Last fall one of our pups (owned, trained, and run by a friend) placed 5th in the 2013 National Sheepdog Finals. This dog was out of my Peg and is a litter mate to our Nell and BJ. We decided we did not want to lose our line of dogs we've been running for over 10 years. We found a male to breed to our BJ; they bred today. Assuming all goes well we will be whelping pups during lambing season in March. Our plans are to keep 2 or maybe 3 pups from this litter and we already have a couple of other pups spoken for without advertising.Our pack will grow from 7 Border Collies to 9 or 10 (the absolute maximum number of crates for our van).Mark

That's exciting! March will be busy at your place. Hope you get a big, healthy litter. How'd you pick the sire this time? (The genetics are interesting to me)

What we do with our dogs is team work. You want to find dogs with personalities that you do well training; some are very stubborn (we call it hard) while some are very soft (cannot take much yelling). All dogs will have issues (genetic flaws) in their working ability; we find that there are some flaws we hate training on while there are other flaws that we don't mind training on and are good at training on. Since these flaws are genetic, they will always be there and training will be required to manage these flaws.I suppose you could think about our dog handler teams like beach volleyball doubles; pairing two players can make a poor team (teammates always fighting with each other) or a great team (individuals with complementary skills that cover the other’s flaws).Since we started competing with our dogs we have been watching a handler from Ontario running a line dogs she has been breeding (she breeds, trains, and competes with her own dogs); her dogs are consistently in the top 10 of North America. We believe her dogs have the personalities and working characteristics (styles) that we would do well working with and this male has characteristics we feel will complement those in our female.

Cool! I understand what you're saying - when you have great dogs who just "click" - yeah, I'd want to preserve that, too!

I have a wonderful memory of stopping at Pleasent Hill Shaker Village in Ky and they where having Sheepdog trials. It was amazing to watch. What beautiful dogs and so intelligent, it just blew us away. Just stumbled across it and it continues to be one of our best memories.

Adding to our pack of Border Collies | Good Sam Community

17 Replies

BCSnob
Explorer
Feb 13, 2014
One month to go.......
BCSnob
Explorer
Feb 13, 2014
BJ is picking at her kibble but has been very happy with scrambled eggs.
Her litter sister Nell was spayed Monday and is starting to eat again; she too has enjoyed eggs.
Our 11 young hens stared laying in November and we've been getting at least 6 eggs every day so there plenty to go around.

I'm home today, we got at least a foot of snow over night and another half or more is predicted today.
Time to feed the chickens, ducks, sheep, barn cats and to check on Sam.
CA_POPPY
Explorer
Feb 13, 2014
Poor BJ, I well remember morning sickness, blech! But it does turn into good news and fun awhile later. Best of luck for a batch of healthy pups!
corgi-traveler
Explorer
Feb 13, 2014
Any news?
Deb_and_Ed_M
Explorer II
Feb 10, 2014
Oooohhh - puppies on the way!!
xteacher
Explorer
Feb 10, 2014
Puppies coming! How exciting!! Photos, please, as soon as you're able.
BCSnob
Explorer
Feb 10, 2014
BJ, who is normally a very good eater, has not eaten the last two days.
This is a good sign.
corgi-traveler
Explorer
Jan 16, 2014
BCSnob wrote:
If the breeder is not planning on keeping a pup they are solely breeding for the money.

Agree! I would add "planning a litter to improve the breed" as well.
BCSnob
Explorer
Jan 16, 2014
Thank you for the well wishes on the litter.

We're hoping on a moderate sized litter (4-6 pups) since there are many other working Border Collie litters this year. We breed for ourselves but we will still need to find appropriate homes for those pups we do not keep.

In my opinion the underlined statement is key in determining breeding goals. If the breeder is not planning on keeping a pup they are solely breeding for the money.
corgi-traveler
Explorer
Jan 16, 2014
Best wishes for a healthy litter, may your worst difficulty be in choosing which pups to keep!

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Adding to our pack of Border Collies

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