Nancy Telfer and her Border Collies, 1943

Telfer is old Scottish name that has cemented itself in the border region beginning with the Norman conquest, through the era of the Border Reivers along with other Border Collie surnames like Turnbull, and into the very foundation of the Border Collie breed.  The storied Old Hemp was born to Adam Telfer in 1893, and border collies have stayed in the family for generations since.

When Dave at Little Heelers wrote about the Formakin Canine Stars (which also include a couple of talented border collies), he included a video of the dogs in action.  Also on that video site I found a video from 1943 which features Nancy Telfer a Northumbrian trainer of  sheepdog champions:

SHEEP CHAMPION TRAINER – Video – British Pathe.

This was once the quintessential American breed, the able and diverse dog used across the country as the indispensable farmhand, shepherd, protector, and hunter. It is the dog that inspired Lassie, only to be replaced by a transvestite “improved” dog show version in both that TV show and in the public’s mental model of what a “collie” is. Before the well-to-do in cities made the Boston Terrier the toast of the fancy, before Rin Tin Tin made the German Shepherd “America’s Dog,” and long before the Cocker Spaniels battled the Poodles and the Labrador Retrievers for the most popular American breed, the “Scotch Collie” was the dog under foot as America grew from a few colonies into an agricultural powerhouse.

Shasta the Old Time Farm Shepherd and puppies

This is the dog that settled the west and patrolled farm, ranch, and wilderness alike. But as America became an urban and mechanized culture, the OTFS was replaced here and there with more specialized and focused breeds, some closely related and others vastly different. As agricultural specialization grew and farm families didn’t keep the diversity of livestock in small numbers, large cattle or sheep ranches bred dogs more specialized to work cattle or herd sheep, dogs that didn’t need to be versatile enough to do both and then some. Sheep workers turned to the Border Collie, Cattlemen created the Australian Shepherd, and smaller farms found their unregistered Scottish bred dogs disappearing into wave of registered English lines of shepherd dog that would make the English Shepherd.

Old Time Farm Shepherd puppies

Families that no longer kept a small array of livestock could then meet their hunting needs with a dog breed specifically focused like the Beagle, the Labrador, or Golden Retriever. Conspicuous consumption in the upper classes could pick the show collie as a status symbol or move to a more city friendly dog like the toy breeds. Those looking for guardians could pick the GSD, Pit Bull, or Rottweiler. Versatility gave way to indulgence and specificity.

Although it’s been almost a century since writers began to lament “What happened to Old Shep?”–realizing too late that they had given up a good thing–a small but growing group of enthusiasts still exists and is working to preserve this breed. One of them is Andy Ward of the Old Time Farm Shepherd Blog and Little Boy Blue Farm. His outstanding bitch Shasta just gave birth to a beautiful litter of new old-time farm shepherd puppies. Check them out and the pilgrimage he went on to make this litter happen.

Here I’ve collected some photos and videos of the border collie puppies’ first attempts to herd sheep.

Dublin making friends at White Fence Farm, 8 weeks old

I picked up Dubin on St. Patrick’s Day and here we are just a few days later at my birthday dinner at White Fence Farm.   Apparently this sheep was unimpressed with Dublin’s predator stare, and I can’t blame her, he was so damn cute I’d run toward him instead of away from him too!  He’d have to wait another two months before his real first time “working” sheep (because you have to call it work even when it’s play, them’s the rules!).

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Yes, you did hear that right. My father puts down Dublin and says “Now listen, I’m hungry, so go get me a sandwich” and later, “Chris, why don’t you try this at the singles bar.” Heh.

This was also young Celeste’s first time seeing sheep, mere days after we got her. She had just turned 9 weeks old. This was also the first time she had a new heavy collar on so she spent a lot of time trying to scratch at it, much to our amusement. The cuts are where she ran out of frame into the shade to work on getting her collar off.

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I also took my camera to Mercury and Gemma’s first exposure to sheep but since I was no longer a complete idiot around sheep, my instructor had me take the pups into the ring instead of me watching her do it. Thus my humble little camera was left perched on a chair.

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It’s amazing to watch that light go on when they first realize that they have power over the sheep.  You can see it, they are rather carefree and oblivious, looking around like this is any other dog park except with smaller pieces of poop on the ground, and in an instant it’s BAM, the instinct kicks in and it’s a different life from then on.

Here’s a little video I put together using my Xbox360 Avatar, which has a striking resemblance to me, and an adorable virtual border collie puppy.  Notice that even in the virtual world, I enjoy taunting my dogs a little bit before lavishing them with affection.

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If you have an Xbox360 account and want to see what your Mii would look like with a border collie puppy, check out the page where you can purchase one. Hint: you can try before you buy simply by signing into your account.
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This is the Dublin x Celeste litter at six weeks old (now 2 years), raiding the fridge.

The chocolate female demanded the most screen time yesterday, so here’s a longer clip of her refining her acting chops.

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Although you can’t tell from the above video, she’s actually quite the femme fatale.  She’s a bit shy at first, and by shy I mean that she’ll run up to within 6 inches of you, tail wagging and wriggling like a fish on a line and then stop as if there’s an invisible barrier preventing her from going any farther.  Then a few minutes later she’ll be sleeping in your lap.  After lulling you into a false sense of complacency, she’ll nuzzle her way up your neck until she can suckle your year.  Then, when she has you right where she wants you, it’s CHOMP!

I nearly died a few weeks back when she did this to my father. He was cooing about all the attention he was getting and then out of the blue he was screaming “Get her off of me!”  A 300 pound man felled by a puppy that’d barely register on the scale at the supermarket.  Just hilarious.  Now that she’s tasted human blood, we’re pretty sure she’s going to be a man-eating beast. You can see just how much she respects her mother:

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This next one is Zappa, and I’m predicting right now that this dog is going to be famous.  Since daddy is a cover model for the biggest name in dog publishing and mommy is a spokes-model for the biggest name in dog toys, it’s in his blood.  He’s also one of four puppies from this litter who are going to live with professional dog trainers, so we’ve got nurture covered as well.  This dog oozes charisma and the camera just loves him.  He already has the “pose and move” down pat.

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This one is the chocolate boy, who is devastatingly handsome just like his father.  Whereas the lilac female looks just like her mother, this one looks the most like Mercury.  He’s also going to be famous as his new home is with a trainer out in Utah who is planning on using him as her demonstration partner.

The chocolate boy also carries the trademark naughty spot on his nose, passed down from Mercury, from Celeste, from Cowboy.  Quite dashing, no?

But first, as a final test of their bravery, skill, and cunning, they must survive a descent down the Chasm of Doom!

Encouraged by the guiding example of their mother, the puppies eagerly approach the precipice, but are stayed by the magnitude of the mighty abysm before them.

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Not satisfied to come in third behind his brother and sister and eager to prove his worth, the Lilac Sable Cryptic Merle TriColor Male makes his way down into the depths of Judgment, one harrowing crag at a time.

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Famished and parched after his journey to the depths, our hero demands sustenance, but is denied satisfaction by Mother Milk Bar.  She is unimpressed with his achievement and most surely favors his brother who made the descent first.

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Enraged, the intrepid puppy vents his frustration on his brother with a near flawless execution of the Reverse Half-Gainer Body Slam and Roll maneuver.  Vanquishing his brother, he finally achieves his place at the top of the puppy pile.

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Having subjugated his brother, our hero demands his reward.

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Oh they grow up so fast, and the sight of his very first breath still plays vividly in stereo when I think of it.  There’s an amazing amount of plot in those first eight weeks, a story unto itself and the first chapters of what’s starting to be a great read.  It’s a different experience raising them from birth versus 8 weeks.

Each of my four dogs has a role, and a corner of my heart, and if I had to sum up Mercury’s part it’d be “Legacy.”  A legacy is a gift you leave to others, the continuation of your work after you’re gone.  But you have to build a legacy, and it has to start somewhere.  Dublin and Celeste are that start, my choices from the pool of others’ art.  Mercury is my art, the product of my breeding choices, and the start of my Border Collie legacy.

So it’s rather exciting to announce that Mercury is a father to 6 beautiful puppies.  The joys of doggy fatherhood consist of making your “contribution” and then letting the mother do all the work, but we’re pretty proud none-the-less.   Like human babies, there’s not a whole lot to talk about right now except which parent the pups resemble (apparently a sea otter mated with a mole-rat if looks are indicative of parentage at this age) and what color they are.

I haven’t had Mercury tested for color genetics, since it’s rather tangential to what I value in the dogs–I don’t breed for color–but it appears that Mercury carries his father’s tri-color allele (guaranteed given that it’s recessive and Dublin is homozygous) as well as the allele for the chocolate coat variant: a surprise.

Mara is rather a mystery as she’s a cryptic merle. Although there’s a separate dilution gene that turns black to blue and chocolate to lilac, the merle gene itself dilutes the coat as well, so black + merle = “blue” merle, even though we could very well call it black merle.

If black + merle = “blue merle,” what do we call blue + merle?  I don’t know the term and suggest that instead of making up yet another word for even-more-diluted-than-blue, we just call black + merle “black merle” and blue + merle “blue merle.”

The best guess on Mara is cryptic merle lilac tricolor, but if we ignore her merle is she a chocolate/red or is she lilac (chocolate+dilute)? Since she’s cryptic, we only have a few dark spots to judge, but they look lilac, not chocolate.  It’s also possible that there’s some sable element to her coat, giving even more complexity.  But since all the dilute puppies are also cryptic merle, it’s likely that Mercury doesn’t carry dilute, as we don’t have any just lilac or just blue puppies: their dilution comes from the merle gene.

The happy group consists of 4 Boys, 2 Girls: 1 blue tricolor cryptic merle, 2 chocolates, 1 chocolate tricolor, and 2 red tricolor cryptic merles.  The breeder calls the last two lilac cryptic merles, but I think the base color is chocolate, not lilac, and the extensive dilution of the merle makes their coats predominantly lighter-than-red.

The cryptic (not highly expressed) merle genes come from the mother, Mara, and are what dilute the black to slate in the blue merle tri, and the chocolate to “lilac” in the two lilac merle puppies. Since I don’t think Mercury carries Dilute, my guess is that whereas Mara is a Chocolate + Dilute + Merle, the two puppies are just Chocolate + Merle.  If they are lilac + merle, then Mercury also carries Dilute.

I tolerate their subscription, despite the magazine being published by the dirty bears in Berkley … sssssssssss … and the rather granola overtones of some of the articles.  And I have to admit that since I first discovered the magazine in the bathroom at the after-party of my first Frisbee dog tournament, I’ve always wanted my mutts to grace the centerfold with their smiling faces.

What a great concept, two full pages of loved and spoiled dogs captured in those moments that stay with us long after the dogs themselves are gone; the moments we miss when we can’t have them anymore.

So at dusk the night Celeste was due to give birth I snapped some photos of her outside on the hill in the backyard.  It was fortuitous that she was in pre-labor and panting, as my previous attempts to catch her with her mouth open and smiling were unsuccessful.  Neither of us slept that night and twenty four hours and a snow storm later we were back at home with six new puppies.  Two of them have never left.

Celeste on the lawn by AstraeanBorderCollies

Exactly five weeks later, I mocked up an impromptu photo studio in the corner of the den: made from repurposed desk lamps, a bed sheet, and some high gloss (but not pee proof) card stock.  Hold the shutter down long enough and even squirrely little puppies who think they’re getting abducted by aliens will give you a great shot.

Mercury has a sense of humor by AstraeanBorderCollies

In a quiet moment I dashed off a quick e-mail to The Bark with the above photos attached and when each new magazine came, I immediately flipped to the centerfold and scanned every line for my little cuties to be smiling back.  I even checked the smiling dogs gallery on the website.  It never happened.

Then, months later I got a letter from Claudia Kawczynska saying that my photos were finalists for publication in an upcoming Smiling Dog book, pending editor approval. Well, approval came and Mercury and Celeste are both featured in DogJoy: The Happiest Dogs in the Universe.

Don’t worry, if you missed out on having your pooch in the book, you can buy one customized with your dog on the cover. How great is that?  Here’s a preview that includes Mercury’s full page portrait. Buy one! or twenty.