Breeding for standards, work, temperament, health or all.

Tash...
 
Not sure what you are meaning. By definition a standard is a written example of the perfect specimen VISUALLY of a given breed...not it's work. The trials, if they exist for the breed will cover the working aspect of the breed.
 
Working dogs..aside from herding erhaps have always had emphasis placed on appearance...terriers, hounds, gundogs, dogs used for guarding, etc etc etc.
 
The breed standard has NEVER included a "working part" because that is not the intent of a standard.
 
IMO you are not playing devil's advocate as much as trying to belittle any breeding that is not done for purely working reasons. Even going as far as to liken a breeding done for the show ring, to a breeding done for Doodles...something I take as a very personal insult.
 
Even in a total working program pups are born that are NOT suitable to work and they are placed as pets. I will go even further and tell you that, thanks to these same "shockingly obvious differences in conformation" on field/work breeds vs show specimens....you can easily pick out in most shelters, breed rescues etc...WHAT segment of the fancy is not minding the store when it comes to placing their pups and ensuring the not worthy to breed ones are not bred.
 
To make it very clear, "show people" those much vilified show people...have DRASTICALLY cut back our breedings and numbers the past several years. We have raised our prices to cover the costs of our sport and the many hoops we as responsible breeders need to jump thru to please people that like to nit pick about "why" a person is breeding. We have embraced contracts and limited registration. When the day comes that show type Labs and show type Beagles are the ones in every other run in the shelters, running the streets making "Lab X's and Beagle X's....when shelters don't actually have "Beagle season"...
 
 
When you apply your same rules as to what makes a responsible breeder and lover of a breed UNIFORMLY across the board...and hold those who "work" their dogs, to the same benchmark as you hold us "show people"...and they actually listen to you (good luck with that) and start doing things differently....then you can critizise my reasons for breeding a Beagle to show.
 
Now....in no way am I saying all show breeders are saints...because lord knows idiots abound in EVERY facet of dogdom. BUT I challenge anyone to browse petfinder for a Lab, and not see what I see.

I come from a breed that has so many splits, it is utterly ridiculous. The German Shepherd Dog is divided into SIX different lines. SIX! And the animosity between all the owners of these different lines is disturbing.

West German Show
West German Working
DDR/East German Working
Czech Working
American Show

I have people that have contacted me about getting Strauss puppies. They don't want a Strauss pup for "just a pet". A few people want a Strauss baby for a PAD, others want one of his pups for performance work. My dog is an all around dog. He shows in several different venues. The only thing he doesn't show in is conformation, and that is because he has a disqualifying fault (his ear). Lately he's been holding it up so well, I could probably finish him in UKC if I were so inclined, as they focus more on a working dog and less on a pretty one.

The American showlines...the vast majority of them are utterly useless. The majority I've met are ill tempered, either being nasty or so spooky they wet themselves, they have no desire or drive to work, and a good many of them are just plain kennel mad, as they only time they get out is to show. Where I live, I see 6 GSDs that show in performance.

One is another German line dog, called Caesar, one is my German boy, Strauss, one is American, Magic, who belongs to a lovely older lady named Viette, and the last three are American, and belong to the same man, Mike Los, who owned last year's Obedience Victrix at the GSDCA national.

The American dogs are, for lack of a better word, lackluster in the performance ring. They do the exercises, but they show no enjoyment in the work. The look in their eyes is "I do it because you expect it, but quite frankly, this sucks monkey nuts." When Caesar is in the ring, his head is up and his gait is perky. He is extremly focused and is obviously enjoying his work. The same goes for Strauss. He's snappy and quick in his movements, and he's getting to the point where he is going to show up the Goldens and BCs.

The retrieve that Viette gets out of Magic, and that Mike gets out of Reddy, Inca, and Reddy's dad are acceptable. They do the work. But they go out slowly, and they return slowly. Strauss's retrieve is quick and happy. He runs out like a maniac, seizes his dumbbell, and returns briskly, tail wagging all the time.

Then there are the working lines. Many breeders of working lines want to preserve the working ability of the GSDs, but they've taken it to the extreme. The dogs are so drivey, they're impossible to live with. That is not a proper GSD.

I know many many working line breeders that are GREAT and have stable dogs that do schutzhund/patrol work but they're couch potatoes at home. However, their conformation is usually lacking. I'm not talking about "pretty dog" conformation, I'm talking about PROPER conformation. They are often extremely straight in the shoulder and have almost no angulation in the pastern, and they get by with long hocks and the bare minimum of angulation in the rear. That lends to a decent k9, but a crappy herding dog, and the GSD was originally a HERDING dog!

My own dog is a cross of American and German showlines, and aside from the ear, I feel that overall I got the best of both worlds. A dog with decent angulation that isn't overdone, and a dog that has good drives and nerves without waste or excess. Many people frown on these crosses. I think they're extremely beneficial.

The woman I am getting my next GSD from breeds American/West German Show crosses, and she has had GREAT success with them. The temperaments are wonderful, they enjoy working, and they're PRETTY! They win in the Specialty and All Breed rings, and one of the crossed bitches went Select 2 at the GSDCA National. People should breed for the whole package. The problem is that in this country, and amongst the breed clubs, I honestly feel breeders are given TOO MUCH freedom!

They don't have to test for working ability, so they don't. They don't have to test for temperament soundness, so they don't. They don't HAVE to health test, so they don't, unless they know people know to ask these questions. Over in Germany, a GSD must be titled in schutzhund by the age of 2, or they cannot show in conformation. They also cannot be bred without having their hips cleared and without either a schutzhund title or HGH (herding title).

I do have to be honest though. If it weren't for Germany's requirements, I am positive that the German highline dogs would go the way of the American bred dogs. They only retain working ability because it is REQUIRED of them, not because they want to test them.

[color=#cc0000]The breed standard has NEVER included a "working part" because that is not the intent of a standard.

[/color]
I have to disagree with this a bit.  I can't speak for other breeds, but the Standard for the GSD, American AND German (that's how disgustingly separated we are here, there are two different standards for the GSD) the standard is written NOT for the visual, but for the ideal working dog.  Can't blame the standard for judges putting up flashy instead of functional.  Lots of times we try to blame the standards for that, when they are there describing the ideal dog in terms of looks AND work, but it's not the standard, it's the judges (and the breeders, since they tend to follow what the judges put up....gross).
 
Great quote from Grace Keh, a great breeder of working line GSDs:
 
"To breed for GSD pets is exactly what [will] kill this breed and will eventually take it down to a breed worth nothing more than any other mutt coming out of the pound.  I like to think that this breed, if no other, is more special than that, and has a function and purpose.  Never should someone breed a dog who will fit into all lifestyles of the people looking.  In all cases, the people looking must be able to conform their lifestyles to the breed that they have chosen.  If they can't - - [they ought to] choose a different breed."                      -- Grace Keh
 

First, I did not mean to offend anyone.  This was simply my interpretation of what some people were saying in this thread.

Not sure what you are meaning. By definition a standard is a written example of the perfect specimen VISUALLY of a given breed...not it's work. The trials, if they exist for the breed will cover the working aspect of the breed.

So as long as it's pretty, it doesn't matter if it can't work?  Why?  So it can be a pet?

 

Working dogs..aside from herding erhaps have always had emphasis placed on appearance...terriers, hounds, gundogs, dogs used for guarding, etc etc etc.

Emphasis sure, but is that it?  There should be more than just appearance IMO.
 

The breed standard has NEVER included a "working part" because that is not the intent of a standard.

I would disagree.  The standards, as Xephy has said, were written in order to give something to go on in order to produce a dog that could perform it's original task.  You didn't get a dog that was pretty then go hey, let's try and breed birding instinct into this dog.  I'm pretty sure it was the other way around.  You had a dog that was good at something.  So you found a dog that was also good at that same thing, then bred for that trait.  Over many thousands of years, we got the dogs of today.
 

IMO you are not playing devil's advocate as much as trying to belittle any breeding that is not done for purely working reasons. Even going as far as to liken a breeding done for the show ring, to a breeding done for Doodles...something I take as a very personal insult.

This was not intended to slight anyone.  Simply an observation from other posts in this thread.
 

Even in a total working program pups are born that are NOT suitable to work and they are placed as pets. I will go even further and tell you that, thanks to these same "shockingly obvious differences in conformation" on field/work breeds vs show specimens....you can easily pick out in most shelters, breed rescues etc...WHAT segment of the fancy is not minding the store when it comes to placing their pups and ensuring the not worthy to breed ones are not bred.

So now you're attacking field breeders?  I would have thought most dogs ending up in shelters were from BYB and puppy mills personally.
 

To make it very clear, "show people" those much vilified show people...have DRASTICALLY cut back our breedings and numbers the past several years. We have raised our prices to cover the costs of our sport and the many hoops we as responsible breeders need to jump thru to please people that like to nit pick about "why" a person is breeding. We have embraced contracts and limited registration. When the day comes that show type Labs and show type Beagles are the ones in every other run in the shelters, running the streets making "Lab X's and Beagle X's....when shelters don't actually have "Beagle season"...

I never called show people villians and I'm not nitpicking the "why's" of breeding.  I'm simply drawing a possible conclusion from what other's have posted.
 
 

When you apply your same rules as to what makes a responsible breeder and lover of a breed UNIFORMLY across the board...and hold those who "work" their dogs, to the same benchmark as you hold us "show people"...and they actually listen to you (good luck with that) and start doing things differently....then you can critizise my reasons for breeding a Beagle to show.

I'm certainly not attacking you personally and I'm sorry if you feel this way.  It was not my intent.  And I would hold a field breeder to the same standards.  I hope to own either a Toller or a BC someday and by god I will either rescue one or buy from a breeder that breeds for working ability and does all the health testing and has dogs of a good temperment.  Because you're right, I want to be able to expect some amount of reliability with the termperment of the dog, but I also want a dog with drive, which is what both breeds were bred to have originally.
 

Now....in no way am I saying all show breeders are saints...because lord knows idiots abound in EVERY facet of dogdom. BUT I challenge anyone to browse petfinder for a Lab, and not see what I see.

Amen.  []

My breed's past use has (legally) disappeared.  Am Staffs were used for fighting and bull baiting in the past as well as for hog dogs and all around farm hands.  Soooo, with the exception of farm work (and a few people who use them for hog dogs), she can't legally be field tested.

However, I believe that there are OTHER uses for many breeds that people overlook.  Am Staffs could be excellent K9s. Anyone who would want to tangle with a sixty pound male Am Staff Hell-bent on stopping said person is a very, very dull pencil indeed.

As for conformation and temperment, Gypsy has BOTH of these.  Her stack of ribbons from the conformation ring are testament to this.  Her legions of young fans prove that her temperment is as solid as it comes.  Her drive and eagerness to learn is legendary here in town. I literally have the best of ALL worlds in one compact package!

I wrote a big long thing about collies vs BCs on here, but forgot to hit enter. Oops.

ANy way. I think it's ALL important. I want a healthy, sound, long-lived dog who can herd, who can do obedience trials, who can do service dog work, with enough drive to be fun to train and enough brains and sense to be calm when he needs to too- and oh yeah, he should be pretty, too. Tall order.

There's some really wonderful breeders out there- I'm really impressed with Colliewog's dogs (at least, based on her website) and I've loved looking at Debbie's salukis for years. Brookcove, Gina/Ringrayth, I don't know you well, but I've been very much in agreement with a lot of stuff that you've said on this thread and others about your guys- basically, I think that the world just needs more breeders like the GOOD ones that I've been lucky enough to meet on the internet.

I'm a newbie to the dog fancy. Bou- my first Cardigan- would have been 7 this year. I've made it past the five-year-newbie burnout period. Still haven't finished a dog, but I've shown in 4 states and at 6 regional specialties. I neutered Indy this year and placed Summer (a Cardi I'd gotten with the intention of her being my foundation bitch- and she has the conformation, but not the personality- perfectly sound temperamnet, completely no desire to work for anything but food, and too darn smart to go for variable reinforcement schedules.) as a (spayed) pet. I'm done with Cardis, where everyone gives lip service to working- but you can count on one hand the number of breeders who get titles at both ends before breeding, and in the 5 years I've been showing- my first show was in December of 2001 with Jester, who took a reserve our first weekend out and got me hooked on this for life - the breed has moved in a direction I'm not comfortable with- there have been a few heart problems cropping up lately with one VERY widely used sire (and I'm worried about that down the line- It'd break my haert to see Cardis end up in an Impressive-type situation, and this dog is so widely used that I'm worried we COULD), and the dogs in the show ring are much larger and heavier than I think is useful as an agility and small-farm herding dog. That's why I started fostering collies- I just wanted a change- that's how I ended up with Wings, and really fell in love with the breed- and I think that in collies, while there's definately a LOT of people who don't do performance AND conformation- there's a whole lot more that DO. So.. yeah.

It's all important. Working splits suck. Unifying breeds again would be great but won't happen. Dooodles? Write the breed standards, form the breed clubs, start holding breed shows, and then we'll talk. It's been done in my lifetime- the Alaskan Klee Kai is UKC recognized, and I believe it was founded as a breed the same year I was born. There's no reason any of the doodle breeds COULDN'T if the serious fanciers existed. The fact that it hasn't happened, to me, says that those fanciers don't exist- and that it's just the fad of the moment. That statistic that everyone quoted me a long time ago 'most people who get into dog shows get out again within 5 years'? I think that probably applies to the oodly people too, and it'll be interesting to see if they're still all the rage in 5 years- or 10 or 15, when all these oodly types start passing away and families go looking for their next average family pet.

Cait

It is all important, but as has been pointed out, what's perfect for one person is not perfect for another. A lot of the attraction for herding dogs as pets is temperament. They're super intelligent, eager to work and easy to train. They bond strongly with people and learn very fast. However, they need way more exercise than your average suburban pet owner is willing to supply. That might mean that they shouldn't get that breed, but what are their other choices if the majority of the dogs that would suit their personality don't suit their lifestyle? I don't want a herding breed because I don't think I could keep up with one, but I still admire the traits they possess that make them such great companion animals.

If you want a dog the size of a BC with the smarts and trainability of a BC and the coat of a BC and the agility and the personality of a BC, but can't really provide enough exercise, then what are you to do? As much as I wish there was a breed readily available that's perfect for every individual, there isn't. My next choice is an akita, but that's because you can't get jindo dogs over here. I don't blame people for picking a breed that is almost but not quite perfect for them. I don't think it's unreasonable for people to want a BC as a pet that won't need so much exercise that someone with kids under 5 and a full time job can't quite provide enough. Shouldn't BC breeders be pleased that their breed has such a great temperament and try to accomadate for the people who want the temperament but not the exercise needs? I don't think it needs to be so different it's not the same dog anymore, but I have no problem with bench strains and working strains. Everyone breeds for a purpose and that's their right. There's a strong movement in akita breeders over her to improve the temperament because they want them to make better pets. I applaud that, even if it means a decline in other breed-specific traits due to the tiny gene pool. I applaud it because they're shaping the breed to keep up with the desires of the general public. It's a little like evolution and I think it's natural.

The only thing I don't like in breeding purposes is the extreme emphasis of breed-specific characteristics to the detriment of the breed. My corgi has a comparitively short back and long legs. She's certainly not show quality, but I look at a better corgi specimen with a belly nearly touching the ground and proportionately longer back and feel glad I've got the pet quality dog.

Pwca and Corvus, I guess that's one reason that requiring a herding title to get a championship would be good.  If the dog couldn't do the work, then their conformation would not be in high demand for breeding and the dogs would stick to the original conformation.  That's what the BC folks are worried about.  That a conformation bred BC is going to end up following the trend of being more fluffy and more pretty and not be able to do what it was originally intended for based on its temperment and ability before its looks.

But lorib also has a good point.  Her breed is no longer used for its original purpose and there are no trials in such sports in order to test her dogs.  So then what?  Does that breed of dog now become bred to be the best pet with those characteristics, possible?  So the breeders of AmStaff's now breed for better companion temperment and standards.  But you truly no longer have the same dog.  You have a "pet quality" dog right?  Because an original bull baiting dog probably wouldn't fit well into Joe Schmoe's house with his two infants.

Now I'm not saying I think this is wrong or right.  Just putting things out there in a discussion.

I guess as a lover of dogs, I hate to see any breed changed because of the current fancy of judges.  If working breeds were required to have titles in their work, perhaps the judges would only be presented with dogs that could do the work as well as fit the standard, and breeds wouldn't be bastardized like the GSD has been.

There's been a lot of disagreement on this thread, but it seems that absolutely everyone agrees that breeding for health is essential. Almost all of the Doodle breeders fail in this regard. In order to adequately screen for health the breeder needs to health test both parents for any genetic traits their breed may carry (i.e. hips, heart, etc.). Further the lineage needs to be known and tested for several generations on both sides, including the parents and grandparents siblings. There may be a very few Doodle breeders that do this, but that's certainly uncommon.
 
For the most part, the "breeding stock" of Doodles comes from dogs that would not succeed in either the show ring, obedience, or any type of work. They may not even have good temperaments. The parents are the products of back yard breeders and puppy mills themselves. People are just doing this for money with no concern for the parents, the puppies, or their owners. Another important part of the package that many Doodle breeders fail to address is the early care of the puppies. Getting a puppy from a puppy mill is sort of like adopting a child that has been locked in a closet for the first two years of their life. They are starting out with developmental disadvantages that require patience and skill to overcome. Yet, who buys these puppies? Usually first time dog owners. BYB puppies are a little better in that the mother is at least usually allowed to have natural instincts--more like the child coming from a mother with no familial, societal or medical support.
 
Further with Doodles, there's no conformity as far as particular traits. If someone must have a low shedding dog, stick with a breed that has a written and proven standard for having low shedding.
 
As far as specialization vs. the complete package. I have no problem with specialization as long as the breed specifications are met, the health is excellent, and the temperament is acceptable for the breed standard. For example some lab breeders breed specifically to place the puppies as guide dogs. They are selected for their calm demeanor. But...like their birdy brothers, they have the general high intelligence of a lab and willingness to learn and follow directions. The parents have also been titled for conformation. Those that don't get accepted as puppies to the guide school have no problem finding homes as pets with a spay/neuter contract. Reasonable standards need to be met in all areas and something REALLY needs to stand out before a dog should be bred.
 
We have two mixed breeds and a rescue Belgian Malinois. The Malinois was picked up by animal control and taken to the pound and no one claimed him. Yet he was unneutered, and given his age, had probably bred before. Although we love him dearly, there is nothing exceptional about him that would make him a candidate for breeding. Further, his temperament is somewhat fearful (part may be due to undersocialization) and that should have eliminated him from contention no matter what his other abilities were.

Great ost Stacita!
 

If you want a dog the size of a BC with the smarts and trainability of a BC and the coat of a BC and the agility and the personality of a BC, but can't really provide enough exercise, then what are you to do? As much as I wish there was a breed readily available that's perfect for every individual, there isn't. My next choice is an akita, but that's because you can't get jindo dogs over here. I don't blame people for picking a breed that is almost but not quite perfect for them. I don't think it's unreasonable for people to want a BC as a pet that won't need so much exercise that someone with kids under 5 and a full time job can't quite provide enough.

 
Corvus, since shelters and rescues are full of mixes who would fit nicely into your description of a "pet quality" BC, I don't see why anyone who wants a watered down version of the breed should go to a breeder. My family adopted a young BC mix from the SPCA who was intelligent, easy to train, had BC coloring and coat texture, and excelled at agility. She also fit in well with my family's busy schedule, and since she was mixed with something more laid back, she didn't have the extremely high energy needs of a purebred.
 
Mixes like this that make excellent family pets are a being euthanized everyday due to lack of homes. Meanwhile there are breeders who cater to the pet market by suppressing the original qualities of the breed (or creating designer breeds) to achieve the same temperament as a mix that could be found in a shelter. To me, that isn't ethical.
 

If you want a dog the size of a BC with the smarts and trainability of a BC and the coat of a BC and the agility and the personality of a BC, but can't really provide enough exercise, then what are you to do?

Try something else.  Mixed breed, or something like an Aussie or English shepherd.  EXERCISE is part of the BC equation.  Ill say it again.  It's selfish to demand something that is against the breed standard.  The Border collie breed standard is not a conformation standard, it is a working one. 

There is a conformation standard, but it applies to those dogs that are genetically seperated already.  They have already "cut out" the working lines by using that standard (the one that is based on the fluffy, squared off dog with the high head - the one you'll see if you pick the BC avatar here). 

What can we do?  We were here first, breeding our "substandard" dogs for 100 years, using the working standard to produce dogs that not only worked well with a minimum of training for the average farmer, but also made nice companions for the active family.  They were even kind of attractive in a muttly unglamorous sort of way. 

We didn't need to change a thing - it was the conformation people who came along (a mere ten years ago) and said our dogs weren't pretty enough, weren't proportional enough, didn't have a consistent look, had hard eyes and low head carriage, had bad hocks and wanky fronts, were too short or too tall.  They try to tell us what a dog has to look like to be able to do what Border collies have been doing entirely without the help of a breed judge, for 150 years.

The dogs that the conformation people are taking into the breed come from Australia, where Border collies have not been used to work sheep for 85 years (they use decendents of the original working stock that have been shaped into working breeds like kelpies, NZ heading dogs, huntaways, coolie dogs, and ACDs of course).  It is baffling to me when people say we have to go in the ring now and cull out wonderful working dogs just because they are not aesthetically pleasing to some city person.  It is even more baffling when I hear that we need to allow dogs that do not meet the working standard, to be bred, because they'd make nice pets.  That's like saying, again, that Great Dane people should breed smaller dogs because people who live in apartments with 20 pound dog limits can't have them.  Those dogs DON'T MEET THE STANDARD.  We are as adamant about the standard as conformation people.

As to the usual argument that is brought up here, that working lines produce more shelter dogs and rescues - well yes, of course.  Conformation by the nature of what it is, is elitist.  Working breeders sell to working people: farmers, hunters, etc.  They also sell more and breed more in many cases - most working people keep many, many more dogs than conformation and companion homes.  Spay neuter contracts are difficult because working qualities are not evident at seven weeks as conformational qualities are.  Consider what you'd have to decide about pups if you had no way of knowing how they'd shape up, until they were two, and you couldn't even show until they were FOUR.  This is the reality that the working BC breeder faces.

This worked fine for many years, until the demand for working dogs as pets went up, and good sense about dog ownership plummeted.  Most of the dogs I get in rescue and that come from shelters are bred by those wonderful pet breeders (these are by far the most screwed up dogs) and by back yard breeders, of course.  I know it's different for other breeds that have been popular for a long time - labs and beagles - but we are trying to prevent that future for our breed by continuing to insist:

If you don't want a real Border collie, don't GET a Border collie!

Brookcove:

One of the things I find FUNNIEST (in sort of a weird way) about the BC debate is the fact that a significant portion of the working dogs ARE beautiful- they're balanced overall, not wispy OR overdone, a moderate coat, and while you DO see truly weird fronts and rears... those dogs don't seem to be the majority, any more than bad bites or nasty temperament is the majority in the show ring. It's the emphasis on MORE of everything that seems to damage breeds in the conformation ring- and the BCs were fine in the first place!

(That said, I'm a sucker for dogs with crisp markings and no ticking, although I don't particularly care what the markings are. I just like bicolored dogs.)

Something I haven't seen explicitly stated, but that bears keeping in mind...
The goal of every breeding ought to be to produce pups that are better than their parents. In every litter, a few pups will be, many will be of the same quality, and a few will be of lower quality. In conformation, those "better than the parents" pups go ideally to show homes, and the "not as good as the parents" pups go to pet homes, and the "same as parents" pups go to either way, depending on the number of show vs pet homes the breeder had lined up before breeding. In many cases, these pups are appropriate for a home that might want to show, but isn't fully committed to it--most show breeders want the best of their pups to go to homes where they can be sure they'll be shown.
What hasn't been mentioned is that the exact same thing happens in WORKING lines. Some pups will have better instinct, better drive, than the parents, and others will not. And again, these pups should (and do) go to pet homes.

In the case of BC's, yes, some indication of working ability can be tested early. Not proven, of course, but at least some indication of how the dog will mature. A good breeder will match available pups to available homes (as opposed to allowing puppy buyers to chose for themselves.) In this way, at least a pet home wanting the "Border Collie package" can and will end up with a lowER drive pet. Not low drive--they're Border Collies! But one that's at least somewhat more suitable for a pet home.

And...about all those "field" Labs in shelters....after a couple generations, there's no way to even guess where they came from genetically. If you don't breed FOR a trait, you lose it. If dogs aren't being bred FOR "show conformation", it's gone in just a couple generations. Responsible breeders are responsible breeders, whether for working dogs, sport dogs, or show dogs. Less breeders, of all varieties, are responsible for selling the dogs that end up with people of the "You have a Labrador and I have a Labrador so let's breed them and sell puppies to make money" sort. The "pet breeders', and THAT is where those shelter Labs come from.

I own three "good breeder" purebred dogs--two from show lines, one from working lines. The pup from working lines has MORE health clearances done on the parents that either of the show lines dogs, although all three come from parents who were health tested for at least the basics (in other words, all three have parents with OFA hips and annually CERFed eyes). The working lines dog additionally has OFA elbows, and a breed-specific DNA test on both parents.

I believe that having a "show" vs "work" split in any breed is detrimental for the breed as a whole, but in order to work for the benefit of the breed as a whole...the show people must be willing to "give up" any breed traits that have been over-exagerated enough to make them a working hinderance, and the working people need to either participate in getting standards changed (i.e. to accept colors that happen, but are currently considered faults) or to be willing to at least consider some of the "conformation" desires in selecting breeding stock. If only "both these bitches work well, bitch A also has the preferred coat where bitch B does not, therefore I shall breed bitch A and not bitch B this year."

And, moreover, I should probably get back to work myself...

"both these bitches work well, bitch A also has the preferred coat where bitch B does not, therefore I shall breed bitch A and not bitch B this year."

Here's the problem with breeding for working ability.  It's not a set quotient of characteristics.  Bitch A may work well herself and have a good coat, but Bitch B may breed better, and throw the characteristics that are needed to maintain working ability in the next generation.

For instance:

Smooth coats are a dominant characteristic.  this means, if you don't breed them, they disappear from your lines.  Australian conformation breeders decided to cull smooths and they are not accepted in the ring.  Australian BCs no longer work.  Coincidence?  We don't think so - here's why.

There are several key lines which carry smooth.  Down the generations, it has become obvious that certain working characteristics are a balance between two opposing  traits.  But "balance" - moderation - doesn't breed well in itself.  You have to outcross to one line that's more extreme every so often - the eye gets too strong after a while, so you cross to plain working dogs to loosen things up.  Biddable lines get too soft and need to be crossed out to keener working dogs after a few generations.  This is why variety in the breed is essential.  Each line is a treasure house of genetics that have to be tapped, mixed, moved around in the breed, loaned back and forth.  Breeders of "tough" hill dogs scorn the "soft trial" breeders and trial breeders scorn farm dogs as undisciplined brutes, but they know they need each other.

So now we propose culling out smooths here in the US because they wouldn't do well in the ring.  Ditto reds and tricolors.  How do we know what else we are culling out?  The Australians didn't set out to create a useless dog - but somehow they managed to do it by their efforts to "set" a particular type of dog as the standard. 

Way back when, the developers of the Border collie breed warned the show folks but they didn't listen.  Breeding for the highest standard of working abilty is incompatible with breeding for looks.  In the UK, the standard collie was the result of show breeding, and the Australian BC emerged as a charming, but rather bubbleheaded, version of its working cousins overseas.  Why did this happen?

Take this for example:  You want to breed cows that produce the most milk possible per day (GPD).  You don't go and measure udders, look at the conformation, color, and headset of the cow.  You milk the cows.  You keep track of GPD and breed the cows with the most GPD to bulls that are known to sire high-producing calves.  Then you measure the calves GPD, breed them, and so on.

Now, seperate your cows into two groups.  In one group you will continue to breed the highest producers, period, without regard to anything else that doesn't affect GPD.  In the second group you will track GPD, but only breed the highest producers that ALSO have less than 50% white markings.

The second group will drop in production.  I guarantee it.  It doesn't matter what arbitrary standard you enforce on that group or how you justify it, the performance willl drop for the second group of cows, whose ability to produce high producers narrows every time you further reduce the gene pool.  It doesn't matter that you are ALSO checking performance and still taking the highest producers - you are culling out some high producing genetics with each selection choice that does not include a characteristic relevant to production.

Production of milk is a fairly simple characteristic.  Herding is VERY complex - there are many, many delicately balanced traits that must be evaluated in each generation.  the loss of just one trait can result in a degeneration of overall ability in the breed.  Again, I'm talking abut the really advanced stuff that is required on full-time livestock operations and Open ISDS-style trials.  And I'm not talking about or addressing the choices other breeds have made.  I'm talking about preserving a uniquely gifted breed the way our predecessors gave it to us, and improving on it as they did.

I don't understand why people think they don't want "drivey" working dogs. It's so easy to train and exercise a dog with drive.  Throw the frisbee. Do some free-shaping. People love labs and goldens because they are full of drives-- eager to please, avid fetching dogs, chow hounds. You have endless numbers of drives to work with. 
Have you ever tried to train a dog that appeared to have NO drives? no real interest in food, not very interested in playing, not very interested in praise. I don't most of us would actually like to own such a dog.

Very well said, Becca. [] As usual there's not a whole lot I could add any better than she does about this particular subject.

That being said, I *can* add that interestingly enough I find my working bred Border Collies to be FAR easier (and actually downright enjoyable) to live with than my poorly, randomly bred border collie mix - who got the worst of several traits, and missed some of the important ones (like the ability to settle, and biddability). Granted that's a small sample size, but fwiw the well bred working dogs I've met are just *like* that - nice to be with. I have to admit - I was surprised, initially. Then I realized - it's all part of the package.

Good discussion.