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Recent Battles
Queen Victoria
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Juicing The Sheep
09 April 2009 11:11 AM | No CommentsThe Journal of Queen Victoria Thursday, October 21, 1868 “Juicing the Sheep“ At a quarter to twelve I drove off with Louise and Leopold in the waggonette up to near the “Bush” (the residence of William Brown, the farmer) to see them “juice the sheep.”...
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Queen Victoria’s Border Collies
26 January 2009 4:40 AM | 18 CommentsFor well over a century the “Collie” name has been co-opted by show breeders who have created a monster whose face looks like a door stop with beady eyes set in triangular slits. These same people have co-opted the notion that Queen Victoria was deeply...
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Show Me the Collie
22 January 2009 3:38 AM | 1 CommentHaving established that Queen Victoria’s direct influence on the proliferation of the show Collie is insubstantial at best, let’s explore what impact the Monarchy may have, in fact, had on the culture of dogs during her reign. Five. If the show Collie owes more to...
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The Queen and the Collie
20 January 2009 2:57 AM | 2 CommentsThe old wisdom on the rise of the show Collie is that Queen Victoria met them on a trip to Scotland in the 1860s, became infatuated, acquired them, sponsored them in shows, bred them, and her abundant trend-setting prowess lead to their bountiful rise to...
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The Victorian Collie Myth
19 January 2009 8:03 PM | 5 CommentsThe prevailing creation myth among show Collie enthusiasts is that Queen Victoria’s infatuation with the breed set the ball in motion, elevating the humble farm dog to aristocratic splendor. Queen Victoria saw her first Collies in the 1860′s, and she enthusiastically began to sponsor them,...
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Juicing The Sheep
Archive for September, 2007
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A Dying Breed
Posted on September 30, 2007 | No CommentsIt’s easy for a young man like myself to surmise that sheep trialers are on whole an aged, if not aging breed. Their ranks are filled with people my parent’s age and older, the best of the best collect more Social Security checks than they... -
Dog Sports – A Cultural Divide
Posted on September 29, 2007 | 1 CommentDavid and Kate Marshall are do-it-yourself kind of people. They’ve written several books that allow readers to tell their own autobiography, document their love for their significant other, or even memorialize their pet dogs. Like training guides on the weave polls, the Marshalls’ books encourage... -
Beauty in Taking It Slow
Posted on September 25, 2007 | 1 CommentThe amazing thing about photography is its ability to capture a single infinitesimal moment and allow us to analyze and appreciate that moment for an infinite amount of time. In our daily lives, we rarely experience stimuli that are magnitudes different than normal. We live... -
Sheep Agility
Posted on September 24, 2007 | 1 CommentThis video opens up the possibility for the ultimate dog sport, surpassing sheep trials, agility, obedience, herding, tracking, flyball, frisbee, you-name-it. Sheep agility. Wherein a human trainer instructs a Border Collie to guide sheep through an agility course. It combines the best of both worlds,... -
To Die Like A Dog
Posted on September 24, 2007 | No CommentsBlessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Mercy is the perfection of love, the most dear of my attributes.- Jesus I was raised Catholic, but I have never believed in the divinity of Jesus, making my name (meaning bearer of Christ) ironic at... -
Engine, Brake, Mufflers Required
Posted on September 22, 2007 | 1 CommentI always laugh when I’m driving around Colorado and see the signs that say, “Truckers Engine Brake Mufflers Required.” The sign is clearly another example of the Illuminati’s proviso against any sort of punctuation on road signs. I can forgive the missing comma or colon... -
A Moment of Silence for Dead Hyphens
Posted on September 22, 2007 | 1 CommentI quite admire the hyphen, it’s one of my favorite forms of punctuation. It allows me to jockey-together my own grammar and re-spelling, aids in tmesis (that’s a-whole-nother post), and prevents confusion when dealing with ambiguous phrases. The humble hyphen even has its own mascot:... -
Squirrel Agility Course
Posted on September 19, 2007 | No CommentsWhat, no weave polls? Psh! Squirrel assault course -
Jailhouse Confessions of a Border Collie
Posted on September 19, 2007 | No CommentsSally Hull writes a poignant piece where she interviews condemned pets at the pound. One of them is a Border Collie named Popper and this is her interview: The kennel next to Pete’s held a very young looking dog. Pure Border Collie by my guess.... -
Border Collie Soliloquy
Posted on September 19, 2007 | No CommentsBORDER COLLIE SOLILOQUYby Baxter Black Just a word about one of the greatest genetic creations on the face of thisearth . . . the border collie.Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Ableto leap tall fences in a single bound.The dog that...
Queen Victoria's Border Collies