I have a working/pet labrador and would love to add a border terrier to our family.  Most people seem to have show dogs only.  Do working border terrier breeders exist and if so, where?!
elizabeth@green-cricket.co.uk

Try the sporting/farming papers but a good many of the show borders and well into vermin control if that is what you are looking for.

ALL Border terriers should be capable of working, as the first line in its standard reads "Esentially a working Terrier"  People don't just breed working Terriers, they have to become workers and be given the oppertunity to do so.  The best workers in the world can produce dogs that won't work, the same goes for show dogs, two champions can produce a load of rubbish!  I work my Borders and I show and race them, they are all what people would call "show" bred, makes no difference at all.  Breed characteristics will come through!  What exactly do you want from a Border? do you want to work the dog?
Dawn.

You got in before me Dawn, thats exactly what I was going to say.

All of mine are just as capable of working as they are of winning in the show ring. In fact many of my pups are sold to working homes.

We are not like a lot of breeds where there is a split between working and show lines.

I just wish that applied to the gundog breeds :( Labradors are so separated now that there is no chance. A few people work their show dogs but they are few and far between. Most working lines would get absolutely no where in the ring. The last dual champion was Knaith Banjo born in 1946! Goldens are realistically no better and as I said in another post yesterday, I can see the end of the dual purpose Flatcoat within the next 10 years!

Am I alone in thinking that a working Labrador should at least LOOK something like the breed it purports to be and that a show Labrador should at least LOOK as if it could spend a day in the field?

Best wishes, John

You and me both, John. Lone voices in the wilderness? I hope not.

No, I'll join the club, have to say the Labs I see in the show ring do not appeal at all, but I know a little black working Lab that I would love to own.

John, I sincerely hope we don't see the end of the dual-purpose Flatcoat :(
A dog in the Show Ring, that is capable of doing the job it was bred for, seems to be a thing of the past!!

liberty

Have a look at my post last night to Polly, on the "Breed Standards." thread Alison. Mark my words, it WILL come! So many breeders in Flatcoats do not work their dogs. Several have come into the breed after years of showing other breeds, usually Goldens, where the lines are so diverged, and have no interest in work. The Honourable Amelia Jessel, who did so much for the dual purpose Flatcoat has gone. Other show/work people are getting older. As I said, the day will come.

John :(

I've just read the post you mentioned John, :( Whatever next..Golden Flatties..because they 'look nicer'????

liberty :(

Totally in agreement with you on that one John

Thats why Border breeders tend to be so passionate about keeping the dual purpose of the breed.

In my opinion there is no such thing as a working bred Border Terrier or a Show bred Border Terrier, they are the same thing.:-) Thank goodness.

I think the same thing applies to the ESS as to the labrador and the other breeds you mentioned, the working and the show type are chalk and cheese in both looks and brains.

Jayne

Working border terriers certainly do exist! I have a friend who breeds them - if you contact your local hunt they will know who you should get in touch with.

Hi, Try the Hanleycastle or Maxton lines, not sure if Maxton still breeds now though, will try to find out for you.  My father many years ago had Border Terriers, he worked and showed them. Even made Crufts with a working show dog.

As for working show labs, that is exactly what I intend to do with Bailey, he is bred from show lines but has taken to gundog training like a duck to water, so who knows. eh, dont hold your breath though.

Kay

This thread has set me wondering about my own breed, they are bred to hunt Elk so we can't in this country prove them in work, as well as the show ring. In their native Norway they have to be proven in the field (forest) before they can become champions in the show ring. Now until recent times there has been a steady flow of imports from Norway, which to some extent stopped our breed becoming too anglicised, although you did and do see overweight and heavy course specimens from time to time most remained more or less true to their purpose. In recent years there has not been any imports, I may be wrong but think the last litter bred to a Norwegian dog was an A.I. litter and it is a good while since any hounds have been imported from Norway. Now most our imports are being brought from the USA, they may be nice dogs but I am worried now I have thought about it, that we may start to loose the connection to Norway and start to model our dogs on the type seen in the American show ring. For me it would be a pity if we slowly start to loose the Elkhound as we have know it.

There are other owners on this forum and I hope they will give their thoughts, perhaps most would like our hounds to be more like the American dogs and a little less workmanlike.

Thankfully wven in the USA there are breeders who want to see dogs that are true to their Norwegian heritage, and not overdone in head and size as are many of the dogs that do well in their Group rings.

Some of these are saddened by the demise of some of the old Norwegian hunter breeders who had knowledge of generations of stock, as over there as everywhere people keep fewer dogs, and your average hunter will not have that sort of in depth knowledege and rely on the club stud list and record of the males working ability when choosing a mate for their bitch to beget their next working dog.  Their choices will mainly be utilitarian and not conformation to breed type. 

What keeps them all still mostly typical is the fact that a Good worker cannot get it's field title UNLESS it can get a first quality grading at a conformation show. 

That keeps the workers looking like the breed they are, as well as the show dogs keeping their working traits, as they have to have their working qualifications before they can earn their certificats towards their show titles.

This situation does make it difficlt for us who wish to bring in new stock as often there is a lot of variation in acceptable type in the breeding of the stock available, and it takes us several generations to blend with what we have to get some uniformity, and as soon as we do we are in need of new blood.

For good or bad some of the US imports have mostly produced like themsleves whatever the bitches they were mated to.  It is far easier to do the pedigree research and make contacts with US breeders because of our common language, and more difficult to do the same with some of the Norwegians who are not as deeply into the show side of things.  I do think it is time for another good Norwegian dog to be brought in or used to keep a balance which I think we have between a workmanlike looking dog with some glamour too. 

I also wish that more of our dogs were utilised in some way.  Very few do anything other than show or lead a pets life, and the Americans have proved that they can do really well in Agility, their equivalent of Working Trials and Obedience (maybe their system of working to reach a set standard, rather than outright winning encourages different breeds than those that usually dominate and excel in these sports in the UK).

Would not be right for me to comment in detail on any dog in the ring now or in the recent past, but would agree I do hope that those who have the future of our breed are careful what they import, particularly if they are males. It is surprising that even now it is possible some generations latter to see the influence that Anton has left on our breed, most are characteristics we are pleased to see but at least one we could do without, but that may be just our taste. I would not however wish to suggest that his input was not a good thing, but he may have been over used to the extent that his genes will affect our breed for years to come.   As far as your last para. is concerned, I think it may be because of the circumstance of the owners in this country, a good proportion being "past their prime" and the rest busy with children and only just able to train their dogs enough to be good citizens and for the show ring. It seems it is only those who have older children who are interested in dogs who will do other sorts of sport with them. Have done a little obedience with some of mine but none of them enjoy it much and I have given up after a short while, no one wants to show a dog that is bored with working.

John

The dual-purpose flatcoat will never disappear if I have my way, and luckily my Chris has just taken  over part-ownership of our affix, so if he lets the principle drop I'll haunt him from the grave!!!

I must show you our latest pups working now - they're splendid, but URC classes keep clashing with tests.   The bitch has 2 working awards already.    And it was she that took best bitch pup at the Champ show out of 40-something pups.    All F/T on dam's side, and about 50% on Dad's.   

And the same is most likely true of Polly's new lad.

No - we'll never let the b***** grind us down and split the breed!

Your dogs are true Dual purpose Jo, winning in the ring and the field as are Polly's and the dogs belonging to Downstream and Brie on this board as are several more people in the breed. You know who they are as well if not better than me. But the fact remains that the snowballing in the popularity of the breed, particulaly in the ring (And to a certain extent in the field) will cause problems in the future with the breed splitting. In the old days the few breeders around went out of their way to work as well as show but look at the breed ring now and count how many working people there are in the ring now and compare it with what you remember the percentage to have been say 20 years ago.

I look forward to seeing your dogs again and am so pleased that you have added Chris onto your affix. I'm sure he will do you proud :)

Best wishes, John

My reference to Anton was to explain my concern that just one dogs influence can do a lot to change the over all feel of a breed and it would be possible (if those changes were undesirable) for those changes to be accepted as being normal for the breed, even if it was not truly in line with the standard it becomes accepted and after a while judges do not even notice. I was in no way criticising Anton or his ancestors (LOL I have a few myself) was just using him to try to explain how I felt about the influence one hound can make on a breed that is as small as ours.

The last Norwegian-dog sired litter in our breed was that sired in October 2002 by a Swedish and Norwegian Show and Hunting Champion which resulted in three males.  The owner had travelled to Norway to mate her bitch to a dog that is generally considered by Scandinavian breeders to be amongst the very best sires.  To my knowledge, no one expressed any interest in keeping one of the males and the breeder was not in a position to, and they are in pet homes and lost to us.  There was also a dog imported directly from Norway.
Having been to both a USA National Specialty and one of the larger shows in Norway (twice), I can tell you that type is indeed very different.  There were some dogs in the USA that looked as if they could do a day's work, but they were not in the majority.  Some of that may be to do with fitness, as the hunting dogs are so well-muscled, it just pulls everything together!  A treadmill or gentle roadwork and half an hour in the park as they might get here cannot reproduce that kind of fitness.  It does not account for the difference in size though.  In Norway they use the measure, and anything that is too big (or conversely, too small) goes out and is not judged.  That's not to say that the American dogs do not have their value, good conformation and good colour etc.,  - they have their points, but it's perhaps not the best place to go for a hunting type dog.  Some of the worst quality dogs I've ever seen I saw in Norway, but also some of the best.  I'm aware that as the National I visited was on the East Coast, there may be other dogs on the West Coast that I didn't see, also that seeing as I have visited only two shows in Norway over a two year period, I don't have the knowledge that people that have been visiting over the last twenty years have, but at least I've a good idea of what they should look like, aided by Olav Campbell's book!
It has always been my family's aim in our few litters to produce a dog that looks like the real thing, even though the Norwegians think we're mad keeping them at all because we can't hunt with them.  It has helped that the majority of our dogs have carried recent Scandinavian lines.  Unfortunately, that probably means that they will not do as well in the ring at the moment, as the current fashion seems to be for a somewhat larger, heavier dog than the hunting type.  It has been so before, and will come round again no doubt - seems to go in cycles.  Very few of our judges have seen the dogs in their native country.  They do not know how the dog is used in the field, nor have they seen the terrain, so they cannot apply the importance of conformation in helping the dog to do its job e.g. the importance of a compact, lithe body for agility, a good layback of shoulder and a little give at the pastern to minimize the impact of hours of moving over uneven ground and so on.  Hence comments in critiques over the years like "really looked as if he could bring down his elk" which of course an elkhound does not do.
The use of particular stud dogs in preference to others, whatever their origin, is not a new phenomena in our breed.  Looking back, it has happened ever since we came into it, over a quarter of a century ago now.  What has changed is the overall number of dogs being bred, so whereas a dog siring seven litters twenty years ago might not have that much of an impact, now it has a very great impact, potentially on the health of our breed and certainly on the appearance.  In my opinion, part of that problem has been caused by our being perhaps overzealous in the past in removing entirely lines that threw up health problems - we did it ourselves when we did not breed from our Trygg because of his distant connection (25% chance of being a carrier) to an eye problem that it seems now may have been misdiagnosed.  We lost some breeders entirely that way, and our gene pool has certainly got smaller.  Of course, to leave them in might have resulted in more cases and that's not good either, which is why we took Trygg out of the picture, although he had bitches booked to him.  I don't know the answer to that one.  It's now harder to breed to type as you need to outcross every so often to dogs that may not fit your ideal.  I don't blame people for wanting to use dogs that they believe to be clear from genetic problems, but in some ways it does not help us.  There aren't that many lines available to us in this country, and it doesn't really help to import more if everyone rushes to use the new import.  Again I have no answers.  Find the whole thing depressing really.

Thanks Ness, find your comments interesting, I have not been fortunately to see either Norwegian or USA Elkhounds in their own countries, only photos, and that can be misleading particularly those of show dogs in the states because of their grooming methods. On the other hand because I have not seen outside our own stock I view the changes in the overall stock and the effects each favoured studs has on it.

Your comments on the health concerns, throwing the baby out with the bath water syndrome, is valid. At a loss to know what we can do about it though, perhaps in time DNA will help. At the moment the over use of a stud is frightening when you consider that it could be caring "something" that could wreck our breed in the UK before we were aware of it. Do not think this applies to the stock bought in from the states as their health is as well documented as our own but I do sometimes worry about those in Europe. As you say language is a problem in Europe, can't win can we.

Sorry did not know about the litter you refer too, know I have not been around so much in the last year or so, and have not picked up the gossip. Perhaps we need a more wildly based grape vine, if more people had known perhaps the new blood would not have been lost to us.

Photos and videos were all I had for years, that and the help and advice of mentors, several of whom had visited shows in Scandinavia.  It's only through the generosity of friends who have a house in Norway that I've been able to fulfil my dream and see the dogs in their native country.  I could never have afforded it otherwise.  I have been so lucky in my friends.  I think the main thing for both you and me (and there are other people in the breed that feel the same way) is an interest in keeping the breed looking like a working animal, even if they can't be used to hunt.  Just taking the time to study photos is proof of that interest - it's more than some people bother to do.  Of course it's entirely possible that they are normal people who have other things to do in their lives, not dog-obsessives like me who think and talk about nothing else for many hours of the day.

JH ..The  problem is  the people who shoot like my friend with her 2 lovely sleek Lab don't go to enough dog shows or study the breed for ten years before breeding, sadly they are only interested in healthy working dogs and not breeding fat slow ones they can show, they  just don't listen to the experts :-) But what can we do? Ban them from breeding I say!!

Sorry I have no idea what you are talking about, if you do perhaps you will explain.