I want you to look at this photo.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ACD_Silverbarn%27s_Mayumi.jpg
I’d of used it as a header but it’s not in public domain. (But it is under one of the creative commons.)
I ask this question:
Does a dog club have any moral responsibilities?
Like to direct it’s members along a safe and socially responsible path?
Shouldn’t all clubs organize in a way where they will do the least harm possible harm?
IMO, and I’ve thought this over in my mind for several years, it works best to have ball herding contests instead of sheep herding contests, except for the ranchers themselves.
Let me ask you this: which is your first focus, sheep or dogs that herd sheep?
A rancher is focused on his livestock, his dogs help him with that task.
A dog breeder is focused on her dogs, the sheep are just something for the dogs to herd.
It might not sound important to you, but it makes all the difference in a person’s outlook.
I watched some videos on YouTube of novices teaching their pet dogs to herd sheep. It makes me feel sick, because I understand where that leads. Please people, there is a better way.
Teach your dogs to heard balls.
You can start your dogs when they are puppies, much younger than what you could start them on sheep. You can herd balls in the city or in your yard. Balls won’t poop on your rug.
Balls are much easier to transport, never require vet care, and come in different sizes for each age of your dog’s life.
The problem is in the entrenchment of leaders and organizers. People whose dogs are doing well in competing at SHEEP herding don’t want to switch to an activity that their dogs wont win at.
Maybe a few of you are bobbing up and down at your computers, wanting to say “But we are improving sheep herding dogs”.
Please don’t make me explain it to you – you wont like the truth. If you are going to get all sensitive, just quit reading, and go back to a site where everybody will tell you how right you all are.
The truth is that real ranchers have been producing their own herding dogs for thousands of years, and don’t need your ‘help’, or that of pet or show dog kennel clubs.
Anything you do to help a kennel club horn into the domain of ranchers, is only going to hurt the ranchers. They are better off without you, and your trying to ‘help’ decide which herding dogs should be bred.
Look what dog shows have done to the collie. Naturally, dog shows make a herding breed into a show breed. That’s just how it is.
If all the dogs on earth were dog-napped by space aliens and only pugs were left, ranchers would work with what they had, and in time, create long nosed, bigger pugs that herd sheep.
Trappers would create taller, longer nosed, thicker coated pugs to pull sled.
Riflemen would bred those pugs best at being bird dogs. They would look for the little variations within the pug breed, and breed only those dogs best suited for bird hunting. In time they would create pugs that point birds, pugs that flush birds into the air, pugs that fetch shot ducks.
The pit bull fighter would create a line of fighting pugs.
Remember Biology 101? Darwin’s finches. A few finches got blown to a group of islands in the pacific ocean where there had been no birds.
As the generations passed, each group of finches developed their own specialized way of living. In time, they evolved to have the kind of beaks needed for how they lived. They became different kinds of finches.
(If you want to read about it – but it’s a very dry version:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin%27s_finches
If you breed dogs that are good at herding trails – you will cause your breed to evolve into dogs that are good at herding trails. This is NOT the same thing as being useful at herding sheep on a ranch.
By using dogs that actually come from real herding lines, you risk contaminating true herding lines with dogs that are not useful on a real ranch.
I too, believed all the hype about herding dog breeds and flockbonders – until one day when I was a teenager, and I spoke with the Navajo – especially one old woman with a huge herd of sheep that ran loose, and the few dogs that helped her.
Then I understood that what I read, had been wrong, and ever after when I heard people quoting junk at of books on how to train your pet dog to be a good sheep herder – I recognised what I was hearing for what it was.
In time, you may understand too, but the truth is not hidden. It is right there for all to see. Somebody who knows nothing of sheep and nothing of dogs might see the truth before somebody who has spent years studying training dogs to herd sheep.
But when your self esteem and your feelings of (oh what’s the word?) . . .your desire to feel that your good at something, are involved – you understand what makes you feel good, not what’s really there.
That’s why people who know nothing about dog shows often see it more clearly, than those who are into it. “too close to the forest to see the trees”?
Usually, dogs that are good at herding sheep, come from parent dogs who are good at herding sheep, not from top show winners. Just like top show winners usually come from other show winning dogs, not off a ranch from dogs that shepherd people have kept for generations.
You can’t just go to a ranch and pick an unregistered puppy from a line of true working bred dogs, slap false papers on it and expect it to win at dog shows.
And you can’t breed a group of dogs to be show dogs, and then after 60 years of being show dogs, take a puppy onto a ranch and expect it to well.
Oh it might herd sheep, but it is likely to be a real effort to train, or need supervision, and near constant control. Just like a ranch bred collie, if papers were put on it, could ENTER dog shows – but that doesn’t mean it would win.
There are things that herding dogs can learn to do, other than herding sheep. They can pull carts, tracking, do obedience, learn to be sniffer dogs, learn square dancing with dogs, fetch tossed plastic disks, and learn tricks with balls, and to herd balls.
Find how your dog would like to work a ball too big to pick up with his mouth – he might have a talent for herding balls, or you can teach him.
Why should a person who lives in a city want to raise dogs to sell to ranchers?
Let the ranchers fill their own little niche. Tending sheep when you don’t have a ranch is a big hassle, you have to drive to where the sheep are. Weather isn’t good. Ball herding, you just toss the balls in the car and go.
If you are really into LEARNING about other points of views on dogs, read:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/pet-treaty/messages
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/political_dog_law/messages
http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/
http://retrieverman.wordpress.com/
When you are done with all of that, you might understand why training pet dogs to herd sheep, and breeding pet dogs/ show dogs as working ranch dogs, is not good for the future of the breed.
The bigger market for puppies is people wanting a pet.
Breed dogs who make good pets.
Breed dogs who are tolerant of little kids, with their hugging, running, and screaming.
Breed dogs that naturally are very easy to housetrain.
Breed dogs that can be left in the house while people are at work –
without destroying the furniture.
Breed dogs that don’t bark much.
Breed dogs that are healthy.
That’s a tall list.
But if you want to produce dogs that are good pets, then you must understand that being a GOOD pet, an excellent pet, is a more worthy goal, and a sometimes a harder one to get right, than being a show dog.
Don’t just call them pets. They are specializist at being good inside of a house, with a family, Call them “housedogs”.
Doghome 
