Again, feedback please! Also, Any chance someone can find the health issues for this breed? (Smokey? ) Any other feedback is also welcome.
Eh they are not a "large"breed Azz same size as a BC really only longer in the ribcage as they are a droving dog rather than a herding dog. Also there are Tri colours with tan points on eyebrows, inside ears, on cheeks, under root of tail and on legs where white joins main colour. Merles also exist in Working Beardies they are only not acceptable in show bred Beardies because Mrs Willison of Bothkennar Beardies did not like the colour & she brought the breed back to KC registration after WWII Health: HD/ED, Addisons disease, Symmetrical Lupoid Onychodystrophy(SLO), Haemolytic Anaemia and Thrombocytopaenia. The show bred Beardie does have a higher than average incidence of the immune system conditions. Also Eye Conditions have been found in the Breed outside of the UK from the descendants of imports of show bred Beardies from the UK
Thanks Deejay - I have amended the draft (The KC site has it listed as large! lol) Did you get the health info from the breed club website? Particularly the bits about show Beardies having higher incidence of immune systems conditions and offspring of exported stock eye conditions? (We just have to be sure all info we contain is as official as possible - last thing we want is the club societies getting angry )
The show people will never admit to show bred dogs having a higher incidence of Immune system conditions, however as most working bred Beardies have a degree of Border Collie bloodlines behind them-due to the shepherds/farmers simply registering the Beardies in a litter as Beardies & the BCs in the same litter as BC(or more correctly Working Sheepdogs(or Border Collies) with the ISDS) I've never heard of a Working Beardie with an Immune condition. Most show bred Beardies go back to a handful of dogs (The original Bothkennars & one working Beardie & with the popularity of a certain stud dog in the 1970s(Pepperland Lyric John At Potterdale)most kennels have this dog multiple times in their dogs pedigrees, I've seen pedigrees with him as the only male on the 5th generation & then they wonder why they have the health problems in these kennels. A very few kennels don't have this dog in their gene pool, but you can count the number on one hand ! Even the Breeder of my last Beardie eventually used a dog with him in the pedigree :-( fortunately my last Beardie had him just once in his pedigree. He sired at least 314 offspring from 61 litters in the 1970s/1980s the mind boggles at the number of times he now appears in pedigrees over the 6 generations onwards !
Thanks Dyane. I think as the profiles are meant to be an overview of the breed, we should probably only include ailments that effect the breed as a whole. If you think eye conditions and immune disorders are prevalent across much of the breed I can include them (the exact conditions) but it will be a general overview context, and not stipulating show/working. I think that's the only fair way to do it
I've made the current draft live as I think it's good enough to go up now - but will keep revisiting it Bearded Collie
The Immune conditions do need mentioning as they are very common in Beardies(even if it is only the show bred ones)
