this is an interesting post
with my breed mals i think its ofgreat importance tobreed a dog
which is able to work well (is capable of doing the job)
as well as looking at aspects (mostlyfor the show ring)and paying a great importance
to exellent temps:)

I guess that the elusive point I am trying to get to is: How does one determine that a said dog DOES have the proper "working/hunting/whatever" original ability?
I know that in Border Collies, one person's sheep trial is another person's joke. Who gets to decide what is "good enough"? What determine's that a dog "can still do the work he was bred for?" Trials? Farm/field work? "Tests?"
I think that we may all have different ideas on what we require in a dog to state that we "still breed for original purpose."
I still wonder how important that "original purpose" is to each and every dog bred. Surely most of us buy our fowl at the market these days and mostly see sheep in Serta commercials. Does that make us unworthy to breed these dogs?
I suppose you would have to endure the full brunt of the "herding only" Border Collie people here in the States to truly understand my frustration.
Thanks again for all of your thoughts.
TiaLee

Hi I have read acouple of your sheep herding boards and understand how fanatical these people are.But the border collie is so versatile more so than they give credit for and so long as they are happy healthy well socialised and occupied I don't see the dog itself being unhappy doing things other than herding sheep and at the end of the day not even the puppy that comes form extremely focused working collies can be guarenteed to have their working abilities .Gillian