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Originally Posted by LavenderRott
The standard gives a size range, different coat types and different colors.
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Just because the standard may accept many different looks, doesn't mean that all will place equally as well in the show ring. If a certain "type" becomes the judges preference that is what people will be breeding to attain, regardless of how many other looks are acceptable, and if breeding for a specific look takes precedence over breeding for working ability it is to the detriment of the breed. I recall when we had great danes and were talking with one breeder who retired from showing her dogs just because of such a thing. Her dogs were of heavier European lines but the leaner American lines had become more favourable in the ring. Her particular "type" of dane was out of favour in the show ring so rather than begin breeding to fit into the ring she retired from showing and stayed true to the lines which had produced her many champions in the past.
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If your best BC, working wise, was a tiny 25 pound bitch - would you really want to breed her? No matter what the work ethic - the breed is most certainly meant to be larger then that and one would hope that a breeder who truly loves the breed wouldn't.
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Is that statement not a contradiction of sorts to what you said earlier? You suggested breeding a show champion with less than stellar working ability to a dog with strong drive as a form of compensation, (trying to breed back in the drive/instincts that should inherently already be there). Why could you not breed that 25 pound high drive bitch to a larger high drive dog and produce pups that will grow to be average sized adults, well within the breed "standard"
and will do the job they'e meant to do? I'm just curious why you think it's okay to compensate in one area but not the other?
Here is something you may find interesting, it is an excerpt from
http://www.bordercollie.org/bcchar.html if you wish to read the whole page.
"
Appearance
While a group of one hundred Border Collies will probably look as if they belong to the same breed, they will not have a uniform appearance.
Since a "good" dog can be judged only by its herding performance, there is no "breed standard" of appearance to which Border Collies should conform. In general, they are of medium size (25-55 pounds), with coats that may be smooth, medium, or rough. Colors are black, black with tan, and, less common, reddish-brown, all usually with white markings. Predominantly white Border Collies and merles, though unusual, also occasionally appear.
Border Collie Registries
The original registry for working sheepdogs is the International Sheep Dog Society in Great Britain. In 1946 two words, "Border Collie," were added to the pedigree to ensure that the dogs were not confused with the British Kennel Club's Collie. In North America, the principal registry for working dogs is the American Border Collie Association, Inc. (
www.americanbordercollie.org), 82 Rogers Road, Perkinston, MS 39573. The only registry of Canadian Border Collies is the Canadian Border Collie Association (
www.canadianbordercollies.org), Werner Reitbock, Secretary, Box 424, Winchester, ON, K0C 2K0, Canada. The United States Border Collie Club, Inc., supports these registries for their efforts to preserve and promote the working Border Collie.
Despite strong opposition from all people who value the genetic heritage of the breed, both the Kennel Club in Great Britain and the American Kennel Club have taken up the registration of Border Collies. They have imposed written physical standards as breeding guidelines and award titles for conformation in dog shows. In Australia, New Zealand, and Britain, where a strain of Border Collies has been bred for dog shows for twenty years or more,
those dogs have a predictable physical type, but their ability to herd livestock has been severely compromised.
The United States Border Collie Club, Inc., opposes registering Border Collies with organizations, such as the American Kennel Club, which offer conformation classes for Border Collies. Since its formation in 1975, a primary purpose of the USBCC has been to protect working Border Collies from misguided efforts to create a breed based on physical characteristics instead of on skill in herding livestock.
The United States Border Collie Club, Inc.
The USBCC is the oldest Border Collie breed club in North America. Founded to protect the Border Collie's unique genetic heritage, protecting the Border Collie remains the club's task today. It took five hundred years of single-minded breeding to produce the Border Collie. In the latter part of the twentieth century it took only a couple of decades for dog-show fanciers in several sheep-raising countries to reduce their selected strain to just another pretty pet."