Canis lupus hominis

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Australian shepherd, border collie, Elvis, English Shepherd, Farm collie, Lacey dog, McNab shepherd, Old Shep | 4 Comments

4 Responses

1. on May 4, 2009 at 10:54 pm Christopher

   I’ve read that article before and tried to find old bits and pieces of it in the internet archive. Good stuff really. Since that site seems to be up and down, more down than up, I wanted to preserve some of the findings in my series on Queen Victoria and the common history that links all the breeds you mentioned.

   Those posts have gotten the most search engine hits ever since I posted them (even more than the sickos searching for sexual fetishes that happen upon my innocent posts which discuss dog breeding), so I know there’s interest out there and not a lot of information that has survived.

   Almost every Rough Collie show breeder site will give you the false history, but very few sites out there collect the grass roots effort to save the farm collie, a movement that is 100 years old.

   
   
   • on May 5, 2009 at 12:59 am retrieverman

     I’ve been visiting that site with some regularity since it was first put up in the late 90’s. It’s a really good resource for collie history.

     I think we’re going to see lots more grassroots “preservation” movements as show-type dogs become distorted from their original form and function.

     Collie-types are working people’s dogs. They really don’t have the extensive records that nobles’ dogs have. My breed is a nobles’ dog, so it’s got a very detailed history of its original and a great wealth of photographic evidence that shows what they were like. So preserving them is somewhat harder than with my dogs; however, half the people who own my breed don’t think it can still do its original work.

     
     
2. on May 5, 2009 at 2:26 pm Miki

   Great article, especially the part that describes the effect of the dog show movement on breeds/breed types. The color question and breed standards were raised again on one of the poodle lists and the usual breed purists tried to smack down any and all questioners with references to a mythological class of “Those Most Knowledgeable of All Things Poodle Since the Beginning of Time” which was met with a brutal smack down from a woman who happens to know quite a bit about the history of dogs/dog breeds/poodles/Curly Coated Water Dogges, etc. (she used the word “deranged”). (Emily Cain – “owner” of http://www.poodlehistory.org )

   Here’s something scary – the breed purists are mostly either retired school teachers or school teachers nearing retirement….

   I’ll be linking to this article in a comment on that thread.

   Thanks again.

   
   
   • on May 5, 2009 at 3:07 pm retrieverman

     That’s a very good site.

     Having parents who are retiring school teachers, that is one scary proposition!

     I like that site. The poodle-types are the ancient ancestors of my dogs, so I the more I know about them, the more I understand my dogs.

     
     

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