rich and famous Archive

  • Juicing The Sheep

    Juicing The Sheep

    The 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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  • The Million Dollar Collie

    The Million Dollar Collie

    A healthy transatlantic Collie industry supported the rist of the large kennels in North America. In 1888 the banker and financier J.P. Morgan set up a Collie kennel called Cragston on the Hudson River in New York and paid considerable amounts for British dogs. He...

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  • Queen Victoria’s Border Collies

    Queen Victoria’s Border Collies

    For 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

    Show Me the Collie

    Having 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

    The Queen and the Collie

    The 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

    The Victorian Collie Myth

    The 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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  • Border Collie Who? Are You?

    Border Collie Who? Are You?

    The people at Dogster have no clue about Border Collies. In one of those “answer some questions about yourself and we’ll tell you what cliché you are (replete with photo and code so you can advertise our website for us on your page)” quizzes, they...

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  • BC/R&F: Viggo Mortensen

    BC/R&F: Viggo Mortensen

    I began the Border Collies of the Rich and Famous series with the decidedly sub-par performance of one-time BC owner Ellen DeGeneres. We turn things around this time with exemplar Border Collie companion, Viggo Mortensen. Viggo is a modern renaissance man, flexing his creative muscle...

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  • Heath Ledger, Human Border Collie, Dead

    Heath Ledger, Human Border Collie, Dead

    Australian actor (in America) Heath Ledger was found dead today in Mary-Kate Olsen’s New York apartment. And why, you ask, would a blog about Border Collie controversy and news be covering the death of an actor? Well, because Heath Ledger is a border collie, of...

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  • BC/R&F: Ellen DeGeneres

    BC/R&F: Ellen DeGeneres

    For the inaugural Border Collies of the Rich and Famous, I’d like to start with perhaps the most infamous and disastrous (and thankfully former) Border Collie owner: Ellen DeGeneresThere are many reasons to dislike Ellen DeGeneres, and most people do so for all of the...

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