Waterboarding Our Border Collies

Extended metaphor is a difficult device to execute well. Very few things are so like another as to speak to each other's situation, while at the same time one of the two is simple to understand and the other so complex that metaphor is required to illuminate its intricacies. Most metaphors are shallow, superficial, and frankly trite.

A notable example of effective extended metaphor is Charles Grinnel's "Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs" letter which I have written about before. Grinnel makes a strong case that our armed services are like the sheepdogs that protect the ignorant and apathetic flock, day in and day out. Most of us choose to be the flock, happily unaware of the dangers at the edge of our pasture, but a select few choose to be guard dogs. To keep the flock together and to keep predators away.

The Amused Cynic picks up this metaphor and applies it ever so effectively to the sound and fury over waterboarding. Here's the start of the insightful "Waterboarding Our Border Collies" article:

This waterboarding controversy is really getting on my nerves. Look, I’ve never had the pleasure, but I know some who have. I often refer to members of our military as the sheepdogs. When you get into the special operations command, you’re talking about special sheepdogs, such as Border Collies. The ones who absolutely under any circumstances will accomplish the mission–or die in the attempt. When it absolutely, positively has to be destroyed–or saved– overnight…..to borrow from the great FedEx ad campaign. We waterboard our own special operations soldiers as part of their training to contravene their own opinion that they are invincible.

I love Border Collies–they fascinate me. They will take any mission, from something as seemingly pointless as gathering up all the branches in your yard and putting them in a neat pile—-to something as important as herding your little children away from the car traffic–a job that they will intuitively see and take on. Even saving little Bobby from being trapped in the old mine for the 10th time. They accomplish the mission, and it is impossible to divert them from the mission once undertaken. If you want to be cruel to a Border Collie, prevent it from accomplishing its mission.

... read more ...

Breeding Ethics 2

In my last post, I started to analyze the common breeder commandments that are so popular in the show community and in the nannying matron dog world in general. I pick up here where I left off:

Taking back their pups for re-homing if the need arises.
What the hell is this? Dogs have to come with lifetime guarantees now? No questions asked return policies like Walmart and Costco? What ever happened to personal responsibility? What ever happened to discouraging the "try before you buy" mentality? If buyers want a test dog they should sign up and foster a rescue, a much better decision all around for a novice or unsure buyer. This take-back ethic is clearly not a buyer demand but a tool used by other breeders to slander each other.

Even with rampant premarital sex and a nearly absent stigma against cohabitation, divorce rates are still 50% in the U.S. We can't expect puppy buyers to remain 100% faithful either, despite a much better success rate than marriage (a decidedly more important decision, even if there are more ways a marriage can go wrong than a new pet, but still).

Human babies for adoption don't have return policies, especially after the cute phase. Neither should puppies. This provision probably does more harm than good, allowing breeders who adopt it to home puppies in marginal homes thinking, "I'll always take it back if it doesn't work out" and marginal pet owners making the leap too soon thinking, "I can always take it back if it doesn't work out." This provision won't engender more responsible buyers at all. How could it, you're giving them an excuse to be worse pet owners.

Now, I'm all for breeders offering value added services and being a resource, but the mandatory take-back ethic is stupid. Breeders should be specialists in creating and selling healthy puppies. Breed rescue and shelters should be specialists in keeping the second hand pet market a viable alternative to new pet purchases and euthanasia. They should specialize in the sales and evaluation techniques necessary to get used pets in to new homes.

But by all means, if this is something a sentimental breeder wants to do, fine. Good for you for offering to take a load off of rescue and shelters. But while a parent's love might be forever, their legal responsibility should end when their children are adults. So too should a breeder's legal obligation end at 8 weeks when those puppies go to their new homes.

After 8 weeks, the ethical and emotional considerations aren't straightforward and become proportionally the liability of the new owner and less the breeder as time goes forward. A much better solution to this particular ethic is a right of first refusal. This would require notification of the breeder and give them the option of taking the dog back before the new owner approached a rescue or other avenue to rehome a dog. It is not a guarantee, it's not an encouragement, it's a link for greater communication, and that's what's important.

That way, adults can make adult decisions given the specifics of the situation, instead of some stupid and absolute guarantee. Buyers should not expect their breeders to automatically take back partially grown dogs because of the buyer's own failings. If breeders want a longer and deeper relationship and buyers are willing, they're welcome to make the take-back arrangement, be co-owners, or any other arrangement. This should not, however, be an adopted ethic.

Religiously testing their dogs for diseases prevalent within their breed.
Besides the really stupid mixture of religion and science in this sentence, I'm all for DNA testing. More information that is true is superior to ignorance and guessing. But religion? No. Religion implies that there is some absolute rules and ethics of what you do with the information, when there shouldn't be. Religion implies that you have to divine the mind of god and have faith that good intentions are enough.

The "religion" going around makes for people who hold other breeder's DNA results against them, as if the dogs and the breeders are tainted and evil because a new test results in a positive result for an old disease. This is part of the general human condition where we assign moral judgments to disease (e.g. people with AIDS from sex or drugs deserved it, whereas people infected from blood transfusions deserve our endless pity). You might point out that genetic disorders are inherited, not viral, but such distinctions are immaterial to the ethical slanders that go around matrondom.

More science, less religion, and all will be well.
Not placing pups in pet stores for selling.

What makes pet stores bad places for selling pets?

(1) Pet stores are located in malls where impulse buys are the name of the game. Impulse purchases are not appropriate for living creatures that live 1-2 decades, are self aware, emotional, and highly social.

(2) Pet stores get puppies from puppy mills. Puppy mills are evil.

(3) Pet stores don't vet buyers. If you have the $, you get the puppy. Setting prices high enough will do well to discourage impulse buys and people financially unable to properly care for a dog, but there is more than money involved, and a clerk at a mall store is probably insufficiently interested in doing much more than manning the cash register.

I wonder though, why couldn't a new model of pet store work? Why couldn't good breeders provide quality pets instead of puppy mills? Why couldn't the obvious advantages of specialization work with breeders breeding well and stores selling well? I imagine that the answer is that it's just not profitable (enough) to do so.

Any way, bashing pet stores seems pretty easy and justified to me. I'd rather focus on ways to make breeders better or even the shelter system better, the pet store industry could dry up and disappear and I don't think anyone would mourn its passing.

Placing pet quality animals with spay and neuter contracts.
Again, a nanny ethic, but no harm done. Buyers should be convinced, not forced, to spay and neuter their pets. If you want to ensure this, keep the dog long enough to get it done and sell them spayed and neutered. GASP! What? But it's hard to sell older pups! And the expense!

Ok, ok, spay neuter contracts are only necessary because the medicine is not able to mesh better with the timeline of selling puppies. If there were a simple shot that could accomplish this, I'm sure the breeders would get it done and advertise as such.

Mentoring new puppy buyers and breeders thoughtfully and patiently.
It takes a village to raise a puppy? Ok, whatever. All the better that breeders share information and keep in contact with buyers. Except for that whole slandering each other non-stop, making up baseless lies and breaking all the "rules" themselves while they persecute others. Remember, Salem was a village too.

So the ethics here are a continuum and there are no easy and absolute answers. For supposedly being a pet loving people, there's more playing politics (and for what gain?) in dogs than just about any other area I can think of.

Breeding Ethics 1

For some in the dog world, "breeding ethics" is an oxymoron. Such people are consumed by the myth of overpopulation, or enamored with the reality. It's a cause they can champion and use it as grounds to wag their finger at other people in the same way some parents poison their children to gain themselves sympathy. They evoke the suffering of another to add emotional credibility to their position and they satiate their own ego with doses of dogoodery.

This ethic brings us wacko groups like PeTA. It also brings us less radical but equally nannying groups like certain rescue organizations. And it also has infested individual breeders. Since animals can not speak for themselves, every sort of ninny-nanny has taken up official dog whisperer duties who are convinced that their authority to speak for animals is on par with their passion for them.

It's not hard to demand others to fit a system of ethics that you don't have to abide by, like men lecturing women about abortions. It's not hard to demand that others make sacrifices that you don't have to make, like the middle class lecturing the rich about graduated taxes. Demands that require action of others with no payment in kind by yourself are so very easy, and thus so common.

Although most of us own dogs, few breed them, and even fewer seem absorbed in the ethics of doing so. You'd expect that the majority of moral demands then would come from the masses of non-breeders enforcing an ethical code on the few breeders. This is not the case.

Among that smallest group of ethically charged breeders, it seems to me that the favorite target is other breeders. Call it narcissism of minor differences, perhaps proximity breeds animosity, or if you can't be with the one you hate, hate the one you're with. No matter the cause, the phenomenon is real.

Now I must admit that most of this talk comes from the show breeding community. This makes sense, as they have declared themselves the keepers of the flame for all of dogdom, and for most breeds, there is no higher calling or (organization who claims such) than dog pageants. And given that there is no feedback on why you lose and others win in the ring, the animosity bred by uncertainty is aimed at other breeders vs. the stupidity of a subjective judging system that lacks any sort of feedback.

I've heard more hobby breeders called puppy mills than puppy millers called puppy mills. I doubt most show breeders know much about puppy mills, could name one, or have had anything to do with outing and closing down a real puppy mill. After all, they're in the business of producing "quality" dogs sold at a premium to people who would pay for things like a show championship. This is a different world than the people who buy puppies in malls. The two don't really talk.

And it isn't the job of show breeders to be versed in outing puppy mills. But from their conversations, you'd swear that pointing out puppy mills (read: their competition in the show ring) is second only to "improving the breed" by winning rosettes, and that most people don't have to extend their finger very far to point them out.

I could point to any number of posts on bulletin boards or listservs that detail the "ethics" of breeding as per the show community, but I've found some of the favorite breeding memes in print.

I read "Canine Reproduction and Whelping" by Myra Savant-Harris in preparation for my first litter. This book comes highly recommended by several breeders and an informal survey of breeder websites and the listservs suggests that it's cannon in the community.

To quote:

Conscientious, careful breeders are producing thousands of puppies every year, each of whom will be lovingly and carefully placed into wonderful homes to provide years of pleasure and companionship to carefully chosen owners. Good breeders are making good breeding choices, such as:

• Never breeding more pups than can be placed in good homes.
• Never breeding a dog that is affected by a known genetically transmitted disease.
• Taking back their pups for re-homing if the need arises.
• Religiously testing their dogs for diseases prevalent within their breed.
• Not placing pups in pet stores for selling.
• Placing pet quality animals with spay and neuter contracts.
• Mentoring new puppy buyers and breeders thoughtfully and patiently.

Let's look at these tenets one by one:

Never breeding more pups than can be placed in good homes.

How can a breeder or anyone determine how many pups can be placed in good homes? This is a bullshit ethic that sounds all well and good but is entirely impractical. I have never ever ever read of a single breeder who has said "all other factors say go, but the world market for puppies is against breeding at this time and I fear there would not be enough good homes.

Sure, people who are already big time breeders (the ones everyone else calls puppy mills) might say they don't breed a litter until they have a full waiting list for puppies, but new breeders are unlikely to have a waiting list and even hot breeders can't dial-a-puppy to fill demand. You can't count your puppies before they're born, so even a waiting list doesn't solve the problem that stems from the reality that humans have limited control in how many puppies they produce. What if you have reservations for 6 pups but your bitch only has 4, will you repeat breed during the next cycle or the one after and hope for 2?

Never breeding a dog that is affected by a known genetically transmitted disease.

Well, this one means well too, but it's hardly straightforward. What diseases are taboo and which are allowable, because the elimination of all disease is impractical and potentially does more harm than good, and not all diseases are created equal. It's possible to breed carrier and even affected dogs with various conditions to further a breeding program.

There's also incredible bias against minor diseases that we have tests for versus major diseases there are no tests for, simply because a test exists. In Border Collies, Collie Eye Anomoly (CEA) is one such disease. There is a DNA test and a physical exam that can help diagnose the disease. Because the ability to diagnose is the disease is so prevalent, the fervor to stamp it out immediately is disproportionate to the actual severity of the disease.

CEA has autosomal recessive heritance with variable expression and pleomorphism. That's a mouthful which essentially means that it's a disease which is different in expression for carriers and affecteds but also has a wide range of incapacity in affected dogs, from little or no detriment to total blindness. Affecteds are rare and among affecteds, significant disability caused by the disease is rare.

Yet according to the Canine Inherited Disorders Database:

Because of the potential for serious eye disease with this trait, neither affected dogs, their parents, or their offspring should be used for breeding. Siblings of affected dogs should not be used either, unless eye exams before 3 months of age demonstrate that they are unaffected.

How does this compare to breeding recommendations for another common and relatively benign disease? Well, one example I'm familiar with is Panosteitis.

Panosteitis ("pano") is a relatively common disease which causes pain and lameness in young (6 to 18 months), medium to large breed dogs. There is inflammation in the long bones of the front and hind legs (humerus, ulna, and radius of the forelimb, and the femur and tibia of the hindlimb). The cause of this disease is unknown; diet and heredity may both play a role.

The lameness will appear suddenly, for no apparent reason. It may be difficult to decide which limb is affected, as the lameness may shift from limb to limb over time. Eventually the clinical signs of this disease (pain and lameness) will go away, but some of the changes to the structure of the bones may be permanent.

The heritability of this disease is entirely unknown, it's not even known if it is a genetic disorder vs. some other vector for disease such as a virus, bacteria, trauma, chemical ingestion, etc. All things considered, it's also a minor disease with no treatment as it cures itself with no residual disability.

This disease is generally self-limiting; bouts of lameness usually last about 1 to 3 months and generally cease entirely by about 2 years of age. Treatment consists of drugs to alleviate pain and lameness, as well as restrictions on your dog's activity.

In other words, this disease is growing pains for dogs. It is not crippling, certainly not permanent, the cost for diagnosis and treatment is minimal--I doubt most vets would even bother with detailed x-rays as the treatment for this disease and similar symptoms is the veterinary equivalent of chicken soup.

Despite having no proven heritability and only minor effects of disease expression and a swift and complete cure following symptoms, the CIDD's breeding recommendation is the same as CEA and other truly serious diseases:

Dogs affected by panosteitis should not be used for breeding, even when the clinical signs of pain and lameness have gone away. Not enough is known about the inheritance of this condition to make breeding recommendations for close relatives of affected dogs.

What? Pano is clearly less of an inconvenience and threat to health than many of the "healthy" traits breeders seek out, like the smushed noses and narrow hips of a bulldog, the toothless under bites of the chinese crested, the deformed skulls of the bedlington terrier and the rough collie, or the cross-linked diseases associated with the merle gene.

The "don't breed any disease" theory dismisses the very real potential we might face in the near future, the ability of gene therapy to target specific diseased genes and remove/replace them without losing any other genetic diversity or the collateral damage done by breeding away from those diseases.

More to come on the other traits of a good breeder according to Myra Savant-Harris and the other matrons of the dog world.

Progressive Now Covers Pets Too

Progressive Auto Insurance has added an incentive perk to all of their car coverage policies: Pet Injury Coverage. They pay up to $500 in vet bills if your dog or cat is injured in an auto accident while in your car. It's not an opt in program and doesn't cost any more, it's a straight perk.

How Is Pet Injury Coverage Different from Pet Insurance?

Pet insurance is like health insurance for your pets: It pays for vet bills when your pet is sick or hurt. Pet Injury coverage from Progressive applies only to dogs or cats that are injured in an accident while riding with you in your vehicle.

With pet insurance, you pay the bill and are reimbursed by the pet insurance company. Many plans have deductibles, maximums and even coinsurance. Pet insurance does not necessarily cover all medical conditions for your pet, so make sure you get all the facts before you buy.

Pet Injury coverage is built into your Collision coverage on your Progressive policy. Your pet is covered for vet costs up to $500 when it's hurt in an accident.

In an interesting bit of cross-promotion, Progressive customers are also offered a 5% discount for full coverage pet insurance with Pets Best Insurance and Embrace Insurance.

I certainly don't mind a little pandering to the pet crowd, especially when it's free. Too bad I'm not getting paid for this little advert, at least it's newsworthy given the this blog's obsession with pets.

Bring Military Mascots Home

One of the laws of nature is that big things generally move slower than small things. So, you know that by the time a big group like SPCA International gets involved with a "bring the dogs home from Iraq" campaign, it's likely that a smaller grassroots group has already been doing it for a long time.

Well, Military Mascots appears to be that group. Bonnie Buckley of Massachusetts has been coordinating the effort to send care packages to troops fostering dogs in war zones and help them arrange to bring those dogs back to the U.S. on commercial airlines since June of 2003. Bonnie isn't supporting the wholesale transport of all stray dogs to the US to be worked into our shelter system, instead she acts as a resource for servicemen who want to bring their adopted dogs home with them when they are deployed out of a war zone.

This is an impressive undertaking as it requires volunteers to meet the dogs at international customs, re-booking on domestic flights to the final city of destination, transportation from the airport to temporary foster homes while the troops make their way back home, and finally the dog being reunited with the soldier when they or their family are able to take the dog permanently. And that's only after the dog lands on U.S. soil, the mission to bring these dogs home begins long before.

While her organization doesn't have the polish (professionally shot video and website) of the SPCAI's "No Buddy Left Behind" campaign, it also has no other reason for existence, and is all volunteer. Whereas the SPCAI has that tricky clause #3 where the money you donate just might be used for another SPCAI program, it looks like all of the funds sent to Military Mascots are spent directly on dogs in war zones. It also appears that MM is helping those who help themselves by facilitating and encouraging the servicemen and their families back home to raise the money for transport, so this isn't just a blanket donation for dogs who have to be found homes.

The reason so many of the abandoned dogs in Iraq are Border Collies is because herding dogs are one of the few exceptions to Islam's teachings against owning dogs. I'm following up this post with a list of some of the success stories of Border Collies that have been saved from the war zone through the Military Mascots program.

No Border Collie Left Behind

You know I jest with my "Border Wars" rhetoric, but there is a real war going on with real guns and grenades and casualties, and apparently there are real Border Collies in the middle of that war. Border Collies in Baghdad of all places; who would have thought?

One such pup is Charlie and this is his story:

One night, while on guard duty with the US Armed Forces in Iraq, Sgt. Watson’s squadron returned from patrol with a new buddy. Weak, malnourished, and at death’s door, a black and white puppy had decided to adopt the soldiers of the unit known as Charlie Company. Sgt. Watson wrapped the shivering puppy in a blanket, gave it some clean water, a portion of his own rations, and provided what refuge and comfort he could for a poor life he expected would sadly end in a few days – another innocent life cut short in a harsh and unforgiving environment.

But the puppy rallied back, thriving on the care, attention and affection of Sgt. Watson and the members of his platoon. A real survivor, the puppy was named Charlie (after the military unit) and before long the growing puppy bonded not only with Sgt. Watson but with the other soldiers.

You can see video of Sgt. Watson talking about what Charlie means to the troops and how you can help (read: donate money) to bring Charlie to America. The website is called Baghdad Pups.

SPCA International (the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) is running "Operation Baghdad Pups, "a major effort to bring U.S. soldiers’ mascots and companion animals back from Iraq." Obviously, they want some cash to help the effort. After getting all gushy over Lucky Jack, I'm in a giving mood. I wouldn't ask you to donate to a cause that I haven't already donated to.

The donation website says:

Donations received for this program will be used in three ways:

1. to cover the costs associated with bringing companion animals, befriended by United States military while serving in the Middle East, to their new homes in the United States;

2. to cover transportation costs for companion animals belonging to active military personnel who need financial assistance for this purpose when they are transferred to another military base;

3. to further the mission of SPCA International to stop euthanizing adoptable and healthy animals. The outcomes of this program will be maintaining the human/animal bond and a reduction in surrendered animals.

Now, I'd prefer that my money was earmarked for #1 or #2, since technically none of the money they might collect would help the Iraqi dogs and would be spent here in the states on CEO salaries and advertising for other fund raisers. The Humane Society (not the SPCA who is doing this program) pulled a stunt like that with the Michael Vick dogs, collecting money for their care when the HSUS didn't have anything to do with it. But this is the SPCA, so as far as I know, they have a good track record.

Kudos to the Flyball Blog and Johann the Dog for the heads up on this story.

Sheeple Admit They're Hobbyists

Wed Aug 22, 2007 12:15 am

But on the serious side of all af this, if mr kensmuir will allow, my take on all of this point earning, title seeking, usbcha presidential wantings,akc titles, best cowdog, greatest stockman, novice ribbons earning, sheepdogs are the best, usbcha finals are the ultimate thing, is,,,,,, goddamn everyone it all if it is not all about a border collie dog that can do an honest days work. And that my fine friends is an official position,

- Herbert M. Holmes

Wed Aug 22, 2007 7:26 am

"...goddamn everyone it all if it is not all about a border collie dog that can do an honest days work..."

I don't think, Hub, that you'll find anyone on this forum disagreeing with that at all.

What matters to many of us is how we define an "honest days work".
Whether we like the responsibility or not - whether we can make money with them or not - whether we want to isolate certain populations or not - the definition of what our dogs are is currently in our hands. The future of the dogs, and what they become - is being defined (or REdefined) right now.

And many of us think that is a more critical issue than making money or increasing membership.

And I think that's what these discussions are about.

- Bill Gary, Kensmuir Working Stockdog Center

Wed Aug 22, 2007 8:23 am

I would have to say that a definition of a days work is just that, a dog that can work all day, and I dont mean riding around in the pick up with me either, but actually doing a continous days activity on a livestock operation,dayin and day out, at avery high level of competency.

However, there is very little of that left in the country. The face of the border collie owner has changed. I did not enter into this conversation early, but would have said that I don't particulary like the position the border collie is in vis-a-vis the vast majority of all of us writing here. Not a single one of us has the work available for a dog to make it a GOOD one.

So before we get on our high horse, lets examine our own personal activities with the dogs. I think we will find that we are all "hobbiest", no matter what level of trialing we do. That is lowering the standards of our dogs.We all talk the talk, but I do know of anyone that really walks the walk.

I do not support the AKC at all. I do not like their activities period. I did not know last years cattle judge, and the one from two years ago were so deeply involved in akc activites. I will ask next years candidates about their akc incolvment.

- Herbert M. Holmes

Wed Aug 22, 2007 9:00 am

These dogs have been evolving since the first trial a hundred years ago. And 99% of that evolution came about because someone wanted to win more trials. We do not have to like that but it is a fact.

- Herbert M. Holmes

Wed Aug 22, 2007 9:30 am

I don't think anyone here would disagree with you on this, Herbert, but I consider "walking the walk" to be also being committed to not allowing things to further deteriorate. It is impossible to stuff the water back into the hose once it's on, but at least we can turn off the spigot.

-grscott Leander, Texas

---

So there you have it. Sheeple admit on their own private boards that they are dog sport hobbyists who just care about one sport: sheep trials.

They acknowledge that the obsession with sheep trials is what drove 99% of the breeding decisions of this little group, not WORKING factors, TRIALING factors.

They admit that they don't really work their dogs, they train their dogs for trials.

Too many working dogs, too little work

From Donald McCaig's The Dog Wars, you'd swear that there were too few working dogs and too much work to do, thus the dire need to "save" the entire breed (all 35,000 new puppies per year) to preserve the working ability only.

But it's not really so, McCaig admits. In fact, it's the opposite.

Donald McCaig sings a different tune when he's talking to fellow sheeple than when he's pleading the case for his cadre's supremacy. This is not a new tactic, one story to the ignorant public, another for the in-the-know hobbyists. Notice how his Dog Wars book talks all about the evils of conformation vs. sheep trials, since it's easy to belittle the pageantry of conformation and it's clearly not work. But he fails to demonize dog sport in the same manner (at least in the book). Dismiss, yes; belittle, certainly; demonize, no.

Why? Because it's a hard case to make that Agility is not work. It requires smarts, training, and drive, the only thing missing is the sheep.... and that's not a bad thing for 99% of us. But with fellow sheeple he talks all about dog sport being THE "Clear and Present" danger to the breed. It's also hard to make the case that sheep trials are work, not sport. They are sport.

In this interesting passage, McCaig admits that he has too many dogs and too little real work for them. Well, why did he breed them then? Why did he go to Scotland to get a real working dog? That sounds like a waste of money if you're always pleading poverty and only have a hundred and some sheep as McCaig does. Couldn't he find a good enough dog here?

Posted: Sat Aug 25, 2007 1:02 pm

Dear Fellow Handlers,

I've had a sheep farm (100-150 ewes) for 30 years until three years ago when health made us sell all bhut (sic) twenty five. We had sheep before we had sheepdogs. Now, like many on this list, I rarely work dogs, often train. I do get my dogs out and about which helps a little but I've no doubt that John Helle's dogs (5000 ewes/western Montana) get more experience than mine do. John has never trialed but buys his dogs from trial stock.

Even a farm flock, like ours was doesn't provide the experience a big spread does. Except for accidents or sickness, 150 ewes only need one dog and excepting shearing, breeding and lambing, most days he could stay in the kennel.

So we must make do - as Beverly Lambert has, for one example - with training and shifting venues.

Yesterday I was driving home when I spotted a neighbor with four full grown rams in a fence corner, unable to bring them to the barn where one would go on the truck. Four people: no movement.

I stopped and jumped Luke out of my car. He wriggled through the wire and, a few minutes later, the rams were on their way to the barn.

No. It wasn't pretty. The 300 + pound rams had never seen a sheepdog before and Luke only had a few feet to maneuver in that corner.

Wool flew. I rapped the most aggressive ram with the owner's stock stick, Luke hated it. But he came at them until, finally, they turned and went to the barn.

Luke is a six year old trial dog. Most of his experience has been trials and unfamiliar venues and training.

I wish he'd had the opportunity to learn more on his own, but today, when I have a bit of farm work to do I take out one of my young dogs.

That's the reality most of us are faced with: too many dogs/too little work.

They adapt, as we do.

Donald McCaig

You adapt? Not so, Donald, not so. You're stuck in the past trying to hold back the winds of change. You've chosen to be an anachronism, giving up a big city job in marketing to go become a small time sheep farmer, and you've bought into the romantic history of border collies. That's your right and it's a swell thing to do. But when you start wagging your finger at those youngin's who are supposedly messing it all up, you fail to realize that we moved out of the old neighborhood before you even moved in.

When you choose to be an anachronism, you just sound silly when you curse the change that is already here and was before you went retro.

Agility is an adaptation. Frisbee is an adaptation. Dog Dancing is an adaptation. The dogs do adapt, and so do the owners and trainers. We find new and fun things to do with them, to keep them active, healthy, and well adjusted. New things to test their merit and new things to determine which of them we want to breed.

You're welcome to keep your platonic vision of the ideal rural life with the ideal rural dog, but don't spit "you're ruining the breed" at me when you've got more dogs than you need, less work than you claim, and a horrible case of mission creep. You want control of the entire breed when you can't even find enough work for your own household of dogs?

McCaig Visits Border Wars

Donald McCaig paid Border Wars a visit recently, but he left his comment on my very first post where no one is likely to read it. So here it is:

donald mccaig said...

Dear Readers,
While I am disinclined to respond to adverse reviews (I had a long time to write the book, it's your turn to take a shot) this blogger wrote: "What Donald McCaig says is a lie. He himself (along with two-thirds of the field) was beaten by a full fledged AKC conformation dog who is the product of two AKC conformation champions at the USBCHA National Finals last year. "

A lie? Shame. While I believe that throwbacks occur and that it takes - best guess -three generations to make show bred sheepdogs useless for sheepwork - only one AKC reg dog (Rose Anderson's) ran in the 2006 finals (wreck-as were mine) and that dog didn't enter the 2007 finals. Will, occasionally such dogs turn up? Yep. But over time the merciless laws of genetic selection create the dogs we want - and no other.
We cannot serve two masters.
Donald McCaig

November 10, 2007 7:48 PM

Now, to my knowledge McCaig had his best finals showing ever in 2006, and he's bred his dogs. He might dismiss his run as "a wreck" as well as Sandi (not the same as Rose Anderson) Andersen's run, but that's not what the score sheet says.

McCaig didn't appear in the 2005 finals, nor did Andersen. And Andersen did qualify for the 2007 finals, even if she didn't go. Donald didn't do much better this year than he did last year. The first round of the 2006 National Finals Open Draw look like this:

1. Wilson, Tom - Sly 178
...
16. MacRae, Alsdair - Star 154 (went on to win)
...
27. Andersen, Sandi - Brock 142
...
48. Andersen, Sandi - Harley 131
...
96. McCaig, Donald - Luke 79
97. McCaig, Donald - June 77

Only two dogs scored lower than McCaig, the rest quit or were disqualified. Now, top third vs. two steps above the bottom of the barrel. Which one is the wreck again, Donald?

His case against versatility bred dogs is that they shouldn't BE bred and shouldn't BREED themselves. Harley, the dog in question, has also been bred by co-owners Sandi Andersen and Janice DeMello. So Donald thinks his performance is good enough to breed, but not Sandi's. Hrm.

McCaig is right about one thing, "over time the merciless laws of genetic selection create the dogs we want - and no other." The dogs WE want, Donald, are versatility bred dogs, so we're going to breed them that way. Deal.

---

update: McCaig has Sandi Andersen confused with Rose Anderson. Rose's USBCHA standings can be seen here and here. Sandi's results are here, here, and here. Apparently the USBCHA can't keep their names straight either, Sandi is listed as "SANDRA ANDERSON" and "SANDI ANDERSEN."

Apparently Rose Anderson runs merle dogs (GASP! the horror! merle dogs can't work--silly), so I guess it's part of McCaig's confusion on which people he should ostracize:

Nov 11 2005, 08:26 AM

Rose Anderson from Michigan has a merle called Chi that she has taken from Novice -> Open in short order and is winning Open trials with. She has a younger merle too that is doing quite well.

She won at the Crook & Whistle trial in Jefferson WI, twice at Bill Gary's trial in River Falls WI, was 2nd at Chaffin's SDT in Vesper WI, and was 9th and 10th at the WWSDA Fall trial in Portage WI this year.

Not sure which lines Rose's merles come from but they can work.

Pearse

Gosh, racism and sexism is really alive and well in the trialing community.

Mike Rowe Sells KatKrap

I hate cats. I hate QVC. I quite enjoy Mike Rowe. Here he is in his first really dirty job: trying to sell a plastic crinkle bag with a cat on it for $24.95 on QVC.

Most entrepreneurs, inventors, designers, and marketers would KILL for a 3 minute spot on QVC especially for an item that is selling for $25 and couldn't cost 5 cents to make. Knowing that, just imagine the series of really stupid decisions that needed to happen for THIS product to make the cut.

Someone had to:

• think it up
  
• create prototypes
  
• decide it was a product that American cat owners needed to buy
  
• redevelop it for manufacture
  
• market it to retailers and professional product agents
  
• get a pitch meeting with QVC
• convince buyers at QVC to buy a batch of this crap
• decide it deserved a whopping 3 minutes on air
• video tape a cat supposedly enjoying it since they are unable to actually demonstrate this stupid thing in the studio live
• notice that the cat doesn't play with it at all or seem to enjoy its crinkle in any way
  
• try and save the video by lacing a treat with catnip to entice the cat to stay put and tolerate the stupid invention long enough to get film
• decide that 3 seconds in the katsack and 15 seconds escaping from the bag and licking the catnip outside of the bag is good enough video to entice people to buy the stupid bag

I hope the humane society revoked this inventor-owner's cat privileges like they did with Ellen DeGeneres. Anyone who was so successful at being so stupid shouldn't own animals. :cP

Make My Day or Make Fido Pay?

I feel a change in the air, and it's not just that lovely autumn breeze bringing the first snow of the season. It's a mood change, a political change, a rethinking of basic "rights." People around the country are becoming more hostile to each other and towards each other's pets.

"Good fences make good neighbors" is a time honored cliché and it's almost gospel in the dog owning world. Fences protect us, our dogs, and our neighbors from ourselves and each other. Even better than fences is land. Enough land where you don't have to listen to the neighbor's teenager with horrible music taste, enough land so you aren't a party to domestic disputes, the sex crazed newlyweds with the creaky bed in the unit directly overhead, and enough land where you and your pets are buffered from unwanted confrontation.

There have been newsworthy neighbor-dog disputes in the past, but high profile incidents like the mauling death of Dianne Whipple are easy to dismiss for suburbanites outside of the original locale. She lived in an apartment in San Francisco and her neighbors were wackos. Even worse, the simple nature of the case (woman attacked and killed by two vicious dogs that had no place in a cramped apartment building combined with a history of violence and no training) was clouded by zoophilia, the Aryan nation, the victim's sexual orientation, and an aspiring dog fighting venture. It was easy to miss the forest for the really bizarre trees on the periphery.

I don't think the Whipple case rang home in mid-America where it's easy to say "that could never happen with my neighbors. They are nice people and there's 1.2 acres between me and them. "

The burbs are the better choice for pets, we shouldn't be concerned with what those crazies in the city are doing. After all, even a laissez-faire place like Colorado has a pit bull ban in Denver. The burbs are obviously better: more room, more of that land, more fences, and fewer neighbors. Right? Well, until you start piecing together the national trend of nasty dog focused encounters in the burbs.

This week the dogblogosphere has been abuzz about Congo. A dog from the wealthy and spacious suburb of Princeton Township, NJ. The poor German Shepherd is now the center of a political tug of war because he attacked a gardener on his owner's property. The details are up for debate (the animal control officer who supposedly took statements and notes on the situations claims those notes were eaten by another dog!) and the overtones are more than just animal in nature as the gardener was Hispanic and the owners wealthy Whites, neither fluent in the other's language. The gardeners were invited on the property, but perhaps they disobeyed instructions, and sometime before or during the incident the gardener hid behind or assaulted the owner's wife causing her to fall. Blah blah blah.

What could have ended as a simple home owner's insurance claim is now working its way up the courts with death sentences handed down and reversed, puppies being labeled as vicious, and a whole can of worms that no one really wants opened. The ripples are moving well beyond the dog owner world. The Whipple case had the same effect, one of the legacies was the precedent setting civil judgment for Whipple's lesbian partner, a noteworthy case in the issue of civil unions and rights of survivorship outside of marriage.

Here's another dog attack story that I'm sure will make some waves. A three year old little girl was unsupervised in her back yard, climbed the cinder block fence and fell into the neighbor's yard on top of a cactus. Then the neighbor's dogs, also unsupervised, attacked the girl and dragged her further into the yard. The girl was eventually saved by her mother who hopped the fence.

Now, this story is new so we don't know how the "victim" and the dog owners are going to proceed. But both stories speak to a dangerous wind blowing in.

That's the chill of your home no longer being your castle. Where the make-my-day law no longer applies and potential criminals are given more rights and home owners are given more liabilities.

What? A three-year-old and a hard working lawn man are potential criminals? You bet they are, in the eyes of your dogs, a bloody and wailing child could easily evoke the same instinctual response as an injured animal (prey) and an unfamiliar man with a rake combined with a flustered female owner could make for a situation where instinct says bite first and ask questions later (danger). I'm sure a good chunk of you own dogs for protection and are happy that you've never needed their services.

Maybe even a few of you own guns for protection too, and likewise are happy that you've never had to shoot anyone on your property. That cold wind is also spelling trouble for the handgun debate that neither side has been willing to push too hard for or against (read: take to the Supreme Court for a precedent setting judgment) for fear that the outcome could be worse than the status quo. But this week's news brings word that the Supreme Court is going to decide just that issue.

Remember pet owners, the Second Amendment to the Constitution speaks directly (if not clearly) at gun rights. There is no Amendment for pet rights, and if you consider them property, then you're only protected against "unreasonable searches and seizures" under the Fourth Amendment. But "unreasonable" is up for debate, and just like the government takes a little bit a sizable chunk of your land every year in property taxes and your liquid assets in the form of income tax, and another cut off of your buying and selling habits with even more taxes, the trend for "reasonable" seizures of your property has been giving more rights to the government and taking rights from the citizenry ever since the ink was still wet on the Bill of Rights.

No matter how the Congo case goes, the damage has been done. Pet owners are certainly not going to come out with any more rights than before, we are certainly at risk of losing the moral high ground in the debate over what we and our animals can do on our own private property, and now that a sure to be sympathetic three year old girl is in place of an immigrant as the victim, the fight is going to be even more difficult than it already is.

I imagine more than two dogs save their owner's life or property this week, but you won't see that in the news. It's not newsworthy unless there is some sensational spin on it.

I for one want to have the right to shoot an intruder on my property and I want my dogs given every right to bite them in the ass. If there's a case of mistaken identity, so what, that's what insurance is for. A little higher premium is worth it to me to err on the side of my safety and wellbeing.

My two dogs are just sweethearts. They greet anyone at the door with boundless affection and this Halloween we had a little traffic jam at my place on what has traditionally been a slow night because so many people wanted to play with the pups. What the heck, it's good socialization and I got a chance to reinforce good doorway etiquette. Even with the silly costumes, the dark of night, and an oft ringing doorbell that usually sparks enough excitement for a whole day, the dogs behaved with aplomb.

Last week, though, my uncle came to my house to help fix my car. He has not met my two dogs and they have not met him. My girlfriend was taking a nap on the couch by the door and I was downstairs. I heard the security door shut and the creek of someone entering on to the landing. "Uncle Bob?" No answer. I got up with only moderate concern and followed Dublin up the stairs.
That's when I heard a rumble that came from a place I didn't know existed in my sweet little boy. He has never needed to protect me, nor would I encourage such behavior if he exhibited it. Celeste, the female who is smaller and daintier than he is has more of a killer instinct (just ask the rabbits and the squirrels) and even she has yet to bark at anyone aggressively.

But as I got to the top of the stairs and came around into the den, I watched as Dublin backed my uncle into the corner, both away from me and my sleeping girlfriend on the couch only a few feet away.

A quick and friendly "knock it off, that's Uncle Bob" did the trick with Dublin, and Bob and I were in the garage before I had time to really process what happened. But I have since come back to that growl and show of teeth and an unexpected pride wells up in me. I like that my "soft" border collie boy has the guts to stand up and defend the pack and am I so wrong in feeling that way?

I am a large man and I don't feel threatened very easily. I have avoided most of the fights of youth simply because would-be bullies were smaller and weaker. I inherited a 6'1" body and a barrel chest, and hands larger and meatier than a professional basketball player. My great grandfather was a professional wrestler, my grandfather a hall of fame boxer, and my father was famed as the "King of East Denver" for his street fighting prowess. My last real fight that came to blows was in kindergarten when I lunched the school bully when he kicked my best friend in the face.

I have never thought of buying or owning a big dog or a powerful dog for protection, that just is not a need I would think to fill. I also like idea of guns for protection, but I don't own anything more powerful than a .177 air powered pellet gun and it's never been aimed at anything more vicious than a tree rat. In theory I'd like to learn handgun safety and operations and have one for protection, but again, it's just not a pressing need to me.

But I got a real taste of what it must be like to think of an animal as a security guard when Dublin defended me, my loved ones, and my property from an unknown intruder who hadn't been welcomed into the house. I'm still rather confused about it, being that everything I love in Dublin stems from his docility, his neediness, and his affection... and now I have that juxtaposed with a primal respect for his aggressive defense.

It's easy to give away a right when you don't think you need it, when you don't appreciate it. When it won't ostensibly alter the way you live today or tomorrow. The right to have an animal for protection used to be one such right for me. But now that I know just a little bit what it feels like to be protected by a dog, these recent cases make the hairs on my neck stand up.

I don't want my dog to be taken away and killed because he stood up to a threat on my property. I don't want to be liable for the stupid things other people do on my land when I'm not there, especially if that liability extends beyond monetary compensation into the mandatory killing of my dogs. Of course I have reasonable precautions, like well maintained 6" fences, covers on the pool, and obnoxious security flood lights at night. Of course I socialize my animals and obey leash laws in public.

But apparently the cold winds of change are whispering that such precautions and responsibilities aren't enough. What if Congo and his crew are either killed or labeled vicious beasts? What if the mother of the 3 year old sues and wins? What if the Supreme Court upholds the ban on handguns in the home? Any one of those three eats away at my castle and my rights to defend it.

I frankly prefer the wind when it's carrying forth the howl of "Make My Day," not "Make Fido Pay."

Photo of the Day: Celeste

Third Estate of the Border Collie

reprint from 9/16/07

• The First Estate of the Border Collie is as a working stock dog.
• The Second Estate of the Border Collie is as a conformation show dog.
• The Third Estate of the Border Collie is as a dog sport athlete.
• The Fourth Estate of the Border Collie is as a house pet.

Purists in the first estate will be pleased with their ranking, but this list is not judgmental, nor preferential. It does not extend from most important to least important, but rather from monolithic to democratic, from specific and narrow to diverse and broad. Fundamentally, the list documents the history of formal organization. You might argue that conformation showing is the most monolithic and the most specific, and you'd be right, but it is far behind trialing in history and in moral ownership of the breed.

I firmly believe that the Third Estate of the Border Collie is a significant player in the future of the Border Collie, unadorned with romantic history and unbound by a rigid and arbitrary "breed standard." The Third Estate is a meritocracy like the first estate but is not blinded to the full potential of the Border Collie. The Third Estate is more numerous than the first two estates combined, an readily accepts more converts from the Fourth Estate than either of the first two.

Many ranchers and trialers got into Border Collies because they were in stock first. Many conformation breeders got into Border Collies after they were in another breed first. I'd venture to say that the flow of traffic from rancher -> border collie enabled rancher and conformation breeder -> border collie conformation breeder is larger and more significant than the traffic from border collie owner into either showing or ranching.

The dog sport communities and the pet communities on the other hand have great inter-mobility. There are many other breeds in dog sports, although when the ability of the Border Collie shines through, many serious competitors in other breeds upgrade to a BC. Those that don't upgrade are forced and inspired to improve their own breeds to be competitive. There are also many Border Collie pets that inspire their novice owners to get into a meaningful activity when normal house pet duties are insufficient fare for the BC.

Dog sports are fun and inviting, and dog sport people have more avenues for training than either of the first two estates. It's easy and convenient to pick a dog sport and find several training centers in your area, competitive clubs who will help you get trained and involved, and a free market of avenues to compete, from the non-serious fun variety to super competitive avenues that lead to sponsorships and world travel. Neither herding nor conformation can say the same.

The Border Collie was developed as a working stock dog, and it is still used widely for this purpose today. That being said, no one today developed the border collie. That was done at the same time all the other breeds came about as part of the Victorian fancy for eugenics and a growing sophistication of farmers in creating hybrid crops. Remember, the pivotal moment in genetics research came from a bean grower:

The science began to evolve in 1865 when Gregor Mendel, an Austrian botanist and monk, identified what he called “hereditary factors” — now known as genes. Three years later, Friedrich Miescher, a Swiss biologist, unknowingly discovered DNA — deoxyribonucleic acid. In 1876, Charles Darwin conducted experiments in breeding and published Cross and Self Fertilization in the Vegetable Kingdom. A year after that, William Beal, a renowned horticulturist at Michigan Agricultural College (later Michigan State University), established the first seed testing laboratory in the United States and was the first person to cross-pollinate corn to increase yields. His research demonstrated to farmers the advantages of hybrid vigor.
- Plant Breeding and Genetics: Harvesting the Power of DNA

The breed name and the romantic breed history evoke images of well dressed pasty men with lilting accents or thick brogues on lush green pastures with idyllic cloud-puff sheep milling about as the perfect dog keeps it all in order. If such images were ever true, they are not true now. Today's shepherd is adopting the trappings of an idealized past culture just as much as today's cowboys of the American West are adopting the trappings of another idealized past culture. This isn't artifice, it's natural cultural inheritance. But in both cases, these are not the good old days, those are past. These are the good old days of the dog sport athlete.

The American herding community owes much of its culture to both of the past cultures I just mentioned, the gentleman rancher from the UK and the American cowboy. Despite their many attempts to, the American herding community can't honestly play the "we made the breed card." They might have a good case for the Australian Shepherd and the McNab, but the romantic Border Collie will always be a product of the UK. You might take the ISDS's decision to recognize the ABCA as the inheritors of the old guard giving respect to the new guard who has finally lived up to their standards. You might also see it as a herding community in England that is becoming increasingly smaller and less significant reaching out to their colony in America who is doing much better, bloated with legions of border collie house pet registrations.

I'm sure there are many who would say that conformation showing is crippling the breed in England, but I have yet to be convinced that any shepherd need ever seek an outside source for their dogs. If there is a dearth of quality herding BCs in the UK, it's because the herders aren't maintaining their own house. Holding on to a past culture is strong and weak for the very same reason: the past doesn't change. While it is successful and logical to take what works from the past and sustain it, it also means that elements from that saved history become less relevant every day as modernity and entropy make the past more foreign and obscure.

Herding might be really fun for the dog, but I have no fondness for sheep. Herding is also the least inviting of the estates. Not only are the small elite group old and cranky, they are elitist and differentiate themselves culturally in numerous ways.

In sheepdog culture speech is laconic, and praise for man or dog understated. It can be funny to wacth the newly obsessed adapt to that culture that nurtures their dogs. As his (her) dogs improve, many a previously garrulous suburbanite stats to mutter like John Wayne.
...
Sheepdog trialing does not attract many young people, but handlers in their seventies are unexceptional.
- Donald McCaig, The Dog Wars p17 & 23

Herding is also inaccessible because sheep are sparse and rural and trainers are hard to find and expensive. I can train in flyball for $10 per two hour class. I can train in Agility for $8 per 90 minute drop-in or two dogs for $10, with in depth introductory classes easily less than $20 per hour. Frisbee is the cost of the disc and a nominal fee for Spring Training. Herding costs me $25 for one dog and $30-40 for two dogs per hour, and those appear to be the market rates. Herding has the most expensive overhead and flyball has the least.

You can't herd on your own unless you have a significant investment in land, sheep, equipment, and investment money to start and run a small business. You literally have to be a sheep rancher or serious hobbyist living in the country to play that game. Many trialers who have sheep and a bit of land don't have enough of it to be competitive at the upper levels, so they increase the overhead and truck their sheep to other people's ranches to practice 600-800 yard outruns and nasty terrain and such. Herding is clearly a career and lifestyle choice not many are willing to adopt.

Conformation is boring for human and dog. It's also an exclusive club because it's inherently subjective. Even if you have a beautiful dog with great conformation, you won't be welcomed with open arms. It's a lot about who you know and who you bought from and their status. There is an art to showing since you're sending signals to judges about how well prepared you are and thus how likely it is that you should win. In any event where the judging is subjective, you will find favoritism that is unexplainable by probability and chance. When one hot dog sweeps several shows in a row, taking Best In Show against a few thousand dogs each show, it is simply unfathomable that it's not fixed. Breed standards are vague, so in any given ring you could make a clear case that all the dogs have no faults, so to have hot dogs win again and again is a signal that the game you think is being played is not the game that is really being played.

Judges supposedly don't know the name and breeder of the dogs in the ring, but this is a small community and kennels try hard to develop their own look. You'll hear it in the language: "that's a Wizaland head" or "those are Borderfame ears" and such. It's also not difficult to recognize a dog, a handler, or a breeder if they are campaigning the dog. It's also simple to cheat as the judge reading the list of dogs before the show or during the show as they fill out rankings for the breeds they are currently judging to see what arm band number corresponds to which dog.

You have to buy into this sport and it's advisable to buy from the winning lines with a breeder who is actively showing. They have an incentive to help you along (and they might co-own your dog and are making you show) to help their breeding program along. You might find that you put in a lot of time and effort and the credit goes to the breeder. They did make the dog pretty after all.

It's also expensive. Grooming overhead can be massive. It's why the two most popular professions in the showing community are hair stylists and lawyers. One has expertise in the only real investment the owner makes: grooming. The other has expertise in the schmoozing and social climbing with back door deals that make the show world go round.

Showing doesn't lend it self to small incremental investments in time, money, and effort. It really requires a balls out effort and a high buy-in cost to make a go at it and get any kind of results that will please your ego and sustain interest in the hobby. Most breeders do this because they see benefits down the road. They meet potential buyers, they earn a championship for their stock, and this improves their reputation and their ability to sell puppies to the masses.

Conformation is something people do because they are already breeding, it is not a means to graduate to breeding for something you already do. As far as the upper levels of show culture goes, the Border Collie is hopeless. The Herding Group is the bastard cousin of the show world and in the entire history of the group's existence at the Westminster dog show (1983 on), the only herding group best in show came from a German Shepherd (which is genetically and functionally the least like the other herding breeds, it is a mastiff in sheepherder's clothing) and he was owned and showed by a Firestone heiress. Before getting its own designation in 1983, the dogs which would eventually make up the Herding Group only won Best in Show three other times: A Rough Collie in 1929 and an Old English Sheep Dog in 1914 and 1975.

I also have a fundamental atheism to any written breed standard. There is no logic or value behind one, especially for the Border Collie. I have to refrain from laughing when people try to explain "and why do we need straight hocks, well to herd well, of course!" The breed standard is to the conformation community what the bible is to most Christians. Most haven't read it, and despite being referenced often, the words don't determine what wins, fads do. If you read the BC standard and then look at the top winning BCs, you'll see that there is an implied standard that speaks to fashion fads, not the words on the page.

Pet owners, the Fourth Estate, might have the least clout and moral ownership of the breed, but every economy has businesses and consumers, and consumer demand drives many business decisions. The Fourth Estate is the consumer base for the breeders who belong in the first three estates. Anyone breeding to herd, show, or compete is going to create more puppies than they need. Those puppies need to be sold.

The Herding community is the least sophisticated at this process. If they are active trialers and doing well, they will likely have a few fellow trialers who want to try out a puppy from their dog and see what they can do with it. This is just part of the culture that trades dogs like professional teams trade athletes. Not all dogs are on the revolving pet circuit, many are pets and "forever" dogs, but a good number of dogs move around the country for various reasons, in full accordance with market forces. The herding community is unlikely to sell their dogs cheap, but they are also unlikely to do genetic testing, eye testing, hip testing, and other value-added measures, so the dogs aren't sold at a premium. Some dogs come with papers, some not. Most are purebred, some are crosses with other herding breeds like the McNab.

Conformation stock is rarely traded or sold. Unlike herding dogs that might not work out with their current owner's style but can flourish under another handler, a show dog is not likely to be helped by being traded. Showing also requires little training (stand still, walk straight, put your feet here, keep your tail down and your ears up) and the prime age of operation is less than two years. Many dogs get their championships as puppies under a year old. Since the dog can "compete" at such a young age, there is much more interest in spreading the seed of top stud dogs around than there is in trading dogs.

Since dogs can win so young, they can also be bred young and often. This is the key factor in population dynamics. If you look at any healthy breeding population that is growing, there are several factors that determine how fast the population grows: number of offspring per litter, how often one generation breeds (comes into heat), the average age of first mating. It turns out that the exponential effects of population dynamics means that the age of first mating is many times more determinative of the size of the population than any other factor. Even if you have only a few puppies per litter and only come into heat once a year, breeding young means that you will fit in more generations in any given amount of time.

The show community breeds sooner and more often than any other estate. It's part of the game. If you want to make your dog look distinctive to your kennel and you have some physical ideal that you're working toward, you're not going to get there simply by finding a good stud and a good bitch. You're going to need to inbreed and line breed and go through several intermediate generations until your flavor "breeds true."

If your dog gets their championship young but you don't think it has a shot at being nationally campaigned, then you're out of the sport until you get a new puppy. Almost all of the "for fun" conformation show people show until they get a championship and then stop if they are not breeders. The same is true of many herding breeders as well, because the cost/benefit for taking a herding dog on a national campaign is poor.

The Dog Sport world is diverse in interest and diverse in breeding. Many people rescue dogs instead of breed them and there is a beautifully efficient effect where Border Collies that are put into shelters simply because they needed an activity find owners who take them out and train them and fulfill that need. Dog sports engender good breeding karma even when you're not breeding.

The dog sport world also has every reason to breed for health and temperament. Sure, you need a healthy dog to work sheep, but when you have a fluid market and a lot of dogs are only as good as their work, killing sick dogs and getting new ones is just as attractive an option as expensive veterinary treatments or pre-breeding testing. The show folks DNA test because they have to. The cultural acceptance of inbreeding and the excess to which they do it and the speed with which they breed new generations means that disease genes that exist all over the Border Collie genome get seriously magnified by the show community. They increase genetic entropy.

Because the dog sport people often treat their dogs like children and keep them for their whole life, they have a vested interest in getting a healthier product as well as putting a greater emphasis on temperament and early socialization. These dogs have to live in the city with other dogs and cars and garbage and all the dangers and temptations that doing so entails. They live in homes and sleep in beds. These are needs that are not necessarily met by all herding breeders.

Whereas show people are easily tempted to but ribbons above other concerns, and whereas trialers are easily tempted to put shiny belt buckles above other concerns, most dog sport athlete owners would rather have a perfect pet and an imperfect athlete versus the opposite. I don't believe the show or herding folks can say the same.

The dog sport world also offers a wonderful metric by which to judge quality and demonstrate ability. Herding folks will say that no metric is superior to stock work, but these people already have their own metric and have little experience in others. Despite them saying it often, the notion that a dog bred specifically and only to herd is maximally competitive in any "lesser" persuit like frisbee or flyball or agility is a lie. Herding dogs don't need to be as fast as Flyball dogs can be, nor do they need to have the eye-mouth coordination. They don't need to jump as high as Frisbee dogs can, they don't need to track and catch a flying object, and they don't need to be comfortable jumping off of their handler's body. Nor do they need to excel at turn on a dime close handling like Agility dogs do. Nor do they need to be as calm and militaristic as Obedience dogs.

Dog sports have their own requirements and people should, will, and need to breed with those concerns in mind. The very raison d'etre for dog breeds is to have predictable behaviors and similar abilities. Strains within those lines take that notion one step further, when you want to bring out a certain characteristic but in doing so you don't cross the line into forming a new breed.

Herding Nazis will say that you should call your dog something else if it wasn't bred to herd. But if they weren't being hypocrites, American border collies shouldn't be called BORDER collies at all. That's a reference to a time and a place very very far away, and since the style of American pasture, sheep, and herding is distinct from the land, sheep, and style used a century ago in the UK, today's American Border Collie is certainly a distinct creature from the BCs of old, and so too is US trialing culture different from UK trialing culture: more women, more jeans and less tweed, more varieties and styles of border collies (less racism against red dogs, greater preference for shorter coats more appropriate for arid Western pasture, etc).

This is a moot point though, because the herding folks tried to capture the "Border Collie" brand to prevent the AKC from calling their show dogs "Border Collies." They failed. It's in the public domain and the definition is essentially determined by the masses.

They can call the show dogs "barbie" collies all they want, but they don't have the numbers, the clout, or the connections to the hoi polloi that the Third Estate has.

The Border Collie is the dog people see walking in their neighborhood, the one catching the disc at the park, or the one streaking across the jumps at a summer fair. Those numerous and ubiquitous venues belong to the Third Estate.

Not only is this a warning call for the Third Estate to take their breeding obligations seriously, it is also a wake up call to the Fourth Estate that you can and will find great and talented pets from breeders in the Third Estate. They, much more so than the First or Second Estates are breeding for qualities that you are likely to value. And they are likely to do it without feeding you a load of dogma with your puppy.

The Modern Language of Dog

reprint from this blog 8/24/07
The Ancient, Modern, and Future Language of "Dog."

---

Part 1. The Ancient. Wherein the Author describes the Border War between Linguists on the history of the proto-word for "Dog."

Part 2. The Modern. Wherein the Author describes Dog's omnipresence in modern language.

Part 3. The Future. Wherein the Author describes Dog's presence in the babble and first words of children.

---

The primordial connection we feel towards dogs is more than the superficial replacement for meaningful human contact that cat people claim we are experiencing. In fact, recent research shows that owning a pet is actually a catalyst towards greater social contact. But the human-canine bond is deeper than simple coexistence and date-bait. Our relationship with dogs has influenced the very formation of human language. Our growth from vine swinging apes to blog spinning humans has been shepherded by dogs.

In the first part of this series I got around to discuss dogs at the end. The takeaway observation is that dogs hold a prestigious place in the short list of man's oldest words. We've been talking about dogs since we began talking, and we haven't slowed down since.

Modern English hints that dogs are a reflection of god, and anyone who has ever found that once in a lifetime pup would agree. Dogs worship us, they refresh our souls, they hold no conditions, and they never lie. They ask little and give much. They aren't perfect, but man doesn't deserve perfect and dogs are probably more than we deserve as well. For all the slandering the humble dog has taken in the various religious tomes, and even the lingering pejorative treatments of dogs in clichés and euphemisms, dogs endure and they don't hold what we say about them against us.

As with any obsession, we might be saying more about the man-dog bond than we realize. "Dog" is the 310th most commonly used word in English based on the American National Corpus. We talk and write about dogs more than we talk about horses (311), birds (312), cats (673) or even our friends (323). More than rock (353) and roll (676), more than the moon (520) and stars (420), more than cause (532) and effect (998), and even more than death (953).

We honor dogs with more lip service than art (799), science (875), industry (894) and even God (779). We value them more than dollars (866), money (374), riches (865) and gold (662). And even our concern for the poor (688) doesn't come close, nor does our quest for power (486).

We respect them more than Kings (390), Presidents (726), and the rule (483) of law (717). And recent press should confirm that we'd rather dish on dogs than discuss soldiers (825) at war (387), despite a plethora of war correspondents and not a single dog correspondent on any newspaper's payroll.

Dogs are more genuine than truth (366) and impervious to lies (853). They give us more direction than North (372) , South (385), East (741) and West(581). We are for (13) dogs more than we are against (368) anything (514). Heck, we'll even take dogs over hope (633) and love (531).

I suspect that we talk sex (???) more than we do dogs, but sex doesn't even rank on the list. I think that it's been edited from my source since even the Brits talk about sex (83 times per million words) just a little bit more than they do dogs (80 per million), and the Brits are renowned sexual prudes.

Other than sex, it's certain we talk about just a handful of things more than dogs. Water (84), oil (88), land (171), work (107), and school (212). Home (173), family (299), mother (192), father (213) and children (253). Music (302) and song (296) and, of course, Animal House (187-188).

And really, that's exactly the way it should be.

[ Part 1. The Ancient. ] [ Part 3. The Future. ]

Cruze is cute.

Ok, that last post was depressing, so before you go jump off a bridge just look at this cute puppy picture and all will be well:

That's "Cruz," owned by Holly Elliot from Facebook.

Don't Eat the Dog

Thanks to my new friend over at the Anti Eating Dog blog, I bring you this sad, sad show:

Don't eat dog. Come on now, say it with me.... DON'T EAT MY DOG!

Lucky Jack Update

Lucky Jack, the unfortunate dog who was shot in the head with a blade tipped hunting arrow is on the mend and scheduled for surgery:

Here are photos taken of "Lucky Jack" on November 13, 2007 at Dr. Bob's clinic. Thanks to all of you who gave so generously to help Lucky Jack, he has been scheduled for surgery at Louisiana State University's School of Veterinary Medicine where they will perform this delicate and complicated surgery to remove the arrow from Jack's head.

The sad part is, the arrow in the head isn't Lucky Jack's only issue:

Jack's surgery has been further complicated by the fact that he has Heartworms and suffers from Ehrlichia (tick disease) that can affect his reaction to anesthesia. The medical team at LSU will perform an echo scan of Jack's heart to see if anesthesia can be administered, or if his Heartworm and Ehrlichia must first be treated before the surgery can be performed. The emergency room veterinarians at LSU have treated many dogs who have these conditions, which will give Jack the benefit of their experience and sophisticated medical facilities.

You know, it's easy to be a heartless bastard and do the economical thing and just put this dog to sleep. I mean, is it not wasteful to have so many people (like myself) sending in money for the expensive treatment of this animal? Could that money not be spent to improve the lives of more animals, or in some other cause like dying babies or clubbed seals or the bring back the nice Rosie O'Donnell campaign?

I never believed in the either/or argument. I do believe in free markets. Causes, like products, have to compete for consumers and a dollar spent on one cause is not a dollar stolen from another cause, any more than one purchased puppy = one dead shelter dog. Luck Jack got my $ because some news man was smart enough to let Lucky Jack bounce around on camera and sell me on saving his life.

There are two ways to gain customers, you steal market share and you grow the market. Too often people spend too much time trying to steal market share instead of growing the market.

Really, that's what the Border Collie Wars are about. It's also what the feud between the different factions of the animal shelter / welfare / rights / no-kill movements is made of. There's room for everyone only if the market is growing. If it's not, then one group's gain is another's loss. And that's the way it should be. An informed public can make decisions and it's even better than a democracy, because it's not tyranny of the majority, it's free expression.

Sure, you need some combination of time, money, effort, or will to freely express, but those are hardly burdens that we should not expect anyone to be able to overcome. No one can do your activism for you for free.

A little honest advertising -- like a happy puppy seemingly unjaded by being shot in the head -- is a good thing when it's promoting a good product.

Update: Here's some video of Lucky Jack and his Vet discussing his treatment.

Japanese Jumping Dogs

Ok, so not everything the Japanese do with their dogs involves bizarre breeding practices and unprotected sexual interactions of kitsch electronics (see last post). Sometimes they get dressed up like Mario and Luigi and put on mini dog circus acts. Both the dogs and the circuses are mini, and so are the Japanese for that matter.

Japanese Humping Dogs

The Japanese are electronic gurus, famed perverts eccentrics, and if you believe what is said on the Border Collie chat groups, they are also very irresponsible when it comes to pet care, breeding, and dog sports.

It seems they have found a way to combine those, erm, talents... into a single product that will surely be making its way into japanophile/techie/dog people's stockings this Christmas.

Remember to have your USB Ramdrives spayed and neutered.

Unequivocal Spin

Bias in the blogosphere is pretty obvious, and most bloggers wear it like a badge. Most readers seek to find content they are prone to agree with. It's easier to adopt a religion and follow its teachings than it is to constantly consider how each new event or situation fits into your homemade belief system. "I mostly agree with you, so tell me how to think and act."

Despite being libertarian and agnostic, I can't say that I am always above this particular coping mechanism. When it comes time to vote, especially on local issues where a bill might sound good but the details are possibly antithetical to my beliefs, I do rely on pundits of known bias to inform my voting choices. If you go right to the high profile conservatives and liberals and see what they are harping over, it's usually easy to discern what is actually in the bill and decide from there.

While we expect and allow bias from sources where such bias is evident and advertised, we don't support it from supposedly neutral sources like the hard news.

It seems the New York Times doesn't even try to hide it's rampant liberal bias any more. Here are two headlines which are clearly trying to spin a win into a loss, a defeat into a victory, and both for the benefit of a liberal audience:

Mukasey Wins Vote in Senate, Despite Doubts
vs.
Dropping License Plan Wins Praise for Spitzer

The liberal mantra over Mukasey has been "he failed to take an unequivocal stance against the torture of terrorism detainees." It's in the first line of that article and somewhere in almost all of the NYT articles that deal with Mukasy. It's also parroted back to the NYT by people (read: civil rights attorney Diane Goldstein Temkin) who write letters to the editors: "Judge Michael B. Mukasey was wrong not to take an unequivocal stand against waterboarding."

That's the mantra, and the goal is to recast any Bush Administration win as a loss and to taint any bill that the way-left Democrats couldn't prevent from passing and discredit any nominee they couldn't filibuster or otherwise prevent from being approved.

Compare this with Spitzer's utterly ridiculous plan to give de-facto citizenship to illegals via drivers licenses, which has become a self destructive topic for the Democratic Presidential hopefuls, especially front runner Hillary Clinton. This is the kind of out of touch stupidity and egocentric leftism that the Republicans pray for every election cycle. Let the lefties tear themselves apart with a really stupid measure, and we'll use all the sound bytes to hammer it home during the general election.



The NYT article on Spitzer spins spins spins for over 500 words before it even mentions Hillary Clinton, the real reason this issue is so divisive:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has taken fire in recent weeks for failing to make clear whether she supported Mr. Spitzer’s plan, was not present at the delegation breakfast. But she issued a statement Wednesday afternoon in which she expressed support for Mr. Spitzer’s decision and stated that licenses for illegal immigrants would not be on her own future agenda.

“As president, I will not support drivers’ licenses for undocumented people and will press for comprehensive immigration reform that deals with all of the issues around illegal immigration,” Mrs. Clinton said.

I guess "failed to take an unequivocal stance" isn't in the NYT vocabulary when they have to talk about liberal darling politicians. I'll bet that if you polled 1,000 people on the streets of New York and asked them, "Fill in the blank: Recently, ______ failed to take an unequivocal stance on a divisive political issue" almost all of them would have answered Clinton. I'd expect the same results in Washington D.C., and nationwide.

Photo of the Day: Dublin and Celeste

Don't Shoot the Dog

That's what happens when you shoot an innocent dog in the head with a blade tipped hunting arrow.


Amazingly, the arrow missed all the vital nerves, the brain, and the meat of the eye meaning that "Lucky Jack" the dog can make a full and complete recovery if the remainder (read: barbed and bladed arrow head) of the arrow can be removed during surgery.

The arrow is currently impairing Lucky Jack's ability to open and close his mouth and is dangerously close to the eye where it still has the possibility of doing permanent damage if left untreated.

There is a Lucky Jack Surgery fund that is raising money for his treatment. The cost of treatment at the specialty Vet center at LSU is $5,000.

I just gave $(my lucky number) to the surgery fund because it is worth at least that much to me to see this happy and resilient dog get well enough to grow old and fat and loved. Consider donating your lucky number, you just might get it back in good karma. Just look at him in this video and see if you don't agree that this dog deserves to be made whole:

Video of the (mostly) healthy Luck Jack

A Dog Named Jeff

In honor of Veteran's Day:

The winner of the 2004 DogHero.com heroic dog story contest was a piece by Wayne McDowell about a Border Collie mix named Jeff. Tissues required.

A Dog Named Jeff
By Wayne H. McDowell

Like a lot of the young men of my generation, I spent time in the Army
and slightly less than a year of that time was spent in the Vietnam War.
For part of that period I was stationed a small "firecamp," roughly 200
of us or so, and there was also a "camp mutt" called Jeff. Jeff was of
indeterminate breed, a medium sized dog, about 30 to 40 pounds or so. He
was a black and white dog that always put me in mind of a miniature Border
Collie, but with floppy hound dog ears. He had a single toy, a tennis ball,
the old off-white kind. When he wanted to play fetch, he would carry the
ball around until he found his chosen playmate, then drop the ball at the
person's feet and bark until these slow-witted humans got the idea to throw
it for him.

Jeff was sort of a camp mascot for us. It was good luck to give Jeff a
quick pet before heading out on a patrol, and he seemed to understand that,
and to understand what was going on around him. If things went badly "out
there" (as they sometimes did,) he would meet you as you came back,
running from one soldier to another as if checking, and if someone wasn't
there, he would go up to one of his special "friends" (of which I was one)
and nudge them worriedly, as if asking "What happened out there? Where's
________?"

... read more ...

Also check out Johann's Veteran's Day post about Chips.

Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs

In Honor of our Veterans, new and old, living and passed:
(reprinted from 9/29/07)

In a day and age where the ROTC and the Minutemen are invited to speak by a student group at Columbia, then banned by a callow and effete administration kowtowing to another student group of fascist pinkos, it's little surprise that a dictator and terrorist like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is welcomed with open arms even after severe backlash from the Country. Idiot college students (like the girl they interviewed on TV) who think we need "greater dialog" with monsters like Mahmoud should be allowed their wish and given first class tickets to Tehran via Baghdad. Let them "dialog" all they want from the front lines.

The terrorist Ahmadinejad was given a pulpit to preach hatred, rebuffed only by the tepid insult of "you must be either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated." PROVOCATIVE or UNEDUCATED!! Oh please! God forbid we call the World's #1 sponsor of terror "uneducated" and "provocative!"

I really need to teach a class on vicious personal attacks and deeply cutting insults and give Columbia's President Bollinger a scholarship to attend. His pathetic insult wouldn't get him slapped in a singles bar, let alone make an impression against the likes of Ahmadinejad. What a toad.

Since Columbia is proving that you shouldn't bother to listen to college professors (let alone bankrupt your parents and burden yourself with decades of debt to do so), here are some words that are worth reading and taking to heart. You won't find such insight and elloquence coming out of Columbia, the UN, or Iran any time soon.

Hat tip to ThrowTheScoundrelsOut at Townhall.com:

This letter was written by Charles Grennel and his comrades, veterans of the Global War On Terror. Grennel is an Army Reservist who spent two years in Iraq and was a principal in putting together the first Iraq elections in January 2005. It was written to Jill Edwards, student at the University of Washington , who did not want to honor Medal of Honor winner USMC Colonel Greg “Pappy” Boyington.

Ms. Edwards and other students and faculty do not think those who serve in the U.S. Armed Services are worthy as good role models.

To: Jill Edwards, Student, c/o University of Washington

Subject: Sheep, Wolves and Sheepdogs

Miss Edwards, I read of your student activity regarding the proposed memorial to Colonel Greg Boyington, USMC and a Medal of Honor winner. I suspect you will receive many angry emails from conservative people like me. You may be too young to appreciate fully the sacrifices of generations of servicemen and servicewomen, on whose shoulders you and your fellow students stand. I forgive you for the untutored ways of youth and your naiveté. It may be that you are simply a sheep. There's no dishonor in being a sheep, as long as you know and accept what you are.

William J. Bennett, in a lecture to the United States Naval Academy November 24, 1997 said "Most of the people in our society are sheep. They are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident. We may well be in the most violent times in history, but violence is still remarkably rare. This is because most citizens are kind, decent people, not capable of hurting each other except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep.

Then there are the wolves who feed on the sheep without mercy. Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial.

Then there are sheepdogs and I'm a sheepdog. I live to protect the flock and confront the wolf. If you have no capacity for violence and you are a healthy productive citizen, you are a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? What do you have then? A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the uncharted path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed.

We know that the sheep live in denial, which is what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world. They can accept the fact that fires can happen, which is why they want fire extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire exits throughout their kid's schools. But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting an armed police officer in their kid's school. Our children are thousands of times more likely to be killed or seriously injured by school violence than fire, but the sheep's only response to the possibility of violence is denial. The idea of someone coming to kill or harm their child is just too hard. So they choose the path of denial.

The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, cannot and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheepdog that intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours. Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there are wolves in the land. They would prefer that he didn't tell them where to go, or give them traffic tickets, or stand at the ready in our airports, in camouflage fatigues, holding an M-16. The sheep would much rather have the sheepdog cash in his fangs, spray paint himself white, and go Baa. That is, until the wolf shows up, and then the entire flock try desperately to hide behind one lonely sheepdog.

The students, the victims, at Columbine High School were big, tough, know-it-all high school students, and under ordinary circumstances would not have had the time of day for a police officer. They were not bad kids; they just had nothing to say to a cop. When the school was under attack, however, and SWAT teams were clearing the rooms and hallways, the officers had to physically peel those clinging, sobbing kids off of them.

This is how the little lambs feel about their sheepdog when the wolf is at the door. Look at what happened after September 11, 2001 when the wolf pounded hard on the door. Remember how America , more than ever before, felt differently about their law enforcement officers and military personnel? Understand that there is nothing morally superior about being a sheepdog; it is just what you choose to be.

Also understand that a sheepdog is a funny critter. He is always sniffing around out on the perimeter, checking the breeze, barking at things that go bump in the night and yearning for a righteous battle. That is, the young sheepdogs yearn for a righteous battle. The old sheepdogs are a little older and wiser, but they move to the sound of the guns when needed, right along with the young ones. Here is how the sheep and the sheepdog think differently. The sheep pretend the wolf will never come, but the sheepdog lives for that day.

After the attacks on September 11, 2001, most of the sheep, that is, most citizens in America said "Thank God I wasn't on one of those planes." The sheepdogs, the warriors, said, "Dear God, I wish I could have been on one of those planes. Maybe I could have made a difference." You want to be able to make a difference. There is nothing morally superior about the sheepdog, the warrior, but he does have one real advantage. Only one. And that is that he is able to survive and thrive in an environment that would destroy 98 percent of the population.

Research was conducted a few years ago with individuals convicted of violent crimes. These cons were in prison for serious, predatory crimes of violence: assaults, murders and killing law enforcement officers. The vast majority said they specifically targeted victims by body language: Slumped walk, passive behavior and lack of awareness. They chose their victims like big cats do in Africa , when they select one out of the herd that is least able to protect itself.

Some people may be destined to be sheep and others might be genetically primed to be wolves or sheepdogs. But I believe that most people can choose which one they want to be, and I'm proud to say that more and more Americans are choosing to become sheepdogs. Seven months after the attack on September 11, 2001, Todd Beamer was honored in his hometown of Cranbury , New Jersey . Todd, as you recall, was the man on Flight 93 over Pennsylvania who called on his cell phone to alert an operator from United Airlines about the hijacking. When they learned of the other three passenger planes that had been used as weapons, Todd and the other passengers confronted the terrorist hijackers. In one hour, a transformation occurred among the passengers - athletes, business people and parents - from sheep to sheepdogs and together they fought the wolves, ultimately saving an unknown number of lives on the ground.

Edmund Burke said "There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men." Here is the point I want to emphasize, especially to the thousands of police officers and soldiers I speak to each year. In nature the sheep, real sheep, are born as sheep. Sheepdogs are born that way, and so are wolves. They don't have a choice. But you are not a critter. As a human being, you can be whatever you want to be. It is a conscious, moral decision. If you want to be a sheep, then you can be a sheep and that is okay, but you must understand the price you pay. When the wolf comes, you and your loved ones are going to die if there is not a sheepdog there to protect you.

If you want to be a wolf, you can be one, but the sheepdogs are going to hunt you down and you will never have rest, safety, trust or love. But if you want to be a sheepdog and walk the warrior's path, then you must make a conscious and moral decision every day to dedicate, equip and prepare yourself to thrive in that toxic, corrosive moment when the wolf comes knocking at the door.

This business of being a sheep or a sheepdog is not a yes-no dichotomy. It is not an all-or-nothing, either-or choice. It is a matter of degrees, a continuum. On one end is an abject, head-in-the-sand-sheep and on the other end is the ultimate warrior. Few people exist completely on one end or the other. Most of us live somewhere in between. Since 9-11 almost everyone in America took a step up that continuum, away from denial. The sheep took a few steps toward accepting and appreciating their warriors and the warriors started taking their job more seriously.

It’s OK to be a sheep, but do not kick the sheepdog. Indeed, the sheepdog may just run a little harder, strive to protect a little better and be fully prepared to pay an ultimate price in battle and spirit with the sheep moving from "baa" to "thanks".

We do not call for gifts or freedoms beyond our lot. Just like the sheepdog, we in the military just need a small pat on the head, a smile and a thank you to fill the emotional tank which is drained protecting the sheep.

And, when our number is called by The Almighty, and day retreats into night, a small prayer before the heavens just may be in order to say thanks for letting you continue to be a sheep. And be grateful for the millions of American sheepdogs who permit you the freedom to express even bad ideas.

It's a shame that so many pinko idiots spit upon the men and women of our armed services because they have some tofu+marijuana+patchouli induced idiocy and complete disregard for what it really takes to defend freedom. These people promote the Nanny state because they wish to remain forever-children. Why grow up when you can suck the tit of the government and complain about it the entire time?

Such stupidity disgusts me, and such keen insight by men like Grennel inspires me.

I really have only one thing to critique about the letter. I was a senior in high school in 1999, at a school not too far from Columbine. I had met the first victim, Rachel Scott, as well as the first survivor--that fame seeking buffoon Brooks Brown--prior to the shootings at school events like Speech and Debate meets. Many people use Columbine to "prove" many points, and the impact of the event has grown well beyond the basic cause and effect of what happened that day, much like the OJ Simpson case a few years before exploded beyond the act of OJ brutally killing his ex-wife and Mr. Goldman.

The thing that disturbs me most about Columbine is the fact that the sheepdogs didn't do their job. Although over 1,000 law enforcement personnel were on scene by the end of the day, not a single one of them did anything that prevented anyone from being hurt by the wolves. Not one. Not one thing. Nothing. The sheriff's deputy at the school was stuffing his face and harassing the smokers and he didn't even get out of his car except to fire FOUR! rounds from 60 some yards away at one of the gunmen who was inside the building. That's it. Four rounds fired at one gunman from about as far away as you could have gotten. The hack didn't even empty his magazine.

Not one of those 1,000 sheepdogs even entered the building until the shooters were already dead, and it took three hours before the SWAT team finally made it into the Library. P-A-T-H-E-T-I-C dereliction of duty all around.
The writer of the letter made a poor choice in evoking the images of Columbine to make a point about the "sheepdogs" of society. They failed miserably that day. Miserably.

An hour of your time

If you want to know what it's like to experience a first rate lecture, but not feel like you're being lectured, watch this video.

If you want a good reason to be motivated and do just one more thing to improve your life or someone else's life, watch this video.

If you remember that there are 24 hours in every day and you probably didn't do much in any one of them today that you'd be proud to tell someone else about or perhaps you didn't experience something that you will one day have a fond memory of, watch this video.

If you want to feel a little less sad for yourself and a little more happy that not everyone out there is a !@#&*^~, watch this video.

It has nothing to do with dogs, or wars, or me being overly self righteous and smug. That should be reason enough.

Take an hour and watch this video:

Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

1 hr 25 min 21 sec - Sep 24, 2007

Description: Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch, who is dying from pancreatic cancer, gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving talk, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals.

Dogs and Razvodit

Sexual reproduction is a union that results in increasing genetic diversity of the offspring. It is characterized by two processes: meiosis, involving the halving of the number of chromosomes; and fertilization, involving the fusion of two gametes and the restoration of the original number of chromosomes.

Sexual reproduction (as opposed to asexual reproduction) is necessarily a dilution and a combination because mammalian genetics are a zero sum game (baring rare and disastrous defects): two haploid cells containing half the required genes (a dilution) come together in the offspring to form a single organism that contains the same number of genes as the parents do (a combination).

Despite numerous jokes to the contrary, sexual reproduction is not by its nature a degenerative process. Some of the oldest texts from Egypt (as long as we've been keeping records of civilization) decry "kids these days" as sufficient evidence that the end is neigh and all is lost. But we've managed well enough and even made some improvements along the way. We build our skyscrapers with machines instead of slaves, for one.¹

But old fogies crying about the disrespectful youth tearing it all apart (think Donald McCaig complaining about the dog toys and foul language of the third estate) is nothing new. And now, like then, it should be ignored.

Genetics is a very conservative process. Genes may be swapped, but new ones are rarely formed or lost. There are plenty of ignorant (and on this topic we are all still ignorant) theories on the Border Collie Boards about what role genetics plays in herding ability and how that ability might be lost. Losing working ability in 3 generations and How Working Breeds Are Lost for starters.

Not knowing the biological mechanism of herding heritability myself (not a single study has been published which claims to document the quantity and characteristics of the genetic aspect of herding), I'll refrain from calling these theories impossible, but there are still some aspects that don't pass the sniff test.

For one, the idea that genes are lost. Genes are not lost any more than they are found. The sheeple will tell you that the only thing that defines the Border Collie is its ability to work sheep. That is the one and only breed standard. So we must assume that the quality that is present with the greatest concentration and ubiquity in the Border Collie is the ability to herd.

Random and capricious breeding of Border Collies should logically result in a population of dogs that has a mean representation of alleles mirroring the population as a whole. Given that the genes determining herding ability were specifically the ones selected for in the hundreds of years of selective breeding of Border Collies for work, then it must be true that the density of these genes is unlikely to be dismantled by not selecting for those traits in further breedings.

Herding must be the most inbred and most homozygous genetic quality in the Border Collie.

Sheeple claim that they do not and have not bred for color, yet not one of them is crying "if we don't breed for color at every generation, black and white border collies will be lost in three generations!" Why? Because the genetics of color are fixed and stable in the population.

Are Border Collies a breed? Do pure-bred Border Collies exist? If so, what constitutes that breed. Sheeple will answer Yes, Yes, and Herding Ability to the above questions. But if their concerns are valid, then we must answer: No, No, One day perhaps Herding Ability. Since the definition of a true breeding organism is:

A true breeding organism, sometimes also called a pure-bred, is an organism having certain biological traits which are passed on to all subsequent generations when bred with another true breeding organism for the same traits. In other words, to "breed true" means that two organisms with a particular, heritable phenotype produce only offspring with that (same) phenotype.

To wit, if a Border Collie can't pass along its herding ability unadulterated to the next generation in every puppy, then it is not a pure breed in so far as herding ability is concerned. If this is the reality we face, then the only people to blame are the sheeple for their failure to fix the (in their books) most important quality of the Border Collie into the breed.

And if it is true that this ability is not fixed, they why should people who don't need to use that ability continue to be a slave to it? If the definitive ability, herding, is not fixed, then we do not have a breed, and people who value the Border Collie for all of the traits that are fixed or abundant (athleticism, intelligence, bidability) can take our proto-breed and refine it in any way that we see fit. After all, it's still a proto-breed -- in development -- and our needs and wants have changed.

Is this a semantic exercise? Yes, in part. But so is defining a "Border Collie," and "work," and "sport," and "ruination of the breed." Why do you think that an author and a lawyer are the two predominant figures representing the ABCA in the border war? Words matter.

The sheeple love to say that the complexity of the herding genes must be very complicated and thus at great risk for being lost even in a single generation. But this doesn't pass the sniff test either. The complexity of the herding gene or genes can't be so complicated as to have precluded their successful assembly in the first place. The Border Collie's herding ability didn't just appear out of thin air in a single dog, nor will it disappear back into the air. Nor did it take thousands of generations of useless dogs to finally create a useful dog.

For the herding ability to disappear, two things must be true. One, breeders must specifically select against the herding ability. And two, there must be abundant alternative alleles for all of the herding genes that when selected for will render the herding ability impotent. Adding to this issue is the question of whether it is even desirable or essential to maintain this quality in its most robust state in ALL Border Collies.

The third point which I find fault in is the "it takes a village to raise a border collie" notion. You'll see this is a common thread in the sheeple's argument against non-trial dogs breeding. It has nothing to do with the network of breeders and trainers and dog trading and clinics and all that that is necessary to maintain the trial culture. It is specifically about the need for a monopoly in border collie breeding.

It usually has two parts: (1) Non elite dogs need to remain part of the gene pool, but still under sheeple control because breeding the best to the best is still insufficient to produce enough top dogs. All Border Collies need to be bred to top herding potential to maintain the quality of the inner sanctum few that are trained and trialed.

(2) Pet homes need to be reserved for herding cast offs lest they face competition from sport dogs and their cast offs. Every puppy bought from a sport breeder is one that is not bought from a herding breeder and this will bring ruination to the herding breeders. Never mind that the most active and productive herding breeders seem to be retired trialers who are no longer breeding to find the next great dog but rather pumping out puppies from their also retired dogs.

This logic is the same stupidity as "every purchased puppy steals a home from a shelter dog." Well, why don't we let the free market sort that out. If people want a shelter dog, let them have a shelter dog, but buying a well bred puppy is not a sin and is a rather baseless transfer of guilt and responsibility. So too is the notion that people should have to buy working bred Border Collies (who every sheeple insists "do not make good pets") instead of being given the freedom to purchase a sport bred Border Collie.

The vehemence and popularity of this argument stems from the fear that sport bred Border Collies will make better pets, or at least the consumer will believe so. So the sheeple argument is that they deserve and need a monopoly. And if you've ever taken Econ 101, monopolies are inefficient and fail to meet market demands. They create products that maximize the interests of the producer and minimize the interests of the consumer. And that's essentially what the sheeple want and dictate.

Can you say welfare state and monopoly? A gigantic and inefficient pool of so-so herding bred dogs need to be maintained to support the handful of trialing dogs and herding breeders need monopoly status just to eek by.

You'll notice that not a single herding or ranching business signed the AKC petition to leave the Border Collie alone. Why is that? Perhaps because the majority of sheep and beef producers in this country and the world are not beholden to the trialing community to find Border Collies that can work. My guess is that it's not that hard and that they don't need a sheep trial to tell them what dogs can work and which can't.

Seeing as the dilution fears is mostly a thought experiment and not a "clear and present danger" to the working world, let's get back to dilution and concentration.

If the parents are of the same "concentration" in any genetic aspect, the dilution of their individual characteristics is a moot point, as the overall proof of the new mixture remains constant. The pejorative nature of the word 'dilute' comes from the element of replacing something with nothing, or perhaps something of high value with something of low value. But value is in the eye of the beholder. That's why some of us drink "Cafe Americano" (Italian for watered down piss) while others drink "Cafe Ristretto" (Italian for poison).


It's a matter of taste.

The dilution notion is a popular one with breeding. Xenophobic and racist attitudes thus demean and fear miscegenation on the basis that purity is superior to an admixture. To mix is to inherently impair the quality or reduce the value of at least one of the components if not both. Such notions might be losing their popularity or at least their mentionability in P.C. human circles, but dog culture readily promotes numerous -isms that are actively discouraged in human culture (i.e. sexism, racism, classism, etc.).

In the dog world, high performing males are bred in abundance to lesser performing (or simply untested) females as a hold over of the notion that the male's influence is more important than the female's in the offspring. The view that women are "the weaker vessel" (1 Peter 3:7) or only a vessel to grow the man's seed lingers in dogdom. Part of it is the practicality of biology, since one male can impregnate almost an unlimited number of females, whereas a single female that is bred as early and as often as possible would be lucky to survive 20 litters.

In ISDS registered Border Collies, for example, not a single female is listed as having 100 or more offspring, yet 392 male dogs have that honor. The top sires have several hundred litters and more than a thousand offspring. Wiston Cap, born in 1963 and trialed to unmatched success by J.Richardson tops the list and had at least 388 litters resulting in at least 1933 offspring that made it into the studbooks.

Wiston Cap became the most sought-after stud dog in Border Collie history, and soon Jock Richardson was pocketing better than a thousand pounds a year in stud fees (shepherd's wages at the time being forty pounds a week).

Jock got Mirk and Sweep out of Cap, and when the great dog's sons started to win trials, Jock Richardson was a rich man--in his kennels he had the three best sheepdogs in Great Britain.

Wiston Cap provoked deep goofiness among breeders. The man who bred Cap repeated the exact mating over and over, hoping to get another Cap. (Geoff Billingham had one of these pups, a bonnie big thing named Wattie Cap, who died of pneumonia.) An English solicitor deliberately bred Wiston Cap's sons to Cap's daughters until he created a pup with "86% Wiston Cap Blood." The pup did look like the old man, but, of course, he never amounted to much, and I shudder to think how many deformed pups were produced by those matings.
- Donald McCaig, Eminent Dogs, Dangerous Men p.54

Wiston Cap produced two champion dogs in the first generation and two in the second generation, just showing you how swiftly the talent falls off compared to the sheer number of dogs we're talking about. It's worth mentioning that the two dogs Wiston Cap sired that went on to become champions were also trained, handled, and owned by Jock Richardson. Hrm.
This is clearly a case of a popular sire (and the resulting popular sire effect when his offspring were inbred for generations). It was done not because it should have been done, but because it could be done. The ethics of superior male importance in the next generation arise from confusing the ability to produce quantity with the ability to produce quality.

Thus, the result of fearing dilution is increasing concentration (a word that ironically means 'great and constant diligence and attention' as well as 'strengthening the amount of a solute in a solution by removing units of solvent and/or adding units of solute.'

Patrick's concern is tangential to the worst problems. Is it really a travesty that people who want big terriers have them, given that they have chosen to forgo working their pets? Is it really a travesty that people who don't herd buy border collies from breeders that don't herd, given that they don't herd?

Dilution isn't the problem at all. Almost all of the ills in dogs we see today are due to the opposite desire, to concentrate genes in excess. Despite all of our ability to manipulate animals to our whims, the most crucial aspect that we control is genetic health. Without health, all other concerns are moot. The perfect herding dog that doesn't live past 6 weeks is useless. The perfectly sized terrier that is blind and deaf is equally useless.

Patrick has many posts about how show breeding has disfigured the terrier into a too-large monster that can't hope to physically be able to work since it can't fit down into the narrow entrances of fox settes. But are professional terriermen going out of business for lack of small dogs? Do hobbyist terriermen find their selection of dogs lacking? Even worse, are the show dogs that are still small enough to fit down a hole not eager to do so? Being too large isn't a problem that can't be safely rectified by breeding smaller. But the desire to go to ground is clearly a more difficult to comprehend and breed for. But even that nut can be cracked if given enough time.

And time requires health. The ruination of breeds does not come when they can no longer perform their historical functions as well, it comes when your breeding pool is so small and diseased that you can't hope to escape it. When a popular sire broadcast spreads a recessive gene so wide and deep into your pool that when it becomes expressed in a few generations and reaches critical mass in a few more, you have nowhere to turn to get away from the destruction.

The greatest ill is the one we can not cure. Breeding dogs too big is an ill that can be cured by breeding them small again. Recessive disease genes that infiltrate the entire breed in a handful of generations because the elite breeders knew best is a problem that can't be bred away from.

My final point, and this can't be said enough. No one is demanding, suggesting, or hoping that working breeders don't continue to breed their working dogs. The sentiment is not returned by the working fascists. But in the end, that doesn't matter. They can do nothing to stop time, free men, and free markets.

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1. [The slave labor construction theory of the pyramids is most likely a myth as records exist documenting that the laborers were free men being paid during the times of year when farming was impractical.... think pork barrel public works projects and The New Deal.]

Dog Sports on TV

Animal Planet is going to be featuring Dog Sport over the next five weeks. Sundays at 10 AM.
Be sure to catch these amazing athletes and their trainers. Several members of my local Colorado Disc Dogs club will be appearing during the two Frisbee dog shows.

The link above has a page with "Remind Me" buttons so you won't forget. First show is tomorrow, Sunday, at 10 AM on Animal Planet.

Nov 11, 10:00 am 8:00am Mountain (60 minutes)

Ultimate Dog Championships Disc Dog Extreme Games TV-G, CC The discs and the dogs are flying in Stockton, California. Canines and their handlers compete in a variety of events that show off their speed, accuracy, and style both on the ground and in the air.

Nov 18, 10:00 am 8:00am Mountain (60 minutes)

Ultimate Dog Championships Flyball Las Vegas TV-G, CC Straight from Las Vegas this lightning-fast competition features dogs of various breeds and sizes as they team up in a race unlike any other. Flyball is the fastest paced and fastest growing canine sports today.

Dec 02, 10:00 am 8:00am Mountain (60 minutes)

Ultimate Dog Championships Disc Dogs Southern Nationals TV-G, CC Gravity defying canines bring action, excitement, and big air to Atlanta in this elite level disc competition. Working as a team with their handlers, the dogs sprint, vault, flip, and of course, catch--as they vie for a spot in the winner's circle.

Dec 09, 10:00 am 8:00am Mountain (60 minutes)

Ultimate Dog Championships Lure Coursing TV-G, CC This action-packed, high-speed sport showcases some of the fastest dogs on the planet. Developed specifically for sight-hound breeds, these amazing athletes navigate an 800-yard course of pure adrenalin.

Dec 16, 10:00 am 8:00am Mountain (60 minutes)

Ultimate Dog Championships Agility Specials and Veterans TV-G, CC The Canadian Agility National Championships features dogs of various breeds overcoming obstacles such as hurdles, tunnels, chutes and weave poles. Handlers will be on the course coaching and guiding the canines at every step.

Dilution and Reproduction

"Dilution drives culture." by Ted Byrne

The semantic implication of breeding being a "dilution" of some sort is not limited to the Russian language. "Reproduction" in English is also carries some of the same connotations. Of course it means the sexual act of conceiving and bearing offspring, but when used as a noun it can also mean a knock-off: "a copy--not an original," "a reasonable facsimile in appearance and construction," "made to appear as an older form," or "made to look like an original."

Some definitions lean away from the pejorative sense of the word, emphasizing "with no intention to deceive" or "especially when it is significantly faithful in its resemblance to the form and elements of the original," but we all know that reproduction means you can't have or can't afford the genuine article.

I'm sure the breed-dogs-for-working-ability-only people would make the argument that if you only know the reproduction, you'll never appreciate the true beauty of the original (working) model, and that if enough people purchase the reproductions instead of the real deal, the real deal just might not exist any more and then it won't be a matter of not being able to afford the original, it will be a matter of the original going extinct.

It's a good argument. It is probably the truth. But it is not the role of the consumers to pause history and preserve everything the way it was. If working dogs are to endure, it is up to the working community to do so without monopoly status based upon creating their own demand and supply of dogs.

I'm sure the collies that existed before the Border Collie were fine animals and beautiful and amazing to watch in their own way, but they have not endured because the demand for someone to pause history and preserve them in that state did not exist. I have yet to hear a single wolf conservationist proclaim that every home that is filled with a dog instead of a wolf is going to lead to the ruination of the wolf because to preserve them in their current (historical) state requires more resources than the wolf appreciating community can provide.

That argument is ridiculous. And so is the argument that a monopoly over pet homes is required to sustain the working Border Collie. WORKING homes are required to sustain the working Border Collie.

There are many beautiful things from history that existed once, but do not exist now, or which we can only visit in museums. My favorite genres of architecture have long since past their primes and I have little appreciation for Post-Modernism. But I am free to build my own buildings in any past style I choose, and beautiful classical structures are built every day around the world. I appreciate many past movements in art, especially the Dutch masters who captured perspective with amazing truth. But I also think that the rise of the most bastard child of all bastard children in art, digital photography, has brought many beautiful images to my eyes for enjoyment.

The Castrati were famed to have the voices of angles, but they no longer exist. The demand for angelic male singers did not induce a supply of a single boy who was willing to forgo puberty and his testicles during this century or the last. Despite the famed beauty and majesty of their voices, the practice died out and lead to more women and children being given the opportunity to sing choice parts. I feel no less fulfilled in life because I can not hear a Castrati sing my favorite aria. Women and children might be reproductions of the supposedly superior Castrati, but I won't shed a tear for an industry that couldn't support itself and was allowed to die out.

In many ways, the herding Border Collie community is like the Native American community. They both have a rare culture that produces things of beauty, things worth preservation. But that preservation must come from within. They must either hold their ground or successfully assimilate into the dominant culture around them, but they will never thrive if they simply rely on handouts. It might surprise you to know that several tribes now live on lands that were not "granted" by the government, but rather purchased by the tribes themselves. Governments have a funny way of changing the rules for handouts, but they have yet to overturn private property rights completely. A new found self-sufficiency and tenacity to excel under the new rules of capitalism has lead to many tribes clawing their way back from extinction to positions of prosperity and relevance.

The real fear of dilution in the working community is identified in Donald McCaig's book, The Dog Wars. It's not the dilution of the stock dog's working ability, but of stock dog culture that is the threat. He speaks passionately about the history from the UK, but adds that the culture of the American West mixed with the tweed-jacket culture of the UK trialists and formed a new diluted and yet reproduced culture. As the book goes on, he documents more changes in stock dog culture than in stock dogs. Women becoming trialers. Professionals from the city taking up rural sheep herding on weekends. More and more dog sport people bringing their dog toys and foul language into the trail scene.

Many of the trialers are themselves manifestations of a "reproduction" mentality. Big city folk moving to the country to recreate a romantic farm life that perhaps never existed, for the lifestyle of it all, not because they were born into it or could not escape it. A big city advertising guru named McCaig... a Scottish name... moving to a county that resembles the rugged hills of his home country... that his ancestors likely left because of the Enclosure Movement and Industrial Revolution, when peasant farmers were driven off the land, into the cities, and overseas because labor saving devices (and the Border Collie is certainly one of those labor saving devices) made most farm workers redundant, to recapture a little bit of his cultural heritage (this is what my people did!) and raise sheep. Not because sheep were a wise career move, but because he wanted the lifestyle.

Did American ranchers dilute elements of the British dogs? You bet they did. In many lines they preferred a short coated dog to the rough coated dog favored in Scotland. Not all sheep behave like Scottish sheep, nor are the sheep across the US uniform. The trialers speak often to the fact that Western sheep trials are more difficult than Eastern trials and the sheep are more wild and wiley. You can bet that ranchers and trialers happy in their own enclaves around the country bred dogs tailored to their sheep.

When the local Border Collie pool was found lacking for the task, ranchers had no problem crossbreeding with other dog breeds that exhibited the traits needed for their particular tasks. The McNab dog is a study in such.

So, just as individuals act in their own best interests, the sport breeders will act like the ranchers and trialing breeders before them. They will take their raw material inherited from the last generation and dilute it and recombine it in ways that they see fit to meet their needs. And that is exactly the way it should be. I'm not writing this essay on the original computer, let alone the original type writer, or a fixed type press, or even with a pen or a pencil or a piece of charcoal.

History is wonderful and all, but I shall fill my plate to my tastes and you are free to do so with your plate. To each his own, don't tread on me, and buyer beware.

---

I find it creepy and fitting (ducle et decorum est) that when I finished this post and was searching the net for some picture to post with it, just to set it off from the other posts and break up the big block of text, that the first image that I find when searching for "dilution reproduction" is a digital photograph that features the profile of a Native American juxtaposed against the wild and unsettling image of an angry plaster bird.

The post that goes along with it is also intensely thought provoking. Is the Third Estate the barbarians at the gate, or are we the Romans to the Herders who are the Greeks? Are we a brave new religion that just might topple a fading empire or are we cultural connoisseurs who will bring mass appeal to an otherwise historical and limited art? Here are the artists thoughts on dilution and culture:

But how'ze about culture? I wonder if it isn't driven by dilution as it mixes with new paradigms? Huh? Huh? Or izzat so obvious (even without pulling Hegel off the shelf) that it's too shallow to dignify?

Anywayzzzzz.... There's a big gap between tumbling mixtures of cultures and the concept of civilization, no? Barbarism is just as likely, right? Or ... or... a gallup with the Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse. I wonder how many cultural mixes it takes to finally get a civilization? And how many cultural dilutions it takes until people realize that no one recalls how to fix the potholes in the Appian Way?

Vodka and Dogs

So why all the talk about Vodka if Patrick is really looking for a discussion of dogs? Neither he nor I drink (ok, every now and then...but I was voted "most likely to be sober" by my freshman dorm). Well, I think the discussion about Vodka speaks to the dog breeding issue.

The diffusion of Vodka from a regional and cultural meme to a global consumable is one example of a product that fits the "Diffusion of Innovations" theory presented by Everett Rogers in his 1962 book of the same name. Rogers' work is based on the "technology adoption life-cycle," which is a sociological model developed by researchers Bohlen and Beal to track the adoption of hybrid seed corn by farmers in Iowa. The technology adoption life-cycle model describes the diffusion of a new technology as influenced by the demographic and psychological characteristics of five defined adopter groups:

Innovators -> Early Adopters -> Early Majority -> Late Majority -> Laggards

"Fire water" started out as a localized innovation created by skilled and venturesome people. They applied the cutting edge technology of distillation to the old methods of creating booze and created a new product, they were "Innovators." Innovators are typically risk takers, highly informed, gathering information from multiple sources, and have the means to bring theory into reality.

Once a new product or technology is created, Roger's theory suggests that adoption of that product follows a bell curve (or s-curve when you look at cumulative saturation):

Not every product or innovation makes it through the whole process, in fact most don't. As you'd expect, most innovations are only enjoyed by their innovators and never reach a mass appeal or audience. But the rare advancement that is good enough to make it off of mom's fridge will likely follow this adoption scheme.

Bohlen and Beal's original study dealt with hybrid corn as the innovation and various classes of farmers comprised the adopter groups. The demographic and psychographic classification of these farmer groups was established by the North Central Rural Sociology Committee's Study of the Diffusion of Farm Practices. The finders were such:

Innovators: had larger farms, were more educated, more prosperous, and more risk-oriented
Early Adopters: younger, more educated, tended to be community leaders
Early Majority: more conservative but open to new ideas, active in community with high rates of influence on and from neighbors
Late Majority: older, less educated, fairly conservative and with dwindling social connections
Laggards: very conservative, small farms and small capital, oldest and least educated, limited social interaction

Customers often adapt technology to their own needs, so the innovation may change in nature from the early adopters to the majority of users, and often does. There are numerous examples of innovations that only crossed the chasm from Early Adopters into an Early Majority when they became marketed as 'toys' instead of 'tools' (think laser pens, the Slinky, kites, fireworks, CDs and DVDs).

Some of these innovations might have two or more diffusion cycles if you look at the initial intended market vs. the world market. For example, vodka most likely reached market saturation within the cultural groups closely associated with its creation long before it became an export product to the world market. The initial adoption locus could be modeled with its own bell curve with certain farmers and villagers being the early adopters and other villages being laggards, etc. When vodka became a world export good, this initial market could easily be lumped together into the Innovator and Early Adopter groups for the second wave model.

Two distinct diffusion waves for vodka is the reason that we still see the cultural groups who inherited it from the original innovators and early adopters drinking it straight. It reached saturation in the original market in its undiluted form. Vodka's appeal today for these people is supplemented by its cultural and historical significance as well as on its own (caustic) merits.

Following the lead of master mixocologist Dmitri Mendeleev, the second wave of vodka adoption reached the global market because the product was watered down, refined, and appealed to a wider audience in a form that was competitive with the wider audience's existing drinks of choice. It had to be a more agreeable product because it had to steal market share and it couldn't rely on cultural fondness since it was culturally incongruous outside of its native region.

Mendeleev and the Perfect Vodka

Before Dmitri Mendeleev's scientific divination of the optimal taste profile of a vodka served neat, the drink was a regional curiosity. It was overly potent and the nasty burn was its signature quality, thus the traditional names for the stuff all making reference to burning. Vodka's less desirable qualities where perhaps what made it a cultural phenomenon in the land of its creation. 'We can produce the most potent fire water and we drink it like men!'

This phenomenon is not uncommon. Many modern cultures have bizarre, nasty, or unpalatable traditional foods that endure as memes: "we do it this way because we have always done it this way." "Tradition!" "It's OUR culture."

Iceland has hakarl, rotten shark meat bathed in urea. The Philippines have balut, boiled duck embryo. The Chinese eat dog. In Togo they eat rats. The American hamburger is taboo and revolting to many a Hindu. Many denizens of the world enjoy insects on their plates, but the closest most Americans come is a crab or lobster on a special occasion. The only reason I ever tried a Rocky Mountain Oyster is because it has Rocky Mountain in the name and is something of a local curiosity here in Colorado.

"The purpose of continuing to eat these foods makes the rituals real and distinguishes the festival culture from everyday life—it reinforces history. By eating these foods—which can be hard to eat—you prove your tie to the community"
- Nan Rothschild, an archaeologist at Barnard College in New York.

Can the same not be said of dog breeding? How many people do you know that select their breed based upon historical ties to their culture or a culture they admire? How many of them pursue activities that reinforce history or prove their tie to the breed? Many of those activities are not easy, cheap, or accessible; and yet they persist.

I contend that the "small number of trial handlers" that Donald McCaig says dominate "stockdog culture" see themselves as inheritors of the legacy of the first wave of Border Collie diffusion. The wave that saw a few dogs that were a regional curiosity become an almost ubiquitous and essential farm implement in the United Kingdom. Farmers today aren't part of the innovators or early adopters, as the use of the Border Collie as the premiere sheepdog already reached saturation acceptance in generations past. But the cultural theory still applies.

Sheep trials today are rituals and the larger trials are certainly festivals. They do reinforce history, right down to which dogs get bred and which don't. In truth, the examination of a pedigree has more to do with paying homage to history and trying to recapture some of its glory that it does in informing a breeding decision. A big name dog a few generations back has a much larger psychological effect on the breeder than that dog's genes have a physiological effect on the puppies.

The trialing of a working bred border collie is a difficult endeavor and a working bred border collie can be as unpalatable to the masses as undiluted vodka.

The true innovation of vodka was that it could be produced in higher initial concentrations than other alcoholic beverages like wine or beer. The advancement in distillation techniques allowed for proofs of over 190 (where 200 is the theoretical limit of pure alcohol, despite ethanol distillation's limit of 95.6% ethanol and 4.4% water by weight due to that mixture being an azeotrope--the concentration of the vapor is the same as the concentration of the liquid meaning that you can't boil off any more water without boiling off the same ratio of alcohol).

Vodka wasn't special because it tasted good, was cheaper, easier to drink, or even easier to produce. It was special because it was much more powerful than the existing alternatives. It gave you an experience you couldn't have with the other varieties of booze. There were other alcoholic drinks like wine and beer, but vodka is clearly in a different league when it comes to potency.

The same can be said of the Border Collie. Its early adoption was due to its superior ability to herd sheep. There were other dogs that could meet some of the needs, but the BC was clearly more powerful than the alternatives. It could do things with livestock that you simply couldn't do with another dog.

The Border Collie is a technological innovation and those farmers were Innovators. It's no small coincidence that the Border Collie was created and refined in the same place and time as waves of Agricultural Improvement and the Industrial Revolution were bringing great changes to England and Europe.

And just like with vodka, there are at least two waves of adoption of the Border Collie. The first wave established the Border Collie as a sine qua non herding tool. The second wave is going on right now as the Border Collie finds its market off of the farm as a pet, a dog sport athlete, and in a myriad of working jobs that don't involve sheep and cattle.

There exists everywhere a medium in things, determined by equilibrium. The Russian proverb says, 'Too much salt or too little salt is alike an evil.'
- Dmitri Mendeleev

Just like with vodka, the second wave is not beholden to the culture of the first wave. The second wave has changed and is changing the border collie to suit its own needs and to its own taste. As with vodka, the cultural adopters prefer to evoke the old name "working sheepdog" to distinguish their product from the "border collie" that is in the mind's eye of the masses. And just like with vodka, the public prefers a version that is more balanced and more palatable than the version that meets the taste of the old timers.

And like vodka, much respect and homage is paid to the motherland and the history and culture gleaned from her shores, but in reality, the centers of production have moved and the old country now imports quality goods from lands she used to only export goods to.

So for all the talk of watering down the breed, perhaps the self appointed cultural elite might consider that most of us like our border collies like the majority likes their vodka, in the perfect equilibrium, and that means a little watered down from the industrial distillation that places concentration above palatability.

Dog Eats Typos

And for the final question on the Grammar Nazi Level 1 proficiency exam, can you overlook the cute puppy and baby to find the error in this published cartoon:


Hint: You're not proof-reading very carefully. Perhaps your editor needs to be fired.

YAY, you win the game of life!

Your well deserved prize is to enjoy the splendor that is DogEatDoug.

Razvodit and Vodka

Once there lived and existed a great learned man with a beard almost as long as God's. And one day the people came to this man and said 'Go to the Lord, and tell him of our misery.' 'I will go,' said the man. So he caught a great bubble, and sat down on top of it, and flew up and up until he pierced the heaven above us. And there he saw God and told him of our misery and God pardoned our sins and lightened our burdens. Then the great bearded man came down from the heavens and the people were happy. And for this, the authorities and the Tsar made this man a very great scientist.

Dmitri Mendeleev ponders the perfect Vodka.
(thanks to my elite Photoshop skills and a painting by Ilya Repin)

Patrick Burns posted a challenge on his blog to discuss the etymological ramifications of the Russian word "Razvodit" which means both "to breed" and "to dilute." As a logophile, verbivore, and lover of etymology; how could I resist?

I'm sure Patrick is eager for a piece that discusses show breeding's uncanny ability to dilute the original talents of a dog breed until they are either no longer extant or so watered down as to be a joke. But he's already written that piece several times, so I'll venture to talk about something else, namely: vodka. Don't worry, I'll get to dogs later.

The verb vodit’, razvodit’ (водить, разводить) which gives us "breed" and "dilute" also gives us Vodka. An early use of the word vodka comes from a pharmaceutical text discussing various tinctures and spirits used for medical applications, dilutions of various curatives in water and grain alcohol.

While saving lives is all well and good, the real success of Vodka is that it gets you drunk. The drink is believed to have originated in the bread basket region of Central Europe known for grain production that stretches through modern day Poland - Belarus - Lithuania - Ukraine - and western Russia. Etymology of languages from this region suggests that Vodka wasn't always the drink of choice for wimpy college girls who didn't want to taste the booze in their cocktails.

Peoples in the area of vodka's probable origin have names for vodka with roots meaning "to burn": Polish: gorzałka; Ukrainian: горілка, horilka; Belarusian: гарэлка, harelka; Lithuanian: degtinė (prior purification of Lithuanian language Belarusian loanword arielka was used); Latvian: degvīns; Finnish: paloviina; Danish; brændevin; Swedish: brännvin; Norwegian: Brennevin (although the Swedish and Norwegian terms refer to any strong alcoholic beverage); in Russian during 17th and 18th century горящее вино (goryashchee vino, "burning wine") was widely used.

In other words, it was rather unpleasant and unrefined stuff that supposedly puts hair on your chest and turns many a newcomer in to a gasping fire breather. While it might not have taken a genius to figure out that if you water the stuff down a little bit it might not be so caustic, in the case of Vodka, it did take a genius. That's where Dimitri Mendeleev comes in.

You'll remember Mr. Mendeleev from such high school lectures as "the guy who developed the periodic table," or "the guy who invented smokeless powder," or even "the guy who postulated that oil doesn't come from fossils at all," but I doubt you were ever given the lecture about Dimitri Mendeleev, the man who brought Vodka to the world. Well, your school sucked.

Dr. LaRue, my high school CP and AP chemistry teacher (and the AP coordinator for the most successful AP school in a thousand mile radius) was quite the party animal in college. His graduate biochem lab hosted the best parties on or off campus because young Mr. LaRue and his classmates had access to untainted 200 proof alcohol. Coeds these days might enjoy a little "rectified spirit" or Everclear in their Orange Juice, but in the good old days on dry campuses in states with Blue Laws, the pure and unadulterated (non-denatured) ethanol was the best, and typically the only way to get your grad school groove on.

You see, pure alcohol has many uses both industrial and scientific, and to keep the workers sober, it's a universal practice to "denature" pure ethanol with nasty and carcinogenic toxins to render it unfit for consumption (benzene, methanol, jet fuel). My guess is that there was probably a little bit of political pressure from the booze industry as well. Although the word denature has a specific scientific meaning, its use here simply means to remove the natural urge to drink it.

The additives also prevent the ethanol from spoiling. You see, pure ethanol is parched, dehydrated, and in search of any moisture it can get. It will even pull it right out of the air. So, to keep the industrial ethanol pure and effective, the additives hinder its ability to draw moisture out of the air. That property of pure ethanol is also the reason that Chemistry and Biology grad students have access to bountiful amounts of ethanol. They need pure ethanol for their labs, so the tainted stuff won't work, but it also goes bad as the ethanol draws moisture out of the air and thus becomes unreliable as having a stable concentration of ethanol.

Well, instead of throwing it out, why not drink it?!

And that's just what Mr. LaRue and Mendeleev did. The addition of water to the ethanol is what made it bad for science, but perfect for drinking. The question becomes, when you're all out of juice for mixers (and who keeps such things in the lab anyway), what is the perfect ratio of ethanol to water to take the fire out of firewater but still leave you feeling warm and fuzzy inside?

The most all penetrating spirit before which will open the possibility of tilting not tables, but planets, is the spirit of free human inquiry. Believe only in that.
- Dmitri

And by spirit, Dmitri meant booze. Being the genius that he was, Mendeleev wasted no time in finding the solution and put his late night table-tilting parties in the lab and marathon of taste testing dilutions of booze to good use. So as not to detract from his studies, Dmitri made booze his study, and turned his little project into his Doctoral dissertation. In 1866, he published his dissertation "On the Combinations of Water with Alcohol," and was awarded the title of Doctor of Science and Professor of Chemistry at the University in St. Petersburg.

"His research findings were expansive and beneficial to the Russian people."

You bet they were. And his findings were also expansive to his waistline and beneficial to his notoriety in all the best bars in St. Petersburg. But his fame was not so beneficial to his first marriage and Dmitri ditched his first wife to lust after the pubescent friend of his niece, eventually marrying her against the doctrine of the Russian Orthodox Church and condemning his soul to eternal damnation. But it worked for the two of them and they drank much vodka and had hot monkey sex and she bore him many children.

Dmitri became uber-famous and a national hero when his vodka-induced visions led to his ordering of the known elements into a table based upon the periodic nature of their properties and reactive natures based upon their atomic mass. Brilliant insight, although he probably would have made the final leap from atomic mass to today's ordering by atomic number if he weren't so damn drunk. No matter, it didn't change anything, and Dmitri's ability to not only predict the future but order the past earned him well deserved fame.

In order to clarify the matter further, I wish to draw some conclusions as to the chemical and physical properties of those elements which have not been placed in the system and which are still undiscovered but whose discovery is very probable. I think that until now we have not had any chance to foresee the absence of these or other elements, because we have had no order for their arrangement, and even less have we had occasion to predict the properties of such elements. An established system is limited by its order of known or discovered elements.
- Dmitri

Dmitri eventually ditched academia and took up a job on the government payroll, directing the Bureau of Weights and Measures. Like all good bureaucrats, Dmitri didn't have much to do and a lot of time to do it in, so he turned his considerable talents once again to vodka. This time, he was going to prove that his preferred mixture of water and ethanol was the best, so he applied cutting edge chemistry to the task. Based upon the physical properties of the ethyl alcohol molecule, Mendeleev discovered that one molecule of ethyl alcohol shepherded on either end by one molecule of water (2 waters to 1 ethyl alcohol) made for the perfect vodka experience.

There was just enough water to prevent the ethyl molecule from robbing moisture from your mouth or stomach (creating the burn) and not too much as to waste precious space in the bottle, glass, and stomach with excess water. By volume, the mixture works out to be 62% water and 38% alcohol. At strengths less than this, vodka will taste watery, and in higher concentrations it will burn.

There exists everywhere a medium in things, determined by equilibrium. The Russian proverb says, 'Too much salt or too little salt is alike an evil.' It is the same in political and social relations... It is the function of science to discover the existence of a general reign of order in nature and to find the causes governing this order. And this refers in equal measure to the relations of man - social and political - and to the entire universe as a whole.
- Dmitri

Dmitri's formula didn't solve the social and political problems in the entire Universe, nor even in Russia (the Vodka Wars are still going strong), but his work was so convincing that Tsar Alexander III instituted Russian Standards for Vodka Production based on the research and the new era of drinkable Vodka was ushered in. Almost every bottle of Vodka you can find in on store shelves today that is meant to be consumed neat will be sold at 40% alcohol by volume or 80 proof. The slight rounding has to do with ease of taxation (spirits are taxed based upon strength) and not on the actual mixture in the bottle.

Dmitri's final words to his students upon his retirement from the University in no small way resemble the effects one gains when drinking Vodka in the perfect concentration:

I have achieved an inner freedom. There is nothing in this world that I fear to say. No one nor anything can silence me. This is a good feeling. This is the feeling of a man. I want you to have this feeling too - it is my moral responsibility to help you achieve this inner freedom. I am an evolutionist of a peaceable type. Proceed in a logical and systematic manner.
- Dmitri Mendeleev

So by bringing the perfect Vodka to the impoverished and downtrodden masses in Russia, Mendeleev did see God vodka while perched on a bubble (hik!) and told Him it of their misery. And in bars and homes everywhere across Russia and the world, God vodka is pardoning sins and lightening burdens.

Then the great bearded man came down from the heavens and the people were happy.

Where Are They Now? Pt.1

Using the great uber-brain of google (and it can be oh so wrong some times), I managed to track down many of the people (or their google doppelgangers) who signed the AKC: Hands Off the Border Collie! petition that is featured in Donald McCaig's book, The Dog Wars.

Although McCaig uses the petition to demonstrate the general consensus against AKC recognition back in 1994, the current political affiliation of many of the people on the list is an interesting story that is not detailed in McCaig's book.

There are significant defections in both directions: former AKC superstars are now novice sheep handlers and others who were vehemently opposed to AKC recognition because of the ills of conformation now have a resume of Border Collies with show titles.

Arthur Allen, President, North American Sheepdog Society
Deceased.

Arthur N. Allen, 92, of McLeansboro, died at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, October 24th, 1996, at Deaconess Hospital in Evansville, Indiana.

Mr. Allen was born May 4, 1904 in Hamilton County, a son of John Logan and Martha Gertrude (Nation) Allen. He was married twice, to Mary O'Neal, now deceased, and to Sarah Evelyn Reed, who survives. He was a retired farmer and livestock operator. He trained border collie sheep dogs and performed exhibitions all over the United States and Canada and was a 25 year National Champion sheep dog handler. Mr. Allen also appeared with several western movie stars during his career. He also starred and appeared in several Walt Disney movies and TV productions. He was a member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. He was a member of the New Hope Primitive Baptist Church.

One of the lesser known Arthur Allen roles was shot for the Mickey Mouse Club series:

Four episode dramatic series set in Illinois. Bobby Evans played Rob Brown, who tries to train a border collie to be a sheep dog for a contest. He succeeds with the help of an old trainer, played by Arthur N. Allen. The narrator was Alvy Moore, and the working title of the series was The Scamp.

Sharon Anderson, Trainer, OTCH

Sharon Anderson is now the Director of Agility for the AKC.

Sharon Anderson has been involved in American Kennel Club activities since 1972 when she began showing German Shepherds in conformation and obedience. She earned her first agility title on a Golden Retriever in 1988 and founded one of the largest agility clubs in existence today. Sharon has served as captain of the American Kennel Club World Agility Team since 1996. The teams have earned gold and silver medals in past events including defeating 30 countries in Portugal in 2001.

In addition to her extensive experience with agility, Sharon holds many obedience titles including the top honor of Obedience Trial Champion. Sharon's extensive experience covers many aspects of obedience, ranging from puppy class to competitive obedience, agility, and flyball. She has also been involved in tracking and fieldwork.

Complementary to her hands-on role within the sport, Sharon has held offices in clubs ranging from President to Trial Chairperson. She was on the first advisory board for AKC Agility in 1993. Before becoming the Director of Agility, Sharon was an agility consultant and Field Representative for the AKC. Sharon has worked frequently on radio call-in programs ( public radio and national broadcast stations) answering various questions relating to dogs and Sharon has appeared on several television shows including The Caroline Rhea Show.

Through the years, Sharon has honed her skills by working with virtually every breed of purebred dog while owning three large obedience training schools. She currently lives in Minnesota with her Shetland Sheepdog, Border Collie and Parson Russell Terrier.

Chris Bach, Numerous Gaines Placements
Former Director USBCC.

Chris gives training and behavior seminars across the United States and Canada. Chris is a charter board member of the very prestigious International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants. She was asked to join the distinguished American Humane Association committee, which brought together top U.S. trainers to build a code of ethics and guidelines for logical and humane dog training. She wrote a series of articles for a renowned dog training magazine Front and Finish, and she continues to author manuscripts about THE THIRD WAY.

Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, is home to Chris, her wonderful and supportive husband, Bill, and their precious pooches Belgian Malinois, Brass, and Border Collie, Stunner.

Her Border Collie Stunner's full name and AKC registration is:
Top Gun Stungunned My Heart DN11659306 M 08/02/2005

out of: Top Gun Kit (DN04996301 / ABCA 186234) X Lukan's Don't Stop Me Now CDX MX MXJ (DL81104201 / N66767)
Neither parent is involved with conformation. Stunner was bred by Les & Diane Sanders who run Contact Sports Agility which promotes USDAA sanctioned agility trials. Unlike McCaig's claim that no one wants to compete with the AKC in Agility, the USDAA does a pretty good job of it.

Bonnie Barry, 2 OTCH, Gaines & World Series Placements
Deceased.
Former Director USBCC.

Mrs. Barry, 64, died Sunday, Feb. 26, 2006 as a result of an injury she received at a sheep-herding clinic Jan. 28 in North Carolina. While it appeared that she took a minor fall, eventually she was diagnosed as having a spinal-cord fracture. She died after almost a month in Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, a time during which she was able to see and say goodbye to friends and family." In the end, there was a final lesson: how to die with grace."

Bonnie was a Director of the USBCC for several years and competed at the Open Level in sheep trials. Only weeks before her accident, Bonnie helped run the Lazy J Classic Sheep herding Trial that was held in Carnesville, Georgia. She sponsored the Fox Valley Dog Training Club's yearly Founders Award to in memory of the founders of the club. It was given to the handler whose dog earned the 3 highest scores in regular classes at AKC Obedience trials. The Red Creek Farm Sheep Trial awards The Bonnie Barry Memorial Award to the handler with the highest score in the Open division.

She became involved in dog obedience with the Doberman breed, gaining her first advanced titles with a dog named Libby. In 1984 she opened Northern Illinois Canine Education and also served as director of training with the Northwest Obedience Club.Her work with border collies gained her the Obedience Trial Championship four times. Her dogs were nationally ranked for more than a decade, and Mrs. Barry became one of the stars of the sport and a regular competitor at the prestigious annual Gaines Tournaments.

Robert Barlow, President, American Border Collie Association

Robert is credited as one of the few names on the short list of "ol timers" who have been active in the trialing community since the 1960s. The weight of his experience hasn't slowed him down any, as Robert is currently running two dogs in Open Trials, Mai and Todd.

Robert occasionally offers pups for sale through his Barlow's Border Collies in Tennessee, the most recent litter was on the ground this spring.

Although it might just be a coincidence, the chivalrous foil and almost-love-interest to the female protagonist in McCaig's Nop's Hope just happens to be named Ransome Barlow.

Bill Berhow, Winner, National Sheepdog Trial Finals 1989 and 1990

Bill still competes in USBCHA Open trials and gives herding and trialing clinics around the country. He's the only handler to have two dogs in the ABCA's Hall of Fame (1998 Nick ABC 1778, and 2000 Jen ABC 5728). He currently has two dogs ranked in the Open Trial division, Mike and Pete.

George Bernard, Vice President American Boarding Kennel Association & CKO

Became President of the ABKA and President of the Federal Trade Association for Kennels. His current Border Collie registry affiliation is unknown.

Winnie Bigelow, OTCH, Numerous Honors
Deceased?

The only thing google knows is that a donation "In Memory of Winnie Bigelow" was made to the International Wolf Center in 2002.

Ethel Conrad, President United States Border Collie Club

Ethel has graduated from President to Chairman Emeritus of the USBCC.

Ethel Conrad got her first Border Collie in the 1960s, and began participating in AKC obedience and tracking trials in the early 1970s. At that time there were only two or three Border Collies competing on the east coast, and judges would ask her what kind of dog she had. She got a UDT, CDXTD (dog was injured before she could get a third utility leg) and two CDTD's. (There was no OTCH then.) She then got very interested in herding and for nearly 20 years she has been a frequent competitor and winner in sheep dog trials. She has qualified six dogs to run in the UBCHA finals, several more than once. She was one of the founders of the USBCC in 1975, and its first co-president. Since 1976 she has put on 36 sheep dog handlers training clinics, five judges' clinics, and 13 major sheep dog trials at her home, Sunnybrook Farm. She regularly performs herding demonstrations, including one on the David Letterman Show and one on the Mall in Washington for the Department of Agriculture.

Gail Dapogny, Two World Series Wins

Gail Dapogny is now a Director of the USBCC

Gail Dapogny is a potter in Michigan. She is currently Secretary of the Michigan Border Collie Association, and has been active in USBCC since 1977, having served as Newsletter Editor for 13 years before becoming a Director. She got her first Border Collie, Moss, in 1975, and put a UD on him with several HITs. Her second Border Collie, OTCH Nell, was for a couple of years the second-ranked obedience BC in the country. She had a couple dozen all-breed AKC HITs, had several Gaines Regional and Classic tournament placings, and won the World Series Tournament, Open Division, two different years. Gail now teaches obedience, and is training her current four BCs in obedience and herding.

Janice DeMello, 3 OTCH, Gaines Wins

Janice DeMello made her name in AKC Obedience. She is a first class trainer and competitor. She has published training videos like, "Around the Clock Method of Scent Discrimination" and "Cruise Control for Power Heeling," which are holy canon for competitors in Obedience and Freestyle, based on the experience she gained training her own dogs to numerous championships and competition firsts. Her success has become a brand and Janice graduated from competitor to trainer to big time breeder. Not only is Janice expanding her horizons into herding, dogs she has bred are topping the charts in USBCHA sponsored trials, even qualifying for the National Finals.

Eric Engberg, News Correspondent

Eric retired in 2002. He wrote an OpEd that argued blogging is "typing, not journalism." Mind you, he published that article AFTER his "journalism" alma mater ran with a bogus story about a bogus memo leading to the disgrace of Dan Rather, exposed by the blogosphere. Self proclaimed dinosaur. Is one of the examples of a liberal biased reporter in the book, Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News. I don't think he ever owned a Border Collie.

Bruce Fogt, Winner National Sheepdog Trial Finals 1987

Bruce and his wife Linda still run more than a handful of dogs at the Open level in USBCHA sanctioned trials and are the publishers of The Working Border Collie magazine.

Jerusha Gurvin, 2 OTCH, Numerous Honors

Jerusha continued to excel on the AKC competition circuit after recognition: MACH One Night Stand UD NAP NJP DL72563301. One Night Stand was born 9/1997 after the split, and has an impressive list of Agility and Obedience accomplishments. Her other MACH dog is Oakdale Deacon UD DL81104901 and he was born in 1999. Jerusha also runs Capital Leashes, a custom leash and collar boutique in Maryland.

Margie Gibbs, Trainer

Marge Gibbs is a dog behavior columnist at the AKC Gazette and has been since the 1970s. Wrote, "Leader Dogs for the Blind" which is still available from the Working Dogs Book Store and Amazon. Ironically, she also owned a blind Border Collie whom she was the seeing eye person for.

In response to the question, "Which animal would make a better editor—a cat or a dog?" Gibbs doesn't seem to think that the Border Collie has lost all that much steam since AKC recognition:

I don’t think I’d hire a cat—it would certainly be a finicky perfectionist, but it would never agree to stick to the house style rules, or work to anyone else’s deadline.

If I hired a dog, it would depend on the breed. A sheltie or German shepherd would be methodical, thorough, and prompt. A golden retriever would be good for a first-time author, offering encouragement, patience, and a sympathetic ear, as well as doing an intelligent job.

A border collie would speed-read the text, give it a withering look of scorn, and rewrite the book itself. The dog’s version would be better than the original, and wouldn’t need an editor.

Sally Glei, OTCH, Gaines Placements

Board member of the Piedmont Border Collie Association. The PBCA runs AKC Agility and Herding Trials. Sally teaches a course called "Dog Training with a Personal Touch in a Positive Way." She also breeds border collies under the Tystar name and a google search will reveal that many of them have multiple titles before and after their names, including a conformation champion here and there. (e.g. OTCH MACH Tystar Meg UDX6 VCN2 HSAs, OTCH Tystar's Third Edition HSAs HSBs AX AXJ, Ch OTCH Tystar Riot UDX TD AX)

She also happens to be running two of her dogs this year in USBCHA Sheep dog trials, most recently the trial at Seclusival Farm where she came in third in ProNovice 2 and fourth in Novice 2 with her other dog.

Bob Griner, #1 Obedience Border Collie in U.S.

Mr. Griner is a United Kennel Club Obedience Judge. He teaches the United Kennel Club Obedience Regulations Seminar.

Kay and Dick Guetzloff, Kennel Ration Dog of the Year, Gaines Winner

Although McCaig and the other BC crusaders used a letter of protest from Mrs. Guetzloff to convince the AKC to leave the Border Collie alone, it wasn't long before the AKC welcomed Kay and her dog into their fold:

The handout [for the AKC board] contained... a protest from Kay Guetzloff whose obedience Border Collie Sweep was the highest ranking AKC obedience dog in history...
- The Border Wars p107

What McCaig forgot to tell you was:

In 2001 Heelalong was greatly honored when Sweep was inducted into the AKC Dog Museum “Hall of Fame” which is located in St. Louis, Mo. The Hall of fame is located in the lower level of museum. This museum is well worth a visit since it documents the history of the AKC and also honors dogs in other categories, like “media” dogs and search and rescue groups. The AKC started the Hall of Fame in the ‘70’s and had periodically inducted dogs every 5 or so years. Sweep is the first border collie to grace those hallowed walls. Along with this honor we received a commemorative bronze trophy depicting several breeds involved in different events.

Despite their protest being a key piece of the package of evidence delivered to the AKC by McCaig and company, it only took a gigantic bronze trophy, a painted mural in their dog's likeness, and a glowing write up taking up space in prime New York real estate to bring the Guetzloff's around. I wish the AKC was still as charitable to win BC owners' favor.

As you might expect, the Guetzloffs bred many a BC and some of their dogs have gone on to win conformation champtionships, like Ch. OTCH, MACH-2 Heelalong Hi Flying Red Kite UDX, HSAs. Despite adding conformation to their bag of tricks, the Guetzloff's explain their philosophy:

In 1980 we imported our first border collies from the British Isles. In that era the border collie was only eligible to compete in AKC obedience trials - dog agility had not been discovered, and the AKC did not offer herding titles. How times have changed! We, at Heelalong, feel great dedication to the border collie breed, and through the links on this page you will meet many of the fine dogs we have owned, bred or trained.

The most famous dog we bred is VX OTCH Heelalong Chimney Sweep UDX, AX, AXJ, ROMX, to whom our home page is dedicated. Although Sweep, herself, only whelped two litters of puppies (with Rock as the sire), in 2003 she lead the ROMX list proving that she was not only the top winning obedience border collie of all time, but she was also a top producer of performance dogs.

In 2002, the AKC honored Sweep by inducting her into the Dog Museum, Hall of Fame, the first border collie to be so honored. When the border collie became an AKC recognized breed in 1995, we were convinced that the breed would change substantially, and it has.

Many breeders are breeding for looks only, and the ROM statistics bear this out. Many of the leaders of the ROM list have mostly produced breed champions, with few puppies with titles at both ends.

At Heelalong™ we still breed border collies that look as they did before AKC recognition. The dogs we have bred, that are on the ROMX and ROM lists, are there mainly because of performance titles earned by their puppies, although some of these same dogs went on to earn breed championships, in addition to their performance titles.

Barbara Handler, OTCH, Obedience Judge
Deceased.

Barbara Handler was a force in the AKC Obedience world before and after the split. She published numerous articles on how to train and polish an Obedience dog (Say NO to "NO," STAY as Sweet as You Are, Words Words Words, etc.), and several books and videos that have become cannon:
Best Foot Forward: The Complete Guide to Obedience Handling - 1984
Positively Obedient: Good Manners for the Family Dog - 1987
Successful Obedience Handling: The New Best Foot Forward - 1991
Successful Obedience Handling - 2000

Vicki Hearne, Trainer. Author of Adam's Task
Deceased.

Vicki Hearne's much too early death has left the dog world with a void that may never be filled. Vicki was an author, writer, poet, trainer, and defender of dogs everywhere, and sadly lost her battle with cancer this year at the age of 54.

Dog lovers know Vicki mainly from her books "Bandit: Dossier of a Dangerous Dog" and "Adams Task: Calling Animals By Name," which are classics - but she has done so much more than we can ever imagine. A powerful writer Vicki had the ability to put her finger on the pulse of dogs and their relationship with people and to write and explain about it in a way which not only made fascinating reading but imparted a message to the heart. She made you think, she created understanding and more than that you fell in love with this lady without ever having to meet her. Vicki was a communications genius both with people and dogs.

The dog world owes a tremendous debt to Vicki Hearne. The International Association of Canine Professionals is Proud to honor Vicki Hearne as our second inductee into the IACP Hall of Fame.

Of note, Donald McCaig wrote the introduction to Adam's Task.

Debbie Hotze, 2 OTCH, Gaines and World Series Placements

Debbie has put many titles on many dogs from numerous breeds. Her Border Collie resume is impressive: OTCH Jiff TDX, DOG WORLD, HIT 200 Score; U-UD OTCH Quickly TD Can. CDX, DOG WORLD, HIT; CH OTCH Silver UD, DOG WORLD, HIT; Roxie UDT, DOG WORLD, HIT; Bing TD at 7 mo.; Midgeon TD; Streak TD; and Skip TD.

She has also put conformation championships on Border Collies as well: CH Silver, CH Kit, CH Pearle, and CH Zeke.

From the looks of her Brighteye Kennels website, it seems her current taste in dogs has shifted to the larger breeds and away from the Dobermans, Border Collies, and Papillons of her past.

She now breeds and trains Bernese Mountain Dogs and Leonbergers. Her Bernese Mountain Dogs are all over the AKC agility advertising and in numerous other commercial venues like Purina, Sears, and People Magazine ads.

Pat Kaiser, 1st Border Collie OTCH in US, Gaines Winner

According to her posts on the BC Boards in 2004, Pat has 25 acres, 12 sheep, and is a "novice handler" learning the ropes of training her "wild Rob dog" to work sheep. I glean from the messages that she got Rob out of a popular working line and at first the Rob was "too much dog" for her. Her e-mails use "herdsheep" and "wovenwool" as the names, so it appears she's adopted the herding lifestyle with gusto.

One site also lists Pat as the contact for the "Hoosier Dream Dog Training School" in Indiana, but they don't have a website or show up on any other pages. Perhaps she sold the business to buy the farm.

It's worth noting that Pat's star Obedience dog, OTCH Scherry Star Spider, ROMF TD AIBC 22290/AKC-ILP 012059, was the sire of Kay and Dick Guetzloff's Sweep, the Border Collie that was inducted into the AKC's hall of fame for earning 7,981 OTCH points, making her the most winning obedience bitch of all time for lifetime points.

Star Spider was quite the stud dog and has been honored by the Border Collie Society of America (AKC BC Parent Group) for his contribution to the American Obedience and Agility lines:

OFFSPRING of: OTCH Scherry Star Spider ROMF ILP 012059

1. Breeding - Countryside's Rona AIBC 36950
1. OTCH Brighteye Magic Merlin
2. Brighteye Spider's Streak TD
3. Meadowstar Kern
4. Scot's Pride Bracken UD
5. Scot's Pride Spider Dan UD

2. Breeding - Heelalong Merrie Meg AIBC 35790 CDX
1. Heelalong Lucky Strike UD

3. Breeding - OTCH Shaffner's Bonnie Lass (ND)
1. Highland's Spider's Sting CD

4. Breeding - Molly AIBC 43509
1. Rob AIBC 69829

5. Breeding - Wildfire Anne AIBC 51923
1. Spider's Boomerang CD
2. Spider's Kelly of Birdeye UDX NA
3. Spiders Toby
4. Wildfire Spiders Brice
5. Wildfire Spiders Fletcher
6. Wildfire Spiders Ginger
7. Wildfire Spiders Ramcharger
8. Wildfire Spiders Red
9. Wildfire Spiders Socrates AIBC 61628 CD
10. Wildfire Spiders Squeak CD
11. Wildfire Spiders Strike It Rich CD

6. Breeding - Carolina Magic AIBC 39713 UD ROMF
1. OTCH Starfire's Jugs Johnson
2. Starfire's Magic Jamie CDX
3. Starfire's Piece of the Action CD
4. Starfire's Star UD
5. OTCH Starfire's Wizard AIBC 58715

7. Breeding 1/27/1985 - Heelalong Merrie Meg AIBC 35790 CDX
1. Heelalong Auburn Blaze AIBC 58845
2. OTCH Heelalong Pippin UDX TD ROM DL581156/01

8. Breeding 8/24/1985 - Heelalong Merrie Meg AIBC 35790 CDX
1. OTCH Heelalong Chimney Sweep UDX AX AXJ ROMX ILP 61861
2. OTCH Heelalong De-Cider UDX TD DL602984/01

9. Breeding 3/26/1986 - OTCH Heelalong Sand Pebble (ND) AIBC 52639
1. Heelalong Austin City Limits UD OA ILP 63134
2. Heelalong Gemini CD
3. OTCH Heelalong Sharp As A Tack UDX ILP 64488
4. Heelalong Slate ILP 64493

... and that's only half of the list of signatories to the AKC petition. Check back for Part 2.

Photo of the Day: Celeste Puppy