What is in a name? A lot, if you are looking at what category people think your dog is in. Breed names matter a lot too. We have Border Collies. You tell people your dog is a Border Collie, and strong images come to their minds. Most nonfarmers think of Border Collies as being the smartest dog there is. Farmers tend to be in two camps about Border Collies. Some farmers think Border Collies are very useful work partners while others see them as being anxious and troublesome busybodies.
Border Collies and other farm dogs like Kelpies, Aussies, and Healers are all considered work dogs or working dog breeds or stock dogs. However, many working breeds of dogs now have nonworking lines.
One of our current dogs is a mix breed while the other four dogs are Border Collies. All of them live in the house with us and spend off time with us as well as work about the Homestead with sheep and long days of goose control client visits, in New York, Connecticut or Massachusetts. I consider our dogs part of the family and also workmates, teammates, team members if not a pack.But as Alexandra Horowitz in her book “Inside of a Dog” states, dogs in groups are better thought of like a gang. There is much scientific thought about the social interactions of dogs and dogs and humans. As you can read, I have trouble with cold and hard definitions. But as the good professionals at our Veterinarian Office relate to every dog and cat which comes into their office, It just seems right to treat all dogs with care and compassion, no matter the animal.
It indeed is true that I have stuck mostly with Border Collies as our farm dogs and goose control dogs. Our mix breed dog Nash brings a wonderful social presence a lovely changeup to our lives. He can do some good work with the livestock at home and can be a goose control dog. But the Border Collies were developed as a breed for this kind of work, to be keenly work oriented with livestock and so, geese. They also have a breed in instinct to work closely with their handlers.
I do like the thought that all dogs descend from a common ancestor, the wolf. However, dogs may have developed from different wolf types around the world at different times and not from the modern wolf, but from an extinct ancient wolf. It is most likely that dogs descend from the wolf through what are known as village dogs.These were dogs that did just about everything to make a living. Village dogs lived alongside early people and in some cases still do, guarding, hunting and working livestock, anything that is needed in a cooperative nonmodern dog-human relationship.It’s only in recent times that we have divided dogs into farm dogs, hunting dogs, sled dogs, police dogs, companion dogs and so on. Human life has radically changed in the last few hundred years, and so has the dogs’ lives. I keep this in mind when I go on dog walk visits. My family also has a side business, taking care of dogs while their people are away. I walk two lovely Bichon-Toy Poodle mixes several times a week; I can see how they respond when they step out of their owner’s house where they have been quietly sleeping most of the day. As the two dear dogs and I plunge into our walk in the wooded neighborhood, they wake up to the out of doors. Just like my Border Collies they engage and revel in the sights and smells and sounds of the woods around them. It seems their dogginess comes flooding into them and we are on the hunt just as Border Collies are when they are herding on the job.
