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CONSERVING THE SHEPHERDS' DOGS
By David Hancock

If England became rich on wool then the dogs driving the sheep must surely be of great value. But a number of our famous pastoral breeds are in serious decline, some admittedly succeeding as companion dogs but not in great numbers. The shepherd dogs of Britain covered by the title of Border Collie (when registered with the KC) or working sheepdog (usually registered with the ISDS, although KC-registered dogs, described as working sheepdogs do compete in agility, obedience and fly-ball contests). In the pastures you see highly efficient if not always very handsome dogs, diligently performing their centuries-old tasks. In the show ring they thrive, but it’s alarming to read a show judge’s report that states: “I haven’t been around the show world for about four years. The Border Collies presented to me came in four different types. Slab-sided and narrow headed (athletic). Square incorrect height to length ratio, incorrect forehand, i.e. forward placed shoulder, steep upper arm and square croup, short-coupled (majority). Dwarf small usually profuse coat (glamorous).” Clearly now is the time for inspired selection of breeding stock, strict observance of the Breed Standard and the pursuit of mental alertness and physical soundness so often demonstrated in the trials’ dogs.

The Trials Dogs

Competitions between dogs and their owners have long been a feature of rural life. They have been accused of developing dogs principally for the trials, spaniels too ‘hot’ for your average shooter to handle and retrievers too light-boned for sustained work in the sporting field and ‘flashier’ sheepdogs to satisfy their appeal for the judges. But a desire to compete was behind the first sheepdog trial, run between ten dogs at Bala in North Wales, in 1873. But as Eric Halsall has pointed out in his Sheepdogs – My Faithful Friends of 1980: “A trial is simply planned to assess ability and is obviously of great practical value in determining the qualities of the dogs taking part. Good dogs can, and do, delight in their prowess; the human braggards – whose dogs perform wonderful feats on the hill! – have their teeth drawn; and the watchers choose their potential breeding stock. Wherever sheep are farmed, trials are held and in today’s competition when entries reach towards a hundred, even at the remotest trials, it is a very good collie that wins.” It is good to know that there are now field trials for show collies, whether Border or Beardie. Herding sheep makes unique demands on a dog; their role depends on control.

The ‘Strong-eyed’ Sheepdog

In this role, a certain type of dog is needed. The dog's instinctive defence of territory is harnessed to guard a pasture. The dogs then, without human direction, place themselves between an approaching predator and the stock in their remote pasture. This is in stark contrast with the herding breeds, hyper-active dogs which stalk, chase, bully, bark at and even bite sheep to impose their will on them. These are the 'header-stalkers', using classic canine predatory behaviour, inherited from wild ancestors. They usually feature the prick ears and long muzzles of those wild ancestors, although drop-eared dogs like the Pointers and Setters of the shooting field also make use of this instinctive ‘restrained’ focus. These dogs have to be controlled by human voice or whistle. Just as the Beardie combined the skills of driving and herding, the shorter coated working sheepdog, usually described as a 'collie', using the 'header-stalker' technique rather than that of the flock guardian, not only matched them but suited the changing ways of farming. As the railways did away with the need for drovers and the acreage of common grazing land decreased, there was a need for dogs able to move stock from one fenced pasture to another, to pen them for shearing and health checks and get them on to vehicles for market. It is likely that these shorter coated farm collies were not widely used in Wales and southern England until the livestock industry adapted to new transport opportunities. The Border Collie or working sheepdog of sheepdog trial fame is the best known 'strong-eyed' breed in the world, so-called because it exerts control over sheep by assertive eye contact and aggressive body positioning.

In his The Farmer’s Dog of 1975, John Holmes has written: “To revert to the question of ‘eye’, this is a subject which is often misunderstood. First of all ‘strong eye’ is not essential in the working dog and I have known many excellent ‘loose-eyed’ dogs. It can be, and often is, a liability rather than an asset…It is, in fact, a comparatively recent innovation, having been developed to its present-day strength only since sheepdog trials started, and then solely in the type of sheepdog which proved most successful at the trials.” But in his Sheepdogs at Work of 1979, Tony Iley writes: “In approximately 1790 the presence of ‘eye’ was recorded by James Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd-poet. He refers to it in a matter of fact way without surprise, leading us to believe that it was not a new innovation…James Scott of Overhall, Hawick (International Champion 1908 and 1909), said that he had not seen ‘eye’ in dogs until 1875, when he saw it in a bitch owned by John Crozier, a herd at Teviot Water, who got her from Northumberland. Because of this it can be concluded that ‘eye’ developed in various isolated families of dogs in the period between 1740 and 1870. At this time it would not be widespread, and its value would not be fully realized until the early trials began, starting with the first trial at Bala in Merioneth, Wales, in 1873.” In 1894, the supremely capable Old Hemp, reputed to have ‘eyes that blazed’, became the father of today’s working collie. He died in 1901 but not before siring over 200 top-class offspring.

The ability of a dog to identify individual animals is illustrated by an anecdote in the Rev Charles Williams's 'Dogs and Their Ways' of 1863: "Lord Truro told Lord Brougham of a drover's dog, whose sagacious conduct he observed when he happened on one occasion to meet a drove. The man had brought seventeen out of twenty oxen from a field, leaving the remaining three there mixed with another herd. He then said to the dog, 'Go, fetch them,' and he went and singled out those very three." Different terrain and difficult sheep-rearing country led to different instincts being instilled in the sheepdogs. In their stunningly illustrated Hill Shepherd – A Photographic Essay of 1989, John and Eliza Forder write: “’Cur’ or ‘barking’ dogs have been used in the Lake District for generations and are bred especially for the job of shifting sheep in difficult terrain. They are trained to bring sheep away from crags, cliffs and undergrowth, while a sheepdog from lower, ‘cleaner’ country may resort to sinking its teeth into them through sheer frustration. Herdwick sheep, local to Lakeland, will outwit shepherds and dogs if they can.” Waist-high bracken, unfenced pastures and cruelly-concealed crags challenge both dog and shepherd; they simply have to work as a team, in this timeless rural scene.

Morphological Changes

All over the world there are enthusiasts at work, pioneering their particular breed or type of dog. Most work with established breeds, ideally in pursuit of enhancement. Some work towards kennel club recognition for their favoured type; others are seeking variations on breeds already recognised, some are seeking to avoid the inbred or exaggerated features of accepted breeds and many just promote superlative heeling or herding dogs and don't give a damn about kennel clubs. They are mostly nonconformists and often deserve our admiration. As Emerson put it a hundred and fifty years ago: 'Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.' The slavish adherence to a closed gene pool is not always wise and it takes a nonconformist, as Emerson hinted, to be prepared to stand alone. The recognition of a breed usually relies on vigorous promotion by a group of enthusiasts rather than vision from a kennel club. Such enthusiasts have to be careful to respect type in their chosen breed, not alter its appearance to suit their concept.