate for conformation Border Collies, but still, who cares?
Just throwing this out there, because I know very little about show collies:
Could they possibly offer up some new genetic variability that might be nice to have?
I mean, if the Dalmatian people can introduce a Pointer, and within a few generations the progeny and indistinguishable from 100% Dalmatians but with a happy propensity to not get stones, then I’m sure the same could be applied to these show collies (and maybe they might have some things in their traits that would be good to have)?
Perhaps they have a little less drive — but this also could be a good thing to have if you look at it from the standpoint of cooling off some of the OCD and producing dogs that are maybe a bit more beginner friendly (a starter collie, as it were?). Japanese Border Collies notwithstanding (that’s truly sad to hear Christopher).
Of course, I feel the same way about maybe letting the English Shepherds in — sort of on an appendix registry (maybe let the long tailed Aussies in as well; and Kelpies for the people who want to keep the drive), and they aren’t even Border Collies.
One very important point that you are ignoring is that Kelso, the Westminster agility champion is neutered and will not be used for excessive further breeding as will the Breed Champion border collie. And yes, those particular lines are very inbred, but that does NOT mean that most agility or herding dog bred border collies are as inbred as this particular dog is. The inbreeding of that line is at an end, so will not cause future problems in the breed.
I don’t know that it matters much that Kelso is fixed or not. His health is already baked in, so if he’s healthy him being inbred is not a deal breaker for any puppies he might have had.
Remember that inbreeding can be fixed in one generation with an outcross.
Him being inbred is more a statement about his breeding and the risk vs. reward there.
I just was reminded that winter wear coats for humans in China made from dog coats are popular with furriers.
over concern about Inbreeding coefficient of a single dog show a clear lack of genetic diversity understanding when it comes to a breed http://clubs.akc.org/wtca/health/health_bell_1.pdf
“Inbreeding does not create undesirable genes, it simply
increases the expression of those that are already present in a heterozygous state.”
even more important however
“Some breed clubs advocate codes of ethics that discourage linebreeding or inbreeding, as an
attempt to increase breed genetic diversity. The types of matings utilized do not cause the loss
of genes from a breed gene pool. It occurs through selection; the use and non-use of
offspring. If some breeders linebreed to certain dogs that they favor, and others linebreed
to other dogs that they favor, then breed-wide genetic diversity is maintained.” The idea that by outcrossing a breed extensively is going to increase genetic diversity is simply plain wrong it actual has the effect of reducing diversity “The perceived problem of a limited gene pool has caused some breeds to advocate outbreeding of all dogs. Studies in genetic conservation and rare breeds have shown that this practice actually contributes to the loss of genetic diversity. By uniformly crossing all “lines” in a breed, you eliminate the differences between them, and therefore the diversity between individuals. This practice in livestock breeding has significantly reduced diversity, and caused the loss of unique rare breeds. The process of maintaining healthy “lines” or families of dogs, with many breeders crossing between lines and breeding back as they see fit maintains diversity in the gene pool. It is the varied opinion of breeders as to what constitutes the ideal dog, and their selection of breeding stock that maintains breed diversity”
“over concern about Inbreeding coefficient of a single dog show a clear lack of genetic diversity understanding when it comes to a breed”
Funny, Michael, because I’ve written more than just about any other human I know of about genetic diversity in the Border Collie! (Teun v/d Dool being the obvious other author who has done great work in this arena). And I didn’t stop there, I’ve looked at and discussed dozens of other breeds as well.
But for Border Collies, you can start here:
http://www.border-wars.com/2013/07/the-border-collie-bottleneck.html
http://www.border-wars.com/2011/04/only-8-border-collies.html
http://www.border-wars.com/2011/01/sire-lines.html
http://www.border-wars.com/2010/11/reconstructing-wiston.html
““Inbreeding does not create undesirable genes, it simply increases the expression of those that are already present in a heterozygous state.””
Where did I ever claim that inbreeding creates undesirable genes? Inbreeding concentrates all alleles and then limited selection decreases the genetic diversity in populations because we inbreed AND select.
Chris I keep looking at this Border Collie? Even Queen Victoria’s Noble was not that exaggerated. This dog looks more like an Aussie with a tail. Seems the money that foreign exhibitors needed to be rewarded.
You may loose some of the phenotypical diversity by combining lines — they become less distinct in looks over time — maybe. But genotypically you actually create more possibilities for diversity.
What Christopher said is correct — it doubles up genes. This means not only “good” genes are getting concentrated, but really bad ones as well.
What looks like diversity — different lines all having a different look — isn’t really, as each individual becomes within its particular line very cookie cutter in appearance and attitude (and usually in health).
Yes, inbreeding and line breeding (really about the same thing given time) are the quick and easy (and cheap) method of setting a type (either in looks or performance — actually, both), but it has a lot of serious disadvantages if taken too far. I’m not averse to some line breeding (it does set type after all and is a tried and true method of selecting for desireable traits), but it is playing with fire even in the most knowledgeable of hands (thanks to the undesireable stuff that you will get as part of the package — nothing is perfect in this world). Unfortunately market forces almost demand that breeders play with said fire thanks to the focus on the short return with little thought to the long game.
OH NO, U DIDNT!
Great post Chris, I’d never even think of looking that up even though we have a pretty serious sport BC bottleneck in Brazil.
I believe that the sporty greeders r just as bad if not worse than the show for inbreedin, its a real shame how collies r being ovee bred n inbred because these people want to keep winning, id rather have a collie from a sheep farmer any day
This article came up in a friend’s Facebook feed, and incited a small discussion about inbreeding and another discussion about Australia and New Zealand’s genetic isolation. One question I had was whether your comment about Australia and New Zealand being “godforsaken islands of genetic isolation” was specifically about Border Collies, or to be interpreted more widely. Obviously, being a long way away from the country of origin we would have a smaller gene pool in many breeds due to the expense and difficulty of bringing new and unrelated dogs over, and the additional issue of the vast majority of Border Collies not being part of the ANKC registration. But is the overall, as opposed to show line, Australian Border Collie population as bottle necked as all that? BC’s have been here for a very long time, and we have a long history of bringing dogs over from “the old country”, so I would have assumed we had a fairly diverse population here, with perhaps a slightly different population in NZ.
This is mostly for curiosity, as Border Collies are such a ubiquitous sight here as a companion and working dog but not so common in the show ring. I am, I’m afraid, one of those horrible show people with ugly shoes 😉 However, I have a different breed – one with an open registry in its home country, and with a very active culture among the local aficionadoes of importing new dogs to expand the gene pool here. We’re aware of our geographic isolation and trying to do what we can to minimise the bottleneck factor.
Well first, my comments about Australia and New Zealand are a bit of fun, please don’t take deep offense. It’s sort of a running joke on this blog as I’ve covered several breeds that are more recently introduced to OZ/NZ that have very small populations and some breeders who are really in denial about how inbred their stock is.
But in general and historically, there are widespread issues of genetic isolation with Australia and New Zealand, not just in dogs and not just in Border Collies. Of course these things are not universal and fixed, it really depends on the individual case, and they can be overcome.
Way back, in the long long ago, (hahaha, Mad Max reference right there) we have a clear case of “island effect” with Australia. Just look at all the unique flora and fauna that are endemic and unique to Australia. Of course this is on a huge time scale, evolutionary, etc. But some of the effects are the same even with modern populations. Founder effect with a small group of founders, genetic isolation higher than other populations just given the geographic distance. Etc.
In specific to dogs and European settlement of AUS, we have the issue of just how many dogs did they bring with them, was that enough to capture a good size of the genetic diversity that was in those European breeds or did they simply breed a lot of new stock from a few imports and thus created a small gene pool, even smaller than the one the breed started with in Europe.
This might be interesting to you, but on this post I show some original documents from Australia when they banned the import of German Shepherd dogs:
http://www.border-wars.com/2011/02/the-wolf-like-dog.html
More modern issues I’ve noticed with respect to Australia deal with breeds that are not established there, like Swedish Vallhunds and Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retrievers, and yet have breeders who are interested in getting breeding programs going there. I’ve found some serious denial about the extant level of genetic depletion by these breeders. For example:
http://www.border-wars.com/2011/10/academic-fraud-in-toller-research.html
With respect to Border Collies, we have some well documented exports of Trial Border Collies from the very beginning to Australia. And of course we have untold imports of collie and other droving stock that happened before anyone kept a stud book. There are known crosses to Kelpies in the AUS gene pool both working and show (of course it’s like 30 generations back).
So it’s really hard to size up the problem because we don’t really know how many of the BCs who were “founders” in any of the Australian stud books (and there was not really a country-wide stud book for most of history, there were many individual stud books that popped up at various times and in various of the states) were really genetically unique from each other.
Perhaps a nice genetic study could be done, but to my knowledge there hasn’t really been a good genetic sampling of the Australian Border Collie.
The overall Australian Border Collie population is most certainly NOT as bottlenecked as the AUS/NZ show lines. And the reason I can say this is that we pretty much know all the Aus and NZ show kennels and how many dogs they used. A small subset of the BC populations there and some imports of UK show dogs too. But yes, we KNOW just how all that went down because it was much more modern and done within a closed registry system that kept pedigrees.
And there are many more ranches and working outfits in the last 120+ years in Australia than there are show breeding kennels over a fraction of that time.
The US is likely to have a similar issue to Australia vis-a-vis the Border Collie as we too had to import our dogs and we continue to do this. But of course it would require a lot of pedigree analysis or genetic sampling to put numbers on just how much of the gene pool we captured here in the USA and Australia captured there.
The difficulty of shipment is what gives me concern about diversity in kelpies over here in the USA. We don’t have nearly the population that AUS does, naturally, and shipping semen isn’t enough. We need to keep new females coming in too.
The Ozzies claim that the complaints of CA/Ataxia here and perhaps other things ( like my friend’s kelpie which has intestinal lymphangiectasia), are a USA issue. The Americans complain that the dogs with it CAME from Oz, but no one stops to talk about the COI of kelpies here.
The U of Sydney has a fund to study CA. THey do consider it an issue, in Oz and worldwide. I believe Finland has a separate study going as well. I don’t have answers from all over yet but to date, I haven’t heard of any registry running a breed population COI based on their databanks. The WKC doesn’t even see the need to bother. They just speak as if they KNOW their diversity is just fine.
It COULD be better in Oz itself. There are several registry types, including registration of dogs with dubious lineage; crosses with other dogs or perhaps even dingoes being added. They make it clear that such dogs are not the same as a dog with a clear, four-gen pedigree, but they are at least on the books and thereby exist.
But that’s a unique situation, resulting from areas where ferals still are about with little management compared to Canada, the USA and many parts of Europe. Romantic as the notion is, it may be the Mad Max way that is a saving grace for some of the diversity of the kelpie, and I cannot imagine some BCs are not having similar experiences.
“We need to keep new females coming in too.”
While breeding to better and better bitches is certainly a primary concern, if we are looking to increase diversity then shipping semen from better and better sires is absolutely the way to make that happen MUCH faster. A sire can cover multiple females at a continuous pace while females can only be bred (reputably) approximately once every other heat cycle, providing they are of such a quality to breed at all. The semen of many good sires could be shipped for much less, cover many more dams and result in far greater diversity in a very short time, while producing better and better dams as well, provided the semen was also from strong dam lines.
“Providing they are of such a quality to breed at all.” There you go, the selectivity that removes a great deal of dogs from the process. What makes a bitch such quality as to breed at all?
The process that gets discussed here is generally the opposite of what most breeders do; not constant removal of genes but inclusion, in as many cases as possible.
The big thing I hear with kelpie breeders does not even revolve around selectoin for health, but rather, for working ability. I read time and time again about kelpies being lousy workers. Someone once told me that she’s lucky to see one in ten kelpies being decent anymore. Golly, I didn’t know they were so lousy!
Yet she refuses the idea of being more inclusive for the sake of avoiding bottlenecking someday. That happens with OTHER dogs, not kelpies. NO way. THe kelpie will be fine for generations to come. No other discussion.
To which I can only ask, if the selectivity is such a key to success and most breeders subscribe to this today, why, is it, that so many kelpies TODAY are so lousy?
Seems selectivity isn’t getting people that far? Oh no, then I hear not everyone knows what to select for. And maybe that’s true. What do I know? But then, do we have the genes marked for the “ability” they want and what ability is that, when different people have different needs?
WHere does my point connect with yours? That the popular sire syndrome is even easier to disperse with frozen semen than with the delivery of the acutal stud to your doorstep.
Females don’t just have the eggs, they have the entire biochemical environment that is the womb, hormones and all, and that counts for a lot in development of a good healthy fetus.
BTW, sorry if that came across a little harsh. My style is usually to start off a little softer, with a few exceptions reserved for certain cases.
Consider point 10 here. http://www.instituteofcaninebiology.org/the-elevator-pitch.html
“10. If you create a bunch of puppies from your favorite sire, you are making dozens of copies of all of the bad alleles in that dog (which were never a problem before because they were recessive; see 9) and spewing them out into the population. Now, a (previously) rare mutation will become common, its frequency in the population increases, and the chances go up that some puppy will be produced that is homozygous (has two copies of that bad allele) – and homozygous recessive alleles are no longer silent.”
Popular sire syndrome has been the rage for some time now with just about every breed, whatever the use of that dog. And it’s just made easier with advances like frozen semen.
That such attention should be paid only to bitches in the sense of whether they are worthy, unless we’re saying a lot of females have trouble conceiving and bringing pups to term ( which in itself would be a huge warning sign to me of a breed in trouble), seems like a one-sidedness in the a bad direction, unless I”m misunderstanding something. Females are half the genetic diversity of every sexually reproducing species. No one in dogs can afford to get that picky with half.
Standard, decent population genetics suggests there should be a 1:1 ratio, approximately, of males to females, and at least one replacement for each parent just to keep a population stable, in WILD species. In inbred domestics, we could probably use a little more.
We need more females with new blood. They shouldn’t be devalued. A good healthy bitch should really be the foundation of breeding if anything.
It’s making the perfect the enemy of the good 😉
Hi Christopher, a friend sent me a link to your article in regard to the Westminster top two.
Being the New Zealand owner of Rocky’s Grand mother Kerrybrent Kiwi Beat, and as I also raised his dam’s litter in New Zealand on behalf of Kerrybrent Kennels, I thought it would be worthwhile making a few comments on the thought and decisions made in the lines of the NZ whanau (Family) behind Rocky.
Kerrybrent Kiwi Beat also carries a NZ title of TCQ, she competed in NZ obedience which is run along the same lines as UK obedience. TCQ stands for Test C Qualified meaning she won her way through the obedience grades with 2 Novice wins, 4 Test A Wins and 4 Test B wins.
Beetle’s (KB Kiwi Beat TCQ) litter was instigated by myself when Toni from Kerrybrent gave me the the option to use my choice of stud over her dam Ch Kerrybrent Crystal Rain. And my choice of stud was made on mixing the very best of BOTH New Zealand Show and Obedience lines.
In the pedigree of Rocky – behind the generations you have shown are not only NZ Show Champion’s but also a considerable number of NZ Obedience Ch’s and Grand Obedience Champions and NZKC Nationals Test C obedience winners – of these notable dogs is NZ Ob Grand Ch Kerrybrent Kiwi Ladd CDX, Nzl Ob Grand Ch Gaiety Girl Of Heidesa who each are behind many of the dogs today in New Zealand that are competing and excelling in show, obedience and agility as well as working on both dairy and sheep farms.
I own the litter sister of Rocky’s dam and she is competing in both obedience and breed and I am confident will be dual titled. Three other litter mates are also competing in obedience and Agility. And further litters from Beetle with Ch KB Kiwi Traveller’s half brother (son of the Oz dog Maghera Won for the Road) are also competing well in Obedience, Agility, working on farms and also several titled in the show ring.
The intent behind Rocky’s dam is and will always be to breed working and performance dogs that are true to the breed standard.
this dogs has a COI of 7.410 over 10 gens
Thanks Sue, I assume you’re referring to Tang Dynasty Rocky? I’m using the COI information off of the Anadune database.
Care to run Kelso’s 10 generation COI through your database? Thanks!
sure will do I think it came out at 12% but will check again
I went to Crufts with an English friend a few years ago. We had rented a house on the west coast of Scotland for twelve years running, saw a lot of sheep, lots of collies and went to numerous sheepdog trials. Looking for lunch, we happened to walk by the ring where the BCs were being judged. My friend stopped, looked, and, with surprise and horror in her voice, said “But they are all the same!”
Christopher you wrote, “Surprisingly, Rocky was bred in China by Tang Nan and is owned by Tang Nan and Henry Su. I really had no idea that the Chinese were into breeding Border Collies for show, but giving a quick look over Rocky’s pedigree, it’s pretty clear that they’re very derivative in their choices. Specifically, like much of the USA show Border Collie scene, they’ve chosen to just buy their stock from Australian and New Zealand show kennels”
You do realize that the majority of the top side of Rocky’s pedigree are USA kennels. Sporting Fields, Shoreland, Wagons Ho, Highland’s, Hob Nob and Starfire are US kennels. Some of their lines go back into early AM working lines and UK working imports. This dog’s father was nefariously sold to the Chinese against the breeder’s wishes.
I DO realize that there are US show kennels on the pedigree (it says so right there on the image), but look at where all those lines come from. Australia! USA kennels. Australian stock.
Sportingfield’s Surfs Up goes to Shoreland goes to Borderfame, which is Austalian. Shoreland goes to Goldentone, which is Australian. Shoreland goes to Clan-Abby which is New Zealand. Wagons Ho goes to 4 grandparents which are ALL Australian.
Looking at the Sire’s top half, like you suggest, I can only find ONE line that goes back to US dogs:
Rocky > SIRE > SIRE > DAM > DAM > DAM = Highland’s What’s Shankin’ Tremor (USA)
So, of 32 GGGrand Parents, ONE is a deeply USA bred dog that was born in 1992.
Christopher has probably cited this elsewhere . . . but both DNA and pedigree analysis confirm marked ‘intrabreed stratification’ between Australian show BC’s and the rest of the BC population. See
http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/content/100/suppl_1/S28.full
I have issues with the characterization in that study, although not the actual data. See:
http://www.border-wars.com/2008/09/breed-apart-i.html
and
http://www.border-wars.com/2008/09/breed-apart-ii.html
Odd thing … most herding folk don’t like red border collies but Susan Garrett prefers them.
You might like this article, Bert. I find the red prejudice funny.
Although I’m not a fan of the shorter haired dingo looking red spotter collies myself, on an aesthetic basis. To each her one, though.
http://www.bordercollie.org/health/kpred.html
Yes, it is odd. Show people will quickly dismiss dogs from the ring based on coat color as well.
The herding people claim that the red dogs have undesirable temperaments.
i have no idea how i got here, but you Americans are such ignorant pricks. This article is dog snobbery at its finest. I just cannot believe there are people out there that use phrases such as panda collie and barbie collie to make fun of dogs appearances. What low lives you are! Take it out on the breeders and confirmation judges that have preferences for this by all means but don’t take it out on the dog. I have a personal preference to UK ISDS type working lines but i would NEVER dismiss how beautiful many show lines are, and how they are much less neurotic and sociable than the classic border collie bred to work the sheep and that’s it. Inbreeding is inevitable to a certain extent but can be easily corrected for future lines as long as extreme damage has not already been done by ignoring of genetic issues. I’m not sure why you are making a huge deal out of inbreeding? Many conditions can still occur as genetic conditions and issues can still arise in a dog with a coi of 1%, yes it’s less likely but welcome to the world of purebred dogs.
Taking it out on the dogs? What? Border Collies are smart but they don’t read and can’t browse the internet. I don’t think a single one of them could possibly be offended by what is printed here. LMFAO.
Having been around a lot of border collies, the show bred dogs are much more neurotic. Heck, the only aggressive nasty border collies I’ve met were inbred show dogs. I’ve seen plenty of game border collies from working lines, but I don’t think those breeders tolerate nearly the behavioral issues that show breeders do. Because of course, temperament is not measured in the ring but it’s rather important for a dog that has to work.
And easily corrected? Psh. There’s nothing easy about getting eugenicist morons to open their stud books and bring in new blood. History shows just how rarely it has been done.