Saoirse Ronan and her Border Collie, Sassy

Saoirse Ronan is an Oscar-nominated American-Irish actress and rising star in Hollywood famous for her roles in The Lovely Bones, Hanna, and Atonement.  She packs a lot of screen presence for such a young actress and she often portrays precious youths put into intensely dramatic situations.

But at heart she’s a sentimental dog lover.  She says that the hardest part of acting is being away from her Border Collie, Sassy, during filming.  When Sally went stray, she was found and reunited with Saoirse by an Irish Blue Cross shelter, who also micro-chipped the dog to make sure she’d get home if she ever went wandering again.  Saoirse was so grateful for the Irish Blue Cross’ work that she campaigned for their fund to build a new animal clinic.  What a classy young woman.

When he appeared on Letterman to promote the premiere of his Batman film, Keaton told Dave how his Border Collie named Dusty commands him to wear a sheep costume and be chased around the yard.

Keaton's Border Collie often gave him commands he was helpless to resist.

I think the admission that a Border Collie was giving him direction at home (and perhaps on the set too) explains some of Keaton’s less successful on-screen appearances.  In a recent interview, Sylvester Stallone blames Keaton‘s insta-muscle suit used in Batman for the downfall of the 80s steroid enhanced action hero.  But true fans of Batman know that it was never about a square jaw and muscles, but a superior intellect and exceptional work ethic that made Batman prevail over his foes.  Also billions of dollars and gizmos.  But mostly intellect and work ethic: the perfect superhero for a Border Collie lover.

Here’s the clip of Keaton telling Dave Letterman about his crazy Border Collie Dusty:

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[video]

Here’s a fast and dirty transcription:

Keaton: Which is great, you feel great when you come up with a thing like that. You WORK and you come home and you’re tired.

You’re going to love this segway, no really, you are, watch this. You go and you just work, you feel like your work, which is something that my dog doesn’t really experience, because, you know.

I’m was just telling you this thing about Border Collies being nuts…

Letterman: Yeah, they really are, they’re crazy.

Keaton: No I have one.

Letterman: You have a border collie?

Keaton: Yes, I have a fabulous dog.

[Speaking as the Border Collie] Is there anything I can do in the house? I will do anything.

Letterman: Have you seen sheep, have you heard about sheep? Has anyone called about sheep?

Keaton: Will you just put a sheep outfit on for me, and run around for me, just for a couple of minutes? And then I want you to be a maveric of the group.

He directs me.

Letterman: I can remember when I told this story several times, when we had them on the show some we were using on the show, some had to wait in the dressing room, like many of our guests, and the ones who had to wait in the dressing room the whole time were like that, looking out the door the whole time, like they could be called at any time. Looking out the door like “I could be called out there any second.”

Keaton: Were a lot of them going over their stuff?

Letterman: Yeah, their scripts, they were quizzing eachother on it!

Keaton: Not like those Labradors sitting around all the time.

Letterman: Now do you have him indoors or do you let him run?

Keaton: He does it all.

Letterman: What’s his name?

Keaton: Dusty. Sean, my little boy named him.

The Journal of Queen Victoria

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 purchased Wishaw Clinker, for example, for $4,000. Samual Untermyer, who joined the Collie breeding ranks in 1904, competed with Morgan for the ownership of important Collies.

- Bred for Perfection, p. 73

In 1900, J.P. Morgan paid the record sum of $8,500 for an imported dog from England. While there are several common ways of evaluating the magnitude of such a purchase in today’s dollars–ranging from almost $200,000 to well over $5 million–the conclusion is the same: this was a serious purchase that not only set records, it set the tone for frivolity and excess that makes the fancy, well, fancy.

In 2007, $8,500.00 from 1900 is worth:

	$216,511.92	using the Consumer Price Index
	$185,441.57	using the GDP deflator
	$575,611.19	using the value of consumer bundle
	$992,678.57	using the unskilled wage
	$1,437,377.28	using the nominal GDP per capita
	$5,706,274.98	using the relative share of GDP

- Measuring Worth.com

The battle between American Collie fanciers would escalate and reach $10,000 and up for a single dog before the first decade of the 19th Century was over. Here’s an article from 1900 that describes the purchase and also delves into the state of the Collie in general.

While exorbitant prices were paid for these famous British dogs, it doesn’t seem like anyone really got their money’s worth. None of these imported dogs ever produced offspring that lived up to their sires and the general attitude of the British was that they sold their crap dogs to the Americans for a premium.

The San Fransico Call

November 11, 1900

Collie Dog Worth $8500

By paying $8500 for Southport Perfection, the grand collie dog from the famous Stretch kennels in England, J. Pierpont Morgan has established the record price for a dog. The next highest price (paid for a champion St. Bernard a few years ago) was $1500 less than this sum.

Southport Perfection is an Ormskirk collie. Mr. Morgan and his kennel manager, Bob Armstrong, pin their faith on this grand strain, with much good reason, for most of the champions of the past few years are almost straight Ormskirk blood. One need mention merely such names as Ormskirk Connie and Ormskirk Galepin, owned by Mr. Morgan; Ormskirk Emerald, owned till recently by A. H. Megson of England; Roy, owned by Queen Victoria; Sowerby Squire and Ormskirk Cornishman, still owned by Mr. Stretch–to realize how powerful and reliable this blood is.

Until the arrival of Southport Perfection the star of J. Pierpont Morgan’s Cragston kennels, in his beautiful place in Highland Falls, was Ornament, notable for his size as well as for the beauty of his coat. Before him there reigned Sefton Hero and Ruford Ormond, both dogs which, all things considered, probably were in their day (and not so long ago, either) as beautiful collies as there were in the world. Sefton Hero is out of Gladdie and Lady Wonder, and Rufford Ormond is out of Ormskirk Chriss and Lady Margaret.

No other dog in the world to-day combines so many fine points as does the collie. In mere beauty he leads all other breeds easily. He is as stately and proud as a king. Few other breeds equal and none excel the collie in intelligence. He is as gentle as a child and as affectionate as a fine type of human being. He is large enough to satisfy any one except the man who loves dogs for the sake of size alone.

It is not likely that the Scotch collie ever will be come a cheap dog. Few dogs are so difficult to breed. Litter after litter from even the best obtainable strains have an exasperating tendency to turn out worthless from a fancier’s point of view. The pups are deficient either in bone or coat, or their ears insist on pricking instead of being semi-erect. This point about the ear is one of the most difficult to overcome. Some of the best dogs shown in recent years have had the prick ear to such an extent that it was found necessary to doctor them by slitting the skin inside the ear and stitching it down to hold the ear as it should be. Veterinary surgeons are being called on perpetually to perform this operation. A collie that is deficient in bone generally is hopeless. Sometimes careful feeding while he is still very young will help him, but generally such a dog remains undersized. This uncertainty about breeding makes blood that will tell like the Ormskirk blood particularly valuable. It made Rufford Ormond worth $1000 a year to his original English owner as a stud dog.

The fashionable color is now sable and white. Apart from fashion, there is no question about its being the most striking and beautiful color for a coll
ie. Handsome as the black and white or the tri-colored dogs are, there is something about the sable and white that makes the dog look absolutely regal. Almost all of the better dogs in the Cragston kennels are of this color, and it predominates so much generally nowadays that last year’s show in New York was made up almost exclusively of dogs with this marking.

The word “sable” when applied to the collie’s markings does not mean black. It means red. And the nearer the sable of a collie’s coat approaches the color of the fox the better is the breeder pleased. A fine dog with perfect coat of this color, with his wolf-like face and lithe movements, certainly looks more like some superb wild creature of the highest type than like a domesticated dog.

It is this “wild beast” feature of the collie which has instilled into many minds the idea that the dog is snappish and treacherous and dangerous. Nothing can be further from the truth, however, and if one will study the beautiful, deep and truthful eyes of the breed he will have no reason for adhering to any unfavorable opinion. When a collie’s temper is bad he is about as bad a dog as can be. The only safe thing to do with such a specimen is to give him away at once to one’s enemy. But there is hardly one thoroughbred collie in five hundred that is anything except lovable from the top of his honest head to the tip of his glorious brush.

The collie, as he has become known in the United States, is a dog far different from his progenitor, the working sheep dog of Scotland and the north of England. He has been bred too “fine” for many generations to withstand the weather and the hard work which are the lot of the shepherd’s dog. Exposure like that to which the working collie is subjected night after night and day after day would carry the pure bred type off with pneumonia in twenty-four hours. In order to maintain ruggedness in their dogs the shepherds cross the collie every few generations with other breeds. This produces a dog with much more bone and chest, and without the perfect beauty of the collie as we know him. Black and white are the predominating colors of the working collie. The head is shorter and the face is blunt as compared with the fine fox-like mask of the show dog.

Size and bone have been a predominant feature of the collies that have been exhibited recently in the United States. But in England there is a fad just now for dwarf collies, and delightful little creatures they are. They have all the typical collie points. Indeed, it is demanded that they be pluperfect. They must be fully as fine in coat and their shape and limb must be exactly as good as they are in large collies, but they are not much larger than a spaniel. Dwarf collies may turn out to be a fad even more expensive than the ordinary dog, for if it is hard to breed a perfect large collie it is still more difficult to breed a perfect dwarf. Few have been seen as yet on this side, but it is said that there will be an importation in time for the next dog show. One was bred in New Jersey and now is owned in Brooklyn, which is said to be a perfect type.

She is a blue-blooded little collie, for she has Sefton Hero, Rufford Ormond, Duncan Gray, Rose Hill Certainty, Lady Christopher, Ormskirk Dolly, Champion Scotilla, Bertha and Bendico in her pedigree. She illustrates in a marked manner the uncertainty which attends collie breeding. Almost all her line were large dogs. None was unusually small.

The standard of excellence in judging collies now is as follows: The dog must be a lithe, active dog of elegant and pleasing outline, with a combination of speed, strength and intelligence. The head should be moderately long, covered with soft, short hair, skull flat and with very little stop, eyes almond-shaped, of fair size, but not prominent, placed rather wide apart, and the darker brown in color the better. The ears should be small, covered with soft, short hair, and carried semi-erect when at attention, but at other times thrown back. The neck should be long, arched and muscular; the chest deep and narrow in front, but wide behind the shoulders, and the back short and level with the loins, rather long, slightly arched, yet powerful. The legs should be straight, muscular, rather flat of bone, hind quarters slightly drooping and very long from hips to hock and hocks well bent, the pasterns long and springy, with the soles of the feet well padded and the toes arched and compact. The tail, to be carried low when the dog is quiet, of moderate length, and when he is excited to be carried gayly, and almost straight when he is running.

The coat as required should be abundant, except on the head and legs’ the outer coat straight, hard and rather stiff; the inner coat soft, furry and very dense, so as to make it difficult to find the skin; the frill (a mass of hair on the breast) very abundant; hair on the tail very profuse and on the hips long and bushy; forelegs slightly feathered, while the hind legs below the hocks are smooth. Weight of dogs, forty-five to sixty pounds; bitches, forty to fifty pounds.

The defects most to be avoided are a domed skull high-peaked occipital bone’ heavy, pendulous ears; full, round eyes; heavy feathered legs and short tail.

As an example of a collie head, that of J. Pierpont Morgan’s Ormskirk Galopin may be cited. His head is 11 1/2 inches long, very fine and tapering in the muzzle, and is considered typical.

The above description is a fascinating snapshot of a breed which is already distinct from the Border Collie, a pale imitation in intelligence and temperament, but not yet a total inbred wreck. The difficulty in “breeding them well” comes from heterzygosity and a diverse gene pool. This is a good thing for health, a bad thing for show breeders who want to produce clones.

The description also lets us know that the dog is useless for work, starting to show nasty problems in temperament, and is well on the way to having structural exaggerations inbred sufficiently to breed true. The little almond eyes, the ornamental ears, the excess coat, and the pointy face.

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 infatuated with their flavor of Collie. But she wasn’t.

The three dogs you see above are the collies the Queen was infatuated with, her favorite dogs, her constant companions from the death of Prince Albert in 1861 to the Queen’s own death in January of 1901. Not one of them looks either like a Victorian Collie nor the wedge-headed beasts we call Rough and Smooth Collies today. The above dogs are clearly Border Collies.

The large photo to the left is of Noble, the center Border Collie in the photo above. Even though he lived decades before the name “Border Collie” came into being, his photo in the Royal Collection is labeled “A Collie of the Cheviot Breed.”

This alone is sufficient to classify him a proto-Border Collie as the Cheviot hills were the epicenter of the Border Collie’s creation. It also indicates that even in the 1870s the Border Collie type was a cohesive and ample subgroup within Collies to merit its own name.

The comparison clearly shows that Noble looks most like a modern Border Collie (my Dublin), versus the least Borzoi-headed Victorian era collie I could find and the quintessential Lassie collie. While many of the sable Scotch collies of the era were already more angular, with less stop and high set ears (before the supposed Borzoi blood), some still had a more natural look. Dublin and Noble share an even greater similarity now that Dublin is full grown, but his puppy photo above was the first I found that matched the full on gaze of Noble for comparison.

Sharp, the Queen’s favorite collie before Noble, and Roy, her constant companion after, are much the same type as Noble and clearly nothing like either the Victorian collie, the Borzoi-headed collies, or the Rough and Smooth collies we have today. And they’re amazingly unchanged over the three decades from Albert’s death to the Queen’s own. By 1901, the show collie was already another beast entirely, and although the Queen is known to have had all sorts of collies, some of whom were shown, the special ones were Border Collies.

For a woman who owned hundreds of dogs of different types which lived in the various kennels of her estates, it says a lot about the excellent companions Border Collies make that Victoria would chose them consistently over the many other collies and other breeds she owned to be her most intimate pets.

Two dogs that featured strongly in the queen’s life were the collie dogs, Noble and Sharp, that always traveled with her to and from Balmoral, whom Victoria described with great affection in her Highland journals. Sharp, however, had a reputation for being bad tempered and was always spoiling for a fight with other dogs. He frightened most of the royal entourage, except the redoubtable John Brown. Noble was far more sweet natured and had the special role of guarding the queen’s gloves.

- The Personal Life of Queen Victoria by Sarah Tooley 1896, p. 108

Here’s the journal entry where she describes how “Sharp” was a good name for a dog that was both intelligent and pointy:

Misty early, then beautiful and clear and very hot. Got up with a bad headache. At five minutes to eleven rode off with Beatrice, good Sharp going with us and having occasional “collie-shangies”–A Scotch word for quarrels or “rows,” but taken from fights between “collies.”–with collies when we came near cottages.

- Queen Victoria’s Journal of a Life in the Highlands, September 6, 1869

The photos of Queen Victoria and Sharp that were taken at Balmoral in 1867 show a dog that could be mistaken for a Lab at first blush. Mostly for the traits that distinguish Border Collies from Victorian/show/Lassie collies: predominantly black and white, a clear stop, a rounded skull, large friendly eyes. The photo taken two years before, however shows that Sharp has a moderate smooth coat, keeping plenty of hair around the collar and face, and those ears and facial structure are very Border Collie.

The Queen’s pet dogs accompany her wherever she goes, and are not distinctively Balmoral pets. In the “Leaves” of her “Life” here, however, she makes special mention of two, Sharp and Noble, and their photographs are given in that book. A slight reminiscence of Sharp may not be out of place. We have countless reminiscences of bipeds of far less noble nature.

Sharp was a loyal dog, though discriminating in his loyalty. He gave allegiance to a limited number only, and one of those was John Brown. He guarded his room and his properties. One day, two of the maids at Windsor Castle, Deeside lassies, went to John Brown’s room for a “crack” with their compatriot concerning some matter of mutual interest, but did not find him in. They, therefore, availed themselves of his pens and paper to write a note to leave behind them. This done, they turned to go. But Sharp, who had been lying quietly by the bed, instantly sprang between them and the door, and intimated unmistakably that they would not be permitted to leave. In vain they coaxed. Sharp was incorruptible; and they understood his nature sufficiently to know that an attempt to pass him without his assent would be dangerous. There was nothing for it but to sit down and wait till some one came for their relief.

They waited an hour, Sharp lying quiet but alert. At the end of that time a page came along, also looking for John Brown. To him they appealed for help. He suddenly seized the dog by the collar, called out to the girls to run, and then throwing Sharp from him with all his force, sprang through the door and closed it, Sharp meanwhile howling with rage. Had they not touched anything in the room, said John Brown, Sharp would have allowed them to go. But having meddled with the writing materials, argued the sagacious dog, what properties might they not be conveying away.

- The Queen at Balmoral by Frank Pope Humphrey – 1893, p. 182-184

Following the death of Albert, the Queen became a very sentimental and secluded woman. She documented her travels, her life with her pets, and even memorialized them in numerous ways. It is this shift in her lifestyle that created the documentation of her favorite dogs, the Border Collies.

Mementos of the past surrounded her in serried accumulations. In every room the tables were powdered thick with the photographs of relatives; their portraits, revealing them at all ages, covered the walls; their figures, in solid marble, rose up from pedestals, or gleamed from brackets in the form of gold and silver statuettes. The dead, in every shape–in miniatures, in porcelain, in enormous life-size oil paintings–were perpetually about her. John Brown stood upon her writing-table in solid gold. Her favorite horses and dogs, endowed with a new durability, crowded round her footsteps. Sharp, in silver gilt, dominated her dinner table.

- Queen Victoria by Lytton Strachey, 1921

Following the reign of Sharp as the Queen’s favorite, another Border Collie ascended to the throne, the handsome Noble:

My favorite collie Noble is always downstairs when we take our meals, and was so good, Brown making him lie on a chair or couch, and he never attempted to come down without permission, and even held a piece of cake in his mouth without eating it, till told he might. He is the most “biddable” dog I ever saw, and so affectionate and kind; if he thinks you are not pleased with him, he puts out his paws, and begs in such an affectionate way.

- Queen Victoria’s Journal of a Life in the Highlands – Sunday, September 14, 1873

The photos are convincing based on looks, but if there was one, just one, trait that would distinguish the Border Collie from all other breeds, let alone the other collies, it’d be “most biddable.” That the Queen puts the word in quotes suggests that she had been talking with the very shepherds who bred the Border Collies, as it is–even today–their favorite word.

The queen was heartbroken when [Noble] grew sick at the age of sixteen. She called in her own personal physician, Sir James Reid, to administer the medicine to the animal, and when the dog died the queen was so distraught that Reid had to sedate her. Noble too received a ceremonial burial at Balmoral, for the queen fervently believed that the higher animals had souls and when they died would go to a future life; they should therefore, in her view, be mourned just like humans.

- Queen Victoria by Helen Rappaport p. 36

Like Sharp, Noble too was given a funeral and a statue to memorialize him. And, like the photos and statue of Sharp, Noble is clearly unlike the Victorian Collie and a perfect cast of what is still today recognizable as a Border Collie.

In the park, west of the Castle, beside a path, stands a life-size bronze of “Noble.”

Noble was a “biddable,” affectionate dog, says his Royal Mistress, and he looks it. Like Matthew Arnold’s “Geist,” and many another less famous dog, he was:

“That liquid Melancholy eye
From whose pathetic soul-fed springs
Seemed surging the Virgilian cry,
The sense of tears in mortal things.”

This finds admirable expression in the bronze. Upon the pedestal supporting the figure is the following:–

NOBLE,
For more than 15 years the favourite collie
and dear and faithful companion of
Queen Victoria,
Died at Balmoral, 18th Sept., 1887.

“Noble by name, by nature noble too,
Faithful companion, sympathetic, true.”

—
His remains are interred here.

- The Queen at Balmoral by Frank Pope Humphrey – 1893, p. 184

The successor to Sharp and Noble was Roy, also a clear Border Collie, and also a constant companion and favored dog to Queen Victoria.

Her Majesty’s love for dogs is so well known that it would be superfluous to dwell upon such a topic. Wherever the Queen goes, she is accompanied by “Spot” (a fox-terrier), “Roy” (a black and tan collie), and a lovely little brown Spitz called “Marco.” Her favourite dogs are collies…

- The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893

One of the Queen’s attendants writes about Her Majesty’s adventures later in life, adventuring about in the country pulled by a donkey with Roy in tow:

Villa Victoria, Grasse, Alpes Maritimes, April 1, 1891

… We had had a delicious morning, with air like crystal; part of it I spent on the mountainside, painting after H.M.’s donkey chair. Off goes the donkey at a good firm pace, led by the groom, Randall. H.M.in a grey shall, with a mushroom hat, a large white sunshade, sits comfortably installed in a donkey chair; then come the two Princesses close behind, walking like troopers; the two Scottish servants not quite so active; beside them romps the collie ‘Roy.’ Lady Churchill and I close up the procession, and the little pug belonging to Princess Beatrice toddles last of all. The Queen never stops, but goes steadily on.

- Reminiscences by Candace Battersea, 1922

This brings us full circle back to the first of the Queen’s Border Collies that we know of in detail, Sharp:

The Queen now goes about the grounds in her garden chair–a basket chair, with thick rubber bands on the wheels for ease and smoothness of motion. Francie Clark leads the pony or donkey, and the dogs go with her in charge of the dogmen–”Roy” and “Marco” and the rest. The little beasties do not accompany her in her long drives, though “Sharp,” I believe, used occasionally to break away and follow till he caught up her carriage, to return sitting proudly by his royal mistress’s side.

- The Queen at Balmoral by Frank Pope Humphrey – 1893, p. 77-78

They don’t come more rich or more famous than Queen Victoria, the premiere member of the Border Collies of the Rich and Famous club. Her tastes became England’s tastes and she is perhaps the most significant cultural trendsetter of the era. Luckily for us Border Collie fans, the true identity of her favorite pets remained obscured by the imprecise “Collie” title and the corruptors in the show world took the loose eyed, dim witted, and pick headed Collie as their ideal and left the Border Collie alone.

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 prominence in the show world and as pets.

This wisdom is false.

Queen Victoria was born in May of 1819. Are we really to assume that the richest, most traveled, most cultured woman of her era didn’t come across the most ubiquitous dog on her little island until she was in her 40s? Rubbish!

The 1860s marked a major decline in the Queen’s popularity and cultural influence on the British people. Both her mother and her husband died in 1861 and Victoria entered a period of seclusion and mourning. She wore black every day until her death, avoided public appearances, and sequestered herself away from London in her royal residences in Balmoral Castle Scotland, Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, and Windsor Castle in Berkshire County.

Given the above observations, it’s no surprise that not only did the Queen not ignite a collie fire, no “marked surge” in the breed’s popularity even happened.

The “rise” in popularity of show bred Collies in the 1870s traced the rise in popularity of dog shows themselves. It was not as if there was an established Dog Fancy community that did not include the Collie and suddenly the breed shot to prominence on the example of Queen Victoria’s patronage.

Founding members of both the English and Scottish Kennel Clubs bred Collies and a few select kennels (none of them Royal) dominated the early days of dog shows–not to imply that there was great competition, domination was more a matter of being there. This patronage of the breed at the highest levels of the two major kennel clubs is clearly sufficient to maintain and propel the Collie’s participation in early dog shows.

There is no indication that either Mr. Gordon or Mr. Shirley had any association with her Majesty Queen Victoria, her dogs, or her kennels.

The bold claims made in the Collie’s breed history seem to be quite unfounded indeed.

Queen Victoria saw her first Collies in the 1860′s, and she enthusiastically began to sponsor them, causing a marked surge in the breed’s popularity. It was at this point that Collies split from other sheepherding breeds, like Border Collies.

- AKC.org “Did You Know“

- The Collieby O.P. Bennett, 1924

The above analysis is bullshit. Complete fabrication. Utterly untrue.

1. Queen Victoria’s first exposure to the Collie came at least twenty years before the fraudulent breed history suggests.

2. The 1860s marked a low point in the Queen’s popularity and trend setting influence, an entirely un-conducive condition to spur wide adoption of the Collie and the myriad other breeds she is credited with obsessing over.

3. No marked surge even occurred in Collie popularity as a result of the Queen’s supposed patronage.

4. The Queen’s kennels seemed to have played no part in the British show collie world, rather a few collie breeders were in on the ground floor of the newly formed kennel and breed clubs which were founded around the birth of the dog show.

5. The Monarchy did play a tangential role in encouraging dog shows (along with numerous other venues of agricultural and technological comparison and improvement), but it was Prnice Albert–not the Queen–who sponsored the foundational event of the era: The Great Exhibition of 1851.

And while impossible to prove to any satisfaction, Queen Victoria is credited with the popularization of keeping pets, especially dogs among the English commoners and elite alike.

6. The split between the Lassie/show collie and the Border Collie was in the works long before Queen Victoria or any show or trial judge ever laid eyes on a dog. Placing the date at the 1860s is a matter of conjecture, not of reality. Attributing the split specifically to the Queen or even to dog shows is a case of the post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy.

7. The “favorite” collies owned by Queen Victoria were not show Collies, or even Lassie collies. It’s doubtful Queen Victoria even owned a show collie as a personal pet. The collies she loved and was infatuated with were most certainly not show collies, and all the evidence I’ve found suggests that they were, in fact, Border Collies. The lasting legacy of the Queen’s Collie breeding program is very hard to flush out.

This week, I’ll delve into each of these issues to show how the Collie’s creation myth is utterly void of truth. Not a single element of the story is accurate.

Viggo is a modern renaissance man, flexing his creative muscle in theater and film acting, music, poetry, photography, and painting.

Born in New York to an American Mother and Danish father; Viggo was raised in Venezuela, Argentina, Denmark, and the United States. He speaks English, Danish, Spanish, Norwegian, French, Italian, and Swedish.

Worldly yet grounded; famous yet private; an actor yet genuine; you might say that Viggo’s choice of the Border Collie is a fitting reflection of his own versatility and uncompromising nature. Whether on a working ranch in South America or on the Red Carpet in Hollywood, Viggo seems to possess a skill set that isn’t ever fully utilized at any one time or any one place; much like the Border Collie.

The definitive Border Collie in Viggo’s life was Brigit, and she appears in his photography, poetry, and prose. Her bark can even be heard in one of his songs. Brigit is gone now, but her life and death had a profound impact on Viggo and he expressed that connection in his art.

The genuine interest in his images does him good and soon we’re zigzagging our way through the room. In front of the photograph Scared Brigit he says:

‘I had to run across the street to get this. It’s the neighbour’s dog that’s angry at my dog, Brigit. Look how the eyes of the dogs all reflect in different colours. Green, blue, red,’ he lists as he points to the dogs one by one.

The composition, with a petrified Brigit in front of the red jaws of the neighbour’s dog and the violent pull on the leash, have pulled the image into wide-screen.

Viggo’s connection with Brigit in life is documented in his works, and their calm connection is apparent in the many photographs they took together.

The dog under foot is a fitting echo of his viking ancestry, but that was Brigit’s place in life, not in death.

Eager to change the subject, he passes me the PowerBook and invites me to read an essay about his late dog that will soon be published in Linger, a collection of his writings and photographs.

Letter to Brigit tells of his melancholy drive last summer to deliver the frozen body of his fifteen-year-old mutt to a San Fernando Valley crematorium. After retrieving Brigit from the vet where she’d been put down, he headed north on the 405 with her bagged and sealed in blue plastic in the backseat. He was crying. Suddenly, the push and pull of rush-hour traffic forced him to jam on the brakes, sending Brigit hurtling to the floor. He eased the car to a stop on the shoulder and, for the first time, looked in the bag.

“We had taken your collar off,” he wrote. “I knew that Henry was wearing it wrapped twice around his wrist as a bracelet.” But this dog had a collar, he saw now.

This dog was not Brigit.

I look up from the computer screen, expecting to see grief on his face, or at least a serious expression. Instead, he is smiling absurdly. “It was sad,” he says. “But it was funny.”

- Esquire March 2006 “Eats Roadkill, Speaks Danish“

While I highly recommend tracking down a copy of Linger, most of you should be able to lay your hands on a copy of BARk magazine. Motrensen’s Letter to Brigit is reprinted in the Sept/Oct 2006 edition.

Probably I am able to write about this with a degree of detachment because your brother Henry and I have already gone through the worst of your final decay and death process together. We took you, our fifteen-year-old, completely lame and largely incontinent pal, to be “put down” three days ago. In the intervening time we had to wait for a slot at the crematorium to open up. I have been able to largely digest and assimilate the stronger surface emotions of your final morning. As much as I am and will continue to be haunted by your sweet, departing gaze when the brain-stopping serum was administered, time and the responsibilities resulting from your passing have more or less carried me away from that heartbreaking scene. I will always see your eyes slowly lose their gleam as I gently lay your head down. Will always remember your final generous gesture of rolling halfway over to let us rub your belly one last time before the doctor gave you the sedative.

The printing of Viggo’s swan song to Brigit in BARk was apropos for me, as that very month I put down my own Bonnie Belle. The union of those two events has rather endeared me to the magazine, as they gave me the right dose of perspective at a difficult time.

I could not bring myself to take pictures of any of it, to take anything, although I did for a moment consider grabbing my camera to ensure that later on I’d have an image, some tangible visible record of the process of losing you. Maybe that momentary impulse came from fear that the emotional weight of participating in your last days as flash-and-blood would eventually outweigh or alter the straight facts that photographs might hold. Fear that visuals so fresh right then, as I sat on one of the two plush green leather couches of the crematorium waiting room, would reshuffle themselves and gently blend together as merely tolerable sentimental recollection. It wouldn’t have been right, though, to shoot what only you and I should know.

The camera stayed in the truck.

Viggo is a professional at capturing other people’s emotions and putting them on screen for the world to see. While there is a heavy amount of artifice in all things artistic, the genuine nature of his relationship with Brigit is something all dog owners can appreciate and strive to emulate.

In a quote that could have easily come from a Border Collie, Viggo sums it up pretty well:

There’s no excuse to be bored. Sad, yes. Angry, yes. Depressed, yes. Crazy, yes. But there’s no excuse for boredom, ever.

- Vanity Fair, Finding Viggo January 1, 2004