Wiston Cap, the most used sire in working border collies.
My favorite post from Border Wars.
Oh. I forgot to mention it. Border Wars has returned! And you won’t get a virus if you visit the blog.
If you’ve not been there, it’s kind of like my blog, just it’s for border collies and the politics are very different.
actually the photos in the article more resemble the English Shepherd than the modern Border Collie. See for examples here:
http://www.englishshepherd.org/appearance.htm. No surprise, the English Shepherd is of an older type than the modern Border Collie. The oldest “type” is probably the Bearded Collie, followed by a multitude of types (Smithfield, a likely ancestor of Australian dogs), Welsh Sheepdogs (see http://www.welsh-sheepdogs.co.uk/), and “English Sheepdogs” as well as insular types (the original “Shetland Sheepdog” being one of these – see http://bowlingsite.mcf.com/SheltieHistory.html ). It’s quite true that the “lassie” type was promoted as “The” collie and most likely that Borzoi were used to “improve” the looks.
Vr.
Peggy Richter
I’ve actually written about this on the blog. Unfortunately, most of my links are in the comments section, but I did use those very site, especially the Welsh Sheepdog that could pass for a flat-coated retriever!
The Welsh sheepdog and English shepherd are the “original collie.” Trial breeding and large estates led to the stronger eye.
I think that Mr. Landauer would agree that they aren’t the same thing as the modern BC, but since one dog was from the Cheviot, it was technically a “border collie.”
Check out this: http://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2009/02/20/the-black-and-tan-color-in-the-way-coated-retriever-landrace/
Thanks for appreciating the work that went into that post. It was quite a task, and I think it paid off in bringing a lot of material that was rather obscure into greater light (and under the eye of search engines).
For all the info that is on the Net, there’s so much that isn’t, and much of what is there is invisible to the Google oracle.
The Queen Victoria = show collie shtick is all over the show breeder’s blogs and even published in “researched” books, but it’s all rather specious, as I believe I showed. I believe the show collie folks should hitch their wagon to Edward VII instead.
Of course, as I said in my post, we’re talking about a proto-Border Collie, seeing as neither the trials nor the name had been established and enshrined at this point in history. I believe that Sharp is a about a decade older than the first sheep trial, and the first BC registry didn’t start recording dogs until 1900. I avoided the more generic “collie” term because I believe it has been co-opted by the show collie people.
And if my Border Collie-centric analysis was not inclusive enough, it was simply to rub it in the noses of the show Collie folks. The obvious conclusion is less “those are Border Collies” and more “those are NOT show Collies!”
I wouldn’t put the Border Collie’s modern looks in as small of a box as I think you are Peggy. I don’t believe that looks alone are sufficient to differentiate a Border Collie from an English Shepherd (and my guess is that they are likely two of the most closely related breeds, genetically, certainly morphologically), and most of the dogs on the page you linked could easily be Border Collies.
That being said, I have a fascination with the English Shepherd and a glaring lack of deep knowledge of them. I’d even support a re-establishment of a collie landrace, and perhaps this will happen in my lifetime. I see the English Shepherd as the most logical place to look for genetic diversity for my dogs; you can regain some genes lost over 100 years of differentiation, without losing much.
In my “let’s rub it in the face of the show Collie folks” research, I have collected some old articles (they were complaining way back then!) from the 1920s that bemoan the loss of the Old Farm Dog. Great stuff.
I do know enough to understand that they aren’t English, they’re American and are part of the same collie differentiation that lead to the Australian (also American) Shepherd and the McNab dog.
But I don’t know enough to have gone as far as Retrieverman:
“If what I’ve read is correct, the English shepherd is the original collie landrace that once existed throughout the British isles as the small crofter’s dog. It was preserved in America. Perhaps out of that farm dog soup there existed dogs with strong retriever characteristics. This was why they made up some of the early retrievers. This is a retriever from collie extraction or a retrieving collie on the left: http://www.donaldheald.com/s5266.html”
Sadly, that link at the end isn’t working now.
No offense to the English Shepherd and its enthusiasts, but I didn’t choose them as the breed most closely related to the dogs owned by Q.V. due to their extensive American influence. When looking at the breeds, I think it’s common to downplay the great area they overlap and play-up the differences. To me, that makes the English Shepherds the sable dogs, as this appears to be very common in the breed and it’s very rare in Border Collies.
I meant the English shepherd type. Really the Welsh sheepdog is closer tot he original:
Here’s that same painting in the link: http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/francis-grant-1803-1878-the-shooting-party-ranton
(Click zoom)
Yes, I remember you discussing that black and tan dog, part of my inspiration to find more photos of proto-BCs.
And I wasn’t criticizing your analysis, I simply haven’t found specifics on the ES and its cultivation on either side of the pond. It’s all very generic and vague. Much of my BC knowledge comes in tracing pedigrees. It becomes very clear who imported dogs from who, and when.
I do believe that genetic analysis will give us answers we have lost, and future genetic procedures just might assuage some of the damage we have done with narrowing gene pools.
I think the English shepherd’s roots lie with the early cattle and sheep droving enterprises in the early years of the republic.
With English shepherds you really don’t have a lot of specifics.
Goldens are like border collies. You can follow their pedigrees like biblical genealogies.
But multipurpose farm dogs, we don’t have that luxury.
If you were to show me photos of Welsh sheepdogs, ES’s, Aussies with tails (especially working ranch dogs), some Australians koolies, German “tiger dogs,” and BC’s, I’d have a hard time tell them apart just by looking at them.
I have to take exception with Christopher’s comment about English Shepherds being American. This is a common myth, sure the English Shepherd has undergone some changes in America, but this breed can be traced back in a form quite similar to that found in America today, to the early 1800s in Britain. Check out the picture on this page http://bit.ly/71zpK7 comparing an 1847 illustration of an English Shepherd’s Dog with the illustration from the UKC English Shepherd breed standard.
There are certain versions of the Welsh sheep dog that really look like English shepherds.
I love your website. My first dog (ever, as in I was but a baby when he was around) was landrace farm collie.