ISDS Border Collie Database

At the International 2002 in Ireland, I got an interesting remark from Andrew Hall on some very pure-bred Irish dogs that still might exist somewhere. It prompted an interest in the more general question if strong 'regional' breeding still exists or has existed ever, or if no pure-bred regional dogs can be found because there is much mixing of 'blood' due to increased travel of the owners and more out-crossing / less line breeding, as found in a previous article. I found out that the localisation of breeding has hardly changed over the years and that it is not the Irish that produce the most pure-bred dogs, but the Scots.

I started my investigation by assigning a country to every address that has ever been used in the studbooks. If no country could be found, the last part of the address should be recognised as a county to reflect an address in Ireland or the UK. This enabled the classification of all breeders' addresses in five regions: Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland, and Other (mainly Continental).

Next, all breeders' regions in the pedigrees of all dogs were analysed and weighted according to their position in the pedigree to obtain the percentages of 'regional blood' in each dog. The contribution of each parent is accounted for 40%, that of each grandparent 16%, ggp 6.4% etcetera. Note that it is not 50%, 25%, 12.5% like in the previous article on 'key dogs', because I wanted older generations to contribute less to the overall figure, which is calculated by summing all contributions and dividing them by the total to arrive at 100%. Then in a complete 3 generation pedigree, if the weighting factor of the dog itself is 100%, both parents together will contribute 80%, all 4 grandparents together add 64%, the ggp 51%, etc. For example, a dog born in England but with Scottish dogs only in its pedigree, for something like 10 generations or more, will only be 20% English.

Finally all dogs born in a certain region and decade for which the breeders were known for at least 3 generations, were grouped together. The result is graphically displayed in the figure included in this article. Note that upto 1966 the 'registered by' person in the studbooks was often not equal to the breeder (=the owner of the bitch), therefore only a small number of dogs could be traced back in the sixties, and none could be found before 1950.

The area of each dot in the figure represents an amount of dogs. The summed area of all dots on each row is 100% of the number of dogs that were registered in that decade in that region, given at the right hand side of the plot.

The figure clearly shows that Scottish Dogs are mainly bred from Scottish dogs, English Dogs are mainly English, Welsh Dogs are mainly Welsh and Irish Dogs are mainly Irish. But in that order the Scottish dogs are the most Scottish and the Irish dogs have the highest influence from other regions, albeit only a small difference. The other way around, the Irish Dogs are hardly used in the UK. Over the years this little mutual import has only very slightly increased. The only exception is the Continent were the influence of dogs from the UK has always been large, first from Scotland and England, later also from Wales and more recently Ireland.

The first dog outside the UK and Ireland to have well known breeding was Trim 95445 born in 1975 and registered by J.H.Knox from Winsconsin, U.S.A., it was of Scottish breeding. Of the other 'foreign' litters registered in the seventies, one third was bred and registered in Germany by Werner Kupka who used postfix 'of Helenenhof' until 1986. Kupka used 30% to 40% English lines.

There is a tiny influence of foreign dogs in England and Wales from the eighties on. I could find only 6 dogs from 2 litters responsible for that: one litter of 5 dogs 120745-9, registered in 1979 by Dr.H.M.Scott working at the British Embassy in Colombia, all with first owners in the Borders. And Shep 151629, registered in 1984 by R.Pulfer, Ohio, USA, first owner Glyn Jones, Bodfari. I don't know if these dogs were really bred abroad and imported or if their breeders moved abroad shortly after these litters were born.

Since then there have been 2 more imported dogs but without registered children. Courtwood Floss 176429, registered in 1988 by Maurice Brand in Switzerland who later moved to Ireland, and Glen 256459, registered in 2001 by Ms.I.P.Ohm from Norway, first owner A.E.Sayers in Lincolnshire. The last dog is apparently one of the first to be important into England after abolishing the quarantine.

The 5 most Irish bred dogs had 96.4% Irish blood, they were bred before 1978. The last very Irish (95.6%) dog was Rock 148984 registered in 1984 by Daniel Moran. The last 10 years no dogs with more than 85% Irish blood were registered and hardly any with more than 80%. One of them is Lyn 235058 (83% Irish) registered in 1997 by J.Dowdall and now owned by Eirian Morgan who competed with her in the 2002 Supreme and World Trials. Another one with 83% Irish blood is Sam 234176 bred and owned by F.Cashen who also competed with him in the 2002 World Trial.

In Wales on average 5% more local dog influence is in the pedigrees than in Ireland, and in England still 5% more. During the last 10 years Mrs.A.L.M.Gillespie (prefix Detania) registered most of the 'pure-bred' English dogs. They have relative high coefficients of inbreeding, 10% on average where normally it is 1%. The last English bred (>90%) dog to have competed at International level (in 1986) was R.A.Wilden's Dick 141386, registered in 1983 by R.J.Hedges.

In contrast to the other regions, Scottish breeders stick much more to the regionally available dogs. Over the last 10 years more than 80 dogs were registered with more than 95% Scottish blood. Three of them competed at International and World Trial level in 2002: R.Dalziel's Jack 236167, C.Roberts' Glen 239963 (from the same parents), and A.J.Palmer's Jan 239831.

Finally, at the continent, hardly any dogs with more then 50% continental blood have been bred and those that were, have been registered in the last 10 years. Anne Krueger in Germany, who also recently bred the first few litters with more than 70% Continental blood, has bred many of them. She also bred some champions with approximately 50% Continental blood: Jane 211545 who run 8th in the 1998 and 1999 Continental Championship Trials, and Lad 215978 who she also run in the 2002 World Trial.