What is a Border Collie

The original border collie may have been bred to herd sheep, but that's certainly not all they're doing now. This breed is phenominal in fast, focused sports like flyball.

Popularity in these sports is driving competition, and a demand for the fastest dogs. A lot of times, the fastest dogs are border collies, but the drive is for the fastest of the fastest. In the hopes of producing even faster dogs, border collies are being bred only for the factors that make good flyball dogs - fast, extreme drive, relentless endurance.

Those skills are the extreme end of a subset of skills that make good herding dogs. But, they are only part of the skills of a good herding dog. Concern among "traditional" border collie fans is that there is a new version of the border collie being created, a "flyball" collie - a lesser version of the herding dog they love.

Another concern voiced is that often those breeding for flyball are breeding for that brief flash of glory without concern for or seeming awareness of long term or even mid term genetic effect. There is no oversight or outside input into the breeding decisions. They are breeding for fast, hyper, high-drive dogs. While these may be good qualities in a flyball dog, in excess, they lead to neurotic, obsessive, reactive, dogs.

Crazy dogs do not make good herders. They do not make good pets. They do not make good agility dogs. Taken to extreme, these qualities do not even make good flyball dogs.

Another term you will hear tossed around by some border collie afficianados is "Barbie Collie."

Huh?

The border collie is a relatively recent addition to the AKC registry. There are many other registries out there, ABCA, BCA, Stockdog, ISDN, and a slew of others.

There is a long history of border collies being bred to do one thing - herd sheep - and they are often astoundingly good at it. But, you can't judge sheepherding in a show ring. In a show ring, all you can judge is how the dog looks, not how it will perform. So, some feel dog shows are just dog beauty contests, where the champion dogs are the "pretty" dogs.

This controversy can get quite vehement. There websites and endless forum threads on how being included in the AKC has ruined breeds of dogs, because the dogs are being bred for appearence, only. Some registries won't even accept dogs that are registered in other registries.

Well . . . not so much.

You see, there is "Hobby Herding." Hobby herding is when people teach their dogs herding even though they do not own sheep, or only own a few for the dog to practice with.

Hobby herding is actually practiced with many different breeds of dogs. Many, many different breeds of dogs were originally bred for herding.

So, what's a REAL border collie? Who gets to say? Well, that's something that is still being decided. They are dogs who were bred for herding and became the eminent herding dogs. People used them for agility, frisbee, and flyball, and they excelled at all of those. Border collies seem to try to be whatever you want them to be.

But you know one when you see it.