Visitor once removed - help me with ID

Thank you to all who gave their insights about the "big guy". If I ever get to take better pictures, I'll post them in this thread. I am glad my "Aussie" first impression is confirmed; I have never seen a purebred one in real life (just a few mixes tentatively IDed by AC, most of them very young) but this guy kinda rang a bell.

brookcove

There's a ton of Maremmas down your way - especially if you are near the TX border. 

I am in the northwest corner of Louisiana about 20 miles from the TX border. DH cruises the countryside regularly for his job and knows several cattle ranchers but none of them, to his knowledge, uses working LGDs. The only two "big white fluffy dogs" he is aware of (and they could vey well be Maremmas from his description) were guarding three goats by a trailer but seem to have been gone since the beginning of hot weather. Got to put DH on the "big white dogs" trail, lol.

brookcove

 I'd love to know whether this dog has dew claws - double dewclaws would be a dead giveaway but not all Maremmas have them.  Min and her sister both appear to have had singles but some ignorant breeder snipped them off.

I'd put the dog's height at 26" or possibly more.  Don't eyeball straight to the fence, but take the measurement from foot bottom (hardly visible in the grass) to the top of those very high withers, and it will come out much more than halfway up the fence.  Allow a bit for perspective and my guess is 26".

I got no idea about dewclaws - my zoom will not let me get into those details from where I am. As far as height, yep, this dog is pretty tall and the perspective on the first picture makes him appear smaller than he really is, I think. Spip is around 22 inches at the withers and he is surely 3 inches taller at least (as well as way heavier). He is an impressive dog and there is something in his demeanor that drives Spip up to the wall.

BCMixs

I wonder where he's from.  You're down south and Indie came from Florida.  He gets the Pyr label alot also, but according to his breeder, his parents are both pure BCs, just a really big Dad.  I wonder if BCs and Aussies just come bigger down south?   

My male was 26in' and 50-60 pound, born and raised right here in NC, his sire was imported though, from Scotland I believe. My female on the other hand was 18inin' and 20lbs soaking wet. She was from SC....and I must admit, more or less a rescue with papers....the BYB's place was horrid....dead birds everywhere(he bred small pet birds, BC's, ASD's, and goats) my mom told me she saw 2 dead goats in a barrel....Babie was horribly inbred too....her mother was her sires pup, and her sires sire was his mothers sire(it makes more sense in my head and when you see the papers) and it kept on like that over her entire 6gen. pedigree.

Wow, who is your male's breeder?  This dog is/was 65 pounds - sire imported from England - but he is not really very tall - just about 23."  Most decently bred BCs max out about there  (My Ben is 24" and Isn't what I'd call decently bred).  You do get dogs that are from breeders who have other dogs (like livestock guardians - ie Pyrs) and just lie on the pedigree about pups they sell when they get an "oops" litter. Not that yours is, but the lines that produce the huge dogs like Ben have really been petering out lately.

We had a dog from a really well-known line, but backyard bred (rescue).  He came up with a couple of genetic problems never before seen in that line combination, which had been done quite often (Kuykendall's Bill to Roy Johnson's Roscoe).  But, we did some digging and it turned out that a breeder a couple lines back had done a brother-sister breeding to increase the chances of RED MERLE PUPS - and then substituted a "nicer" sire on the papers.

I want to say 25in. he may has been shortedr...It's been 3 years sense he died so I can't be sure, but, Tucker came from a man names Donald Thomas...if anyone's big into trial dogs, thats what he does.

 Donald Thomas does a lot of breeding into McCallum lines - actually heavy line breeding.  We once got a pair of rescues from his breeding, male and female.  Their parents were full siblings.  AND, the parents of THOSE full siblings were full siblings.  :P

I have a friend who runs a dog bred by him, at trials, but haven't seen Donald himself anywhere around for ages.  I'm taking over a demo that's been done by him forever, next spring so I think he's pulling back even more.

I have a friend down that way who also breeds McCallum dogs for her large cattle operation.  Here's the humorously named "Runt" working sheep for the camera (Runt isn't tall - he's wiiiiide lol!):

And his mama Jill working cattle (Jill's a wee thing but very sturdy, what most cattle people prefer - little dogs don't eat much, lol!):

Yea...he's an older gentlemen. Tucker was the last pup from his Lad and Kate. Kate's retired now, and Lad was killed by a car also....all of the other puppies were spayed and nutered, except Tuck. Mr. Thomas called us a month before Tuck died looking for a stud to keep the Lad/Kate line going, but Tuck had kennel cough.

Kate was a very large female. I couldn't say how big she was hight wise, but atleast 40lbs. I never saw Lad, he was out working sheep the day we picked up Tucker. But I'd guess that he was a large dog too.

LOL - 35 - 42  pounds is about right for a female BC.   Although they vary wildly as you know - especially towards the small side.  I had a female who was a granddaughter of the above male, who was 18 pounds and measured 15.25" at a flyball tourney (so, at that time she would have "set" the jump heights for our team at 9" and she was FAST).

My Ben and Jen jumping over the same homemade jump in my old house (not at the same time, spliced together so you can compare size - Ben's a hair shy of 23";).

But as you can see she's "normal" proportioned - not dwarf - just a small Border Collie.  Her litter mates were moderate to more Ben sized.

Working at a sheepdog trial (and blowing coat - she had ovarian cysts and was a mess until we spayed her - note the above post spay pics): 

I say Kate was/is large because my female was 20lbs, and 18in. Most of the females that I've seen are smaller then 30lbs. I love the dogs that are bred slightly larger.

I just thought of something.  You know it's height to the shoulder, not the head, right?  Because 18" and 20 pounds is almost for sure badly underweight. My 15 inch BC, as I said, was almost 20 pounds!  My Maggie, who is a mutt but is proportioned like a BC, is about 18" and weighs 35 pounds (perfect condition).  I have a friend who has Jen's mom, the daughter of the above male.  She is 17.5" and in good condition weighs in around 32 lbs (she tends to keep very little fat on her like a sighthound - Kuykendall bred).  Her mother was 18" and tended to be a bit porky although she was a full time farm dog and champion trial dog (ran in the National Finals every year and place high most years, top 15 one year).  She sometimes weighed over 40 pounds, the little heifer!

I had a female (check out what happens if you use the correct term b itch ---> bitch) who was pretty close to 24" tall and maxed out at 50 pounds when fully conditioned (muscle).  She has a huge, well-coupled frame and a gigantic motor.  Today she's almost 12 years old and still works ten to twelve hour days running miles and miles.

Trim next to Ben - you can see even laying down how much bigger she is.

This is what she does for a living - those are great egrets (three feet tall average):

Yea, I measure all my dogs at the shoulders...Babie was a very fine boned dog, all of her legs were thin, and her head was very narrow - kind of Greyhound-ish.....I'll try and find a pic of her