Janba

I would be interested in taking my 3 although 2 of them won't swim but would love a different area to run. I can't walk them anymore because of health reasons and the local of lead area is the pits.

They are Great Pyrenees and the owner of the blog where the photo comes from never says they are anything else.

If the standard has disqualifying colours such as the toller standard does then breeders shouldn't select for them or they become nothing more tha colour breeders and as tollersowned says there are so few of them that if selected and bred for you will end up with all sorts of other problem due to inbreeding. They can be sold as pets on the LR no problems (except for white shepherds and white boxers but that is another debate). In breeds like the border collie, where there are NO disqualifying faults, colour or otherwise, in the standard and the non showable colours occur quite frequently and are very hard to select against unless you colour DNA test, it is silly to not allow them to be put on the MR. You can have a ee red dog who is allowed to be shown and on the MR but because the ee red masks the expression of other colours he can genetically be a tri chocolate merle which can't. It doesn't matter whether you are involved in the hobby of showing and breeding ANKC dogs (flame suit on) or breeding working dogs to help you earn your living, racing greyhounds etc they should alll be bred with the aim of improving on what you have aready and producing sound healthy dogs.

Australia is the only country that restricts border collie colours and the markings you see in the show ring are purely fashion. BCs have to have some white on them but the patern is not important. Everywhere else in the world they can be any colour and most other countries also accept short coats. That fact that the standard doesn't say "any colour or colours acceptable" suggests that colour has some role to play. I'm guessing visibility while working is part of that equation? From the Kennel Club standard (the country of origin) and this is basically the same wording in all other standards worldwide. Colour is a contentious issue with BCs in this country and colours have been added since the first standard was written here - blue merle being one example. Genetically the colour restrictions make no sense and there are no health problems associated with the colours except merle to merle matings. There are also no disqualifying colours in our standard. Visibility is not really a reason for the limited colours either. Why is a chocolate dog more visible than a chocolate dog with tan points or even a chocolate merle? White on the end of the tail isn't a factor either as a BC who is working will carry his tail low. ETA I don't believe in breeding for colour but I also don't believe in uneccessary restrictions when they have no bearing on the original purpose and occur in dogs still doing that purpose naturally. Because of these restrictions a lot of BCs are registered as the incorrect colours on the main register and there are dogs who are not standard colours who have been awarded championships here.

Australia is the only country that restricts border collie colours and the markings you see in the show ring are purely fashion. BCs have to have some white on them but the patern is not important. Everywhere else in the world they can be any colour and most other countries also accept short coats.

If you look through the OPs posts you can see why. Nothing sinister.

The same would apply to show line kelpies chucked in a backyard treated the same way. It is a very common misconception that the working dogs are too high drive, need too much excersise etc for the average owner.

I agree with this - he may need antibiotics if the bite was deep enough as they can become infected. I know Cole did as the bite went through to his nostril.

I feel for you. SWF's can inflict a lot of damage through a fence - they have needle like teeth. I hope Boof wasn't to badly hurt. At my old houe I had a malted sh*t that lived next door stuck its nose under the fence and screamed at my dogs who largely ignored. On Xmas eve Cole went up and sniffed it and it bit him pucturing his nose and removing a bit of the nose leather. Same story as you - the dog was on their own property so nothing could be done. This is his nose after a week or so of healing - I can't find the one taken just after. It took months for the full pigmentation to come back. I have nothing against most SWF but some dreadful and the owners just seem to ignore their behaviour because they are SWFs.

ee red masks eumelanin production so the dogs appears red. The dog can genetically be black, chocolate, blue or lilac and you can tell which by its nose leather. Because it masks the eumelanin the merle gene is also not expressed but it may have the broken pigmentation of the nose leather and the merle eyes. ee red does not affect the white. If you breed merle to merle one of the problems can be caused by the excessive white which is not affected by the fact that the dog is also ee red so you would expect the same problems from an ee reds who are genetically merles as you would breeding 2 merles. It is best not to breed red to red or red to merle if there is even the slightest possiblity the red could be a masked merle.

ditto! Lunging in fright is almost exusable. Taking a chunk out of someone IS NOT! I think that is the real point here - the dog BIT and bum height on an adult is face height on a young child. The vast majority of dogs when startled don't fear bite hard enough to tear someone clothes and puncture them. Dogs also have far more acute hearing than we do and are far better at pin pointing the direction a sound is coming from. The dog handler may well have been in shock and worried about what her dog did and just said the first thing that came to mind but leaving someone who your dog has just bit is not responsible. If it had been a car driver leaving after an accident before details were exchanged would responses have been the same?

Try having a border collie with very little white on him. I frequently get asked what he is suprisingly enough by ANKC people as well as the public but not the working dog people. I remember one ANKC breeder BC looking down her nose at him and asking "what is that?" He is main register and he is within the standard for colour.

I love standing watching my dog do the big casts in B Course and the 3 sheep arena. I am lucky that he has a naturally wide cast and distance doesn't seem to matter to him. I like watching the look for the sheep when you send them and then the way they keep looking at the sheep as they go and start to read the way they are reacting - BUT I do wish Cole would stop at the top of the cast before he comes in on the sheep.

It is surprisingly difficult to just stand there. I have only done 1 advanced run on ducks with Piper (for a hugely surprising pass) and it is So tempting to just take step. You have to make a conscious effort to not move. I guess because it is natural to move around and assist with body pressure. Getting the ducks around C while standing there was so challenging, I just wanted to move back and get out of their way. I am not sure it gets easier with time or not, guess I will find out. It does get easier with practice. I find now that I am concentrating on the sheep and positioning the dog that sometimes I forget to move when I can. Last trial I stayed at the handlers peg till the sheep were in the exam pen the started to send Cole in to lift them out and sudenly remembered that I had better get to the hold pen. I really enjoy trialling advanced even though we still stuff up on things. I have entered a fun 3 sheep trial in 2 weeks so spent today practicing. I found it really hard to keep moving and keep the sheep on my right hand side and concentrate on positioning the dog. He wanted to put them behind me like he would in a herding trial . On a good note Cole is starting to put the sheep throught obstacles and pen them with minimal commands from me.

Sable is very common in the working BCs that our show lines were developed from as well as the working dogs in other countries. The colour that is rare to non existent in the ISDS and ABCA is the ee red. That seems to have been introduced into the Australian working dogs from somewhere else.

Probably in Australia she should have been. In almost every other country in the world (and maybe every other country) she's an acceptable colour. She is a lovely colour. There are some cases where the colour standards in breeds are laughable and Border Collies is one of them in this country.

Waiting is the worst - I hope they are OK

Good luck for the weekend - I hope you get the MVA - it is quite an achievement if you do. Colin is coming down this weekend and coming training at EP so I am hoping I can get him to help me fine tune my driving.

It depends on the build of the dog and the sex. IMO most labs are overweight. ETA if you post a picture it would help people to determine if she was overweight or not

The red in the ANKC lines came from the Austarlian working dogs used as foundation stock. CL hasn't been found in the working dogs yet but that doesn't mean it isn't present at a very low incidence. TNS has been found in working lines with no ANKC blood. But to be sure the dog is pure working lines you would need to know its working pedigree and make sure it has no ANKC lines in it.

Yes. BCs should be tested for CEA, CL, TNS and hips and elbows. The results of the recent ANKC beed survey after 1/1/2011 all breeding stock born after 1/1/2005 muust be tested and at least 1 parent in each litter registered must be CEA normal (either by DNA or parentage). Thanks, I thought the three were routinely tested for but wasn't sure if anything had changed. I should have laso said from the survey the same applies for CL and TNS though their is a question over the TNS as the paper regarding the DNA test wasn't peer reviewed.

No. I live on a farm, my dog is not from a registered breeder as with most border collies who live the farm life! She's beaut at rounding up sheep, but I don't think she'd be interested in the show ring! From a working perspective. Most farmers don't like the light coloured dogs as they don't believe the sheep have as much respect for them so if you are breeding just for work I would be breeding away from the red, especially a pale red. I know they can still work but mostly white and pale colours are not prefered from a work point of view. With unregistered dogs you could have any colours lurking so apart from what I wrote earlier about percentages, anything is possible. If you are breeding Border Collies, registered or not, keep in mind that your girl and her mate should at the very least be DNA tested for the two hereditary fatal conditions, CL and TNS to avoid possible legal problems later. It is law in Vic but no matter what state, if you breed an affected dog, now testing is available to prevent it, you could be sued. The testing is available at Uni of NSW. At least one parent must be DNA normal for each condition to avoid breeding puppies that could die between 2-8 months for TNS and 18-24 months for CL. The only cases that now occur in Australia are from unregistered Borders because the breeders don't bother to test like the registered ones do. The genes for both CL and TNS are throughout the breed and it doesn't matter if they are show or work lines, the risk is the same if you don't test to make sure you are not putting two carriers together. I will add to this that if your dog that TNS is definitely in the true working border collie lines but have yet to find a case of CL. If your dog doesn't have a true working BC pedigree from your states WSD registry then there is always the chance that she has ANKC blood in her and a risk of being a CL carrier. CEA is in the working dogs. The same applies to dogs from the ISDS.

Yes. BCs should be tested for CEA, CL, TNS and hips and elbows. The results of the recent ANKC beed survey after 1/1/2011 all breeding stock born after 1/1/2005 muust be tested and at least 1 parent in each litter registered must be CEA normal (either by DNA or parentage).

I woud also look at the lawm mowing being a trigger - some dogs get very hyped up at lawm mowers and whipper snippers - I know 2 of mine do. I would lock the pup away when you are mowing. I would also follow the advice of getting a good trainer in to help as it is very hrd to give advice without seeing exactly what the dog is doing.

I don't know how much help I can be in driving even though Cole is now consistently passing in advanced A and trialling advanced B (we need to improve the shed). I don't have a different command for inside flanks but I find Cole won't cross if he is close to me. I trained initially I did what it sounds like Piper is doing - I initiated the cross not the dog. Basically when I needed the dog to cross in front of me I positioned myself so I did the cross. When you first do this the dog seems to do a double take and say "what the f**k" but they soon realise that it is acceptable. I also worked on the fenceline drives before the drives in the open. Another exersise I did when I first started driving was to get Cole to hold his sheep in the middle of the arena while i walked around the arena. This was from Derek Scrimgeors videos (slighly amended) to teach him he could still control his sheep even though he was off balance and basically by himself with the sheep. Cole does have a very good straight walk up. I sometimes wonder if the ease I was able to teach Cole to drive is genetic. Cole has been bred for ISDS style trialling which is mostly driving (and his gr granfather was 2 times international driving champion) rather than Ausrtalian 3 sheep trialling which is fetching. ETA I am very lucky in the amount of time I get to train on sheep - at least wice a week - as well as being able to train on trialling courses and do real work on mobs etc.