George loaned me a book he thought I'd like, and he was right. Written by the well-known dog behaviorists Lorna and Raymond Coppinger, it has the unmemorable name of Dogs.It covers a very wide swath of dog topics, beginning with the origins of dogs in the Neolithic and ending with service dogs today. In between, they discuss the primitive-type hunting dogs (hounds), livestock guardian dogs, Alaskan Huskies, Border Collies, and show dogs, all from a wealth of direct experience and keen, educated observation unmatched in breadth and depth by anyone else that I can think of.

They describe Border Collies as a breed in which the original innate prey behavior sequence has been modified both by highly amplifying certain parts (the "eye-stalk" and the "chase") and deleting—or nearly deleting—other parts ("grab", "bite", and "kill-bite"). The amplified parts of the sequence are those which give the Border Collie much of its distinctive character; the hypnotizing "eye" and the obsession with moving objects.

Aussies do not have the extreme modification that Border Collies display. They are one version of a generalized European drover/herder/guardian dog that was once ubiquitous; Jeanne Joy Hartnagle (Las Rocosa) has found probable Aussie relations in the Koolie of Australia, the German Tiger, the Old Welsh Bobtail, and the Pyrenean Shepherd. And of course there is the English Shepherd here in the U.S.

None of these breeds—including the working-bred Aussie—is common any more. They have been replaced as drovers by motorized transport, as guardians by electronic alarm systems, and as herders by Border Collies and Kelpies, which are better-specialized workers.

It is not true that their niche has entirely vanished, like that of the medieval turnspit dog, or the Otter Hound. In fact there are plenty of diversified family farms and small-holdings that could use an all-purpose farmdog just like a working Aussie. USDA statistics show that the average cattle herd is somewhere around thirty-five head. The same is true of sheep flocks; eighty-five percent of all flocks are under a hundred head (although these flocks produce only half of the sheep in this country). The increasing meat goat industry is also mainly in small flocks.

What would help the working Aussie regain a secure place in the world of agriculture? I believe a piece of the answer lies in some of the hard-to-argue-with facts presented in the Coppingers' book, not in their section about Border Collies, but the ones about Alaskan Huskies and show dogs.

The Coppingers bred and successfully raced sled dogs for fifteen years. The modern racing sled dog, aka Alaskan Husky, is a distant cousin to the AKC sled dogs I'm familiar with. They are the fastest animal over distance on the planet. Unacknowleged by any canine registry, pedigree-less, they completely dominate the sport of sled dog racing. How did they come to do this, without any recourse to closed stud books or appearance standards? Well, there is a standard: performance. And the lack of a breed registry is also a key to their success.

These magnificent canine athletes stand in stark contrast to their pedigreed equivalents in the show ring, who are hopelessly outclassed by every performance measurement, and are also, like virtually every other show breed, riddled with genetic health problems. The lack of performance criteria unfailingly produces the former, and closed studbooks unfailingly produce the latter.

Now, a closed gene pool can be a sharp tool for trait selection, used with deep genetic understanding under highly controlled circumstances. But these circumstances are not what the purebred dog industry has ever, or will ever, operate under. And, breeding for performance, if you are also ceaselessly inbreeding, will not save you from the same genetic vise that the show dogs are caught in: sheepherding-type Border Collies in the US have significant incidences of hip dysplasia, Collie Eye Anomaly, and epilepsy.

That only through selecting for performance can dogs that consistently perform to a high standard be produced, and that poorly-controlled inbreeding (the genetic description of the practices of the purebred dog world) always produces genetic problems which cannot be addressed except by crossing to completely unrelated animals, are not ideas open to question, they are simply biological facts. The Coppingers point out that the current push to identify and remove purebred dogs with genetically caused health problems (hip dysplasia etc.) from the gene pool, has the result of creating an even smaller gene pool, hence it not just doesn't address, it actually worsens the underlying problem, which is the religious adherence to closed stud books.

So, what would a method of producing a great line of farm dogs look like? Probably the tried and true methods of the past would be the place to start: no "breed purity" ideas, records kept only so that desirable inherited traits can be tracked. Only the most peripheral interest in appearance, if that. And, finally, of critical importance: extensive testing of progeny in the field, and breeding on only the most talented.

It is a tribute to the passionate commitment of purebred dog breeders to the idea of closed registries that the above paragraph is a wildly radical statement, utter anathema to the vast majority, even though this is exactly how every single breed of useful dog was developed. But I cannot see where the loss would be, if these ideas were adopted by the working Aussie community. If they are afraid Aussies would "turn into Border Collies", then it seems to me they do not believe that the qualities innate to the Aussie are valuable enough to be identified and perpetuated without recourse to an enforced closed studbook. Let's face it: if that's true, the working Aussie is doomed in any case.

But I just don't think so. I get letters all the time, as do, I'm sure, many working Aussie breeders, wondering where the writer can get "one of those old-time Aussies like I grew up with on the ranch". I believe there is a place for this kind of dog. We just need to think hard about what it will take to preserve, improve, and spread the word about them. Oh yes, and then do it.