Adding to our pack of Border Collies

We've heard wonderful things about the trials held at Shaker Village; except for the year it rained so hard during the trial that the creek overflowed its banks flooding the road to and from the trial field. Many handlers were stranded and had to wait for the flood waters recede.

I'll have to call my cousin in DC for her help with socializing the pups; I'm sure she'll endure the task.

The male has been a joy to have around; his temperament is rock solid. BJ came into season earlier than we were expecting. The male was in UT breeding another female. The male was shipped from UT to us. He stepped out of the crate at the cargo pick-up as if everything was normal. He walked into our house (after a long car ride back in his crate), checked everything out, and acted like this will work. Between whining for BJ and chilling he'll come over, lean into us looking for attention.

I hope the breeding takes! I also wish more breeders were like you - breeding dogs that will complement each other's strengths/flaws.

:)

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.

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

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.

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)