| |
Update as of September 6, 2009
The last of the large-scale cattle droves
through Wales ended in 1870; sheep droves, however, continued for
approximately another 30+ years. The droving of cattle from Scotland
into England also ended in the late 1800s. Many individuals
believe that their way of life as shepherds/farmers in the early 21st
Century will end over the next few years. Thousands of sheep were
recently sold off the hills of Northern Scotland at the Stirling
markets. They will not be replaced.
Preparing this website has been complicated by several factors,
but it is
coming. What appears below comes from various
sections within the website. This page will be replaced when the entire
website is ready for the public. Also, after the entire site
is available to the public,
plans have been made to place nearly all the materials under the umbrella of a University
library located in
the United Kingdom. That means when the website is no longer available
to the public, the information will still be preserved, and available,
for future generations. Some items, where copyright permissions were
granted only to this website, will require securing new copyright
permissions by the University's librarians. But that is only a small
number of items when comparing them to all the materials used.
Introduction to the
History of the Beardie-like Working Collie
Beardie-like collies, as workers, existed on the
British Isles for a very long time. How far back they can be traced is
difficult to say. Like other kinds of utilitarian dogs from olden days,
the Beardie-like dogs evolved due to several factors: the region where
they resided; the
climate; and the conditions of the terrain they traversed.
The type of work performed by these Beardie-like
canines also assisted in their being described and/or categorized as a
"sheepdog" or a "drover's dog." Where they resided
within Britain brought about various names to describe this type of dog.
The names, to name a few, included: a Beardie or Beardy; an Old-Fashioned
Collie; a Rough Coated Collie
(this can be rather confusing since the modern Scottish Collie developed
into two varieties, one of which is a "rough coated" type, similar to
the well known "Lassie"); a Highland Collie;
a "hairy-moued
collie," a "stumpy," an Old Welsh Grey; a
Smithfield; and a Border Collie (due to some of the dogs residing in the
borderlands in an era long before the Border Collie got its breed name
in the 1900s). The Beardie-like dog played heavily into the background
of the Old English Sheepdog and the Smithfield.
A noted dog historian and author, Col. David
Hancock, suggested caution should be used when differentiating types of dogs as "breeds." Borrowing from
some of his words, "Superficial physical similarities in historic depictions are
the pig-trap for every breed researcher;...." That begs the
question: when does a particular dog type become known as a
"breed"?
One could certainly argue that once a standard has been associated
with a particular type of dog, it takes on the connotation of being
known as a "breed." The first known standard
for the Highland or Bearded Collie was written by D.
J. Thomson Gray which appeared in his book Dogs of Scotland
(1891).
But shepherds did not,
nor do they now,
concern themselves with "standards." Many people have likely heard the
phrase "form follows function." When dogs where used strictly for
utilitarian purposes, form followed function. But once dog shows began,
form became the function.
It only stands to reason that shepherds did engage in some sort of
breeding goals to produce offspring that could be used to assist them in
carrying out the desired work that was needed to be done. Certainly the
working Beardie-like dog (in spite of the various regional names used to
describe this worker) did exist, no matter the breed name
used, prior to Gray's standard being written. Regarding the Beardie-like
canine, shepherds point out two things commonly associated with this
worker: (1)
its style of work; and (2) the presence of a beard under its chin. Colour,
length of tail, body shape, overall size, thickness of coat, etc.
varied.
Dedication
This site is
dedicated to those individuals who put forth their written
recollections and recordings, and to the individuals from Britain who are using,
or once used, working Beardie-like dogs to assist in their management of
flocks of sheep or in the driving of cattle. Some of these
individuals, from both the 20th and 21st centuries, appear in the "Shepherds" section.
Though this
site has the word "shepherds" in its domain name,
the name was not selected to exclude sheep farmers, stockmen, herdsmen
or drovers. A Beardie-like dog working cattle is just as valued as any Beardie-like
dog tending its flock. In fact, in its history, the Beardie-like shepherd's
dog was highly regarded by individuals working as drovers and butchers. Dogs being used as drovers no longer
exist due to the implementation of railroad cars, large transport
trucks (called lorries), or ferries. The term "drover" is often used
interchangeably for a person, or a dog, engaged in the driving of cattle,
or other livestock,
to market.
A wonderfully illustrated map of the drove roads will be included within the
full website.
A
shepherd, as presented on this site, is usually employed by a landowner
or farmer (referred to as a "governor," "boss," or in Scotland, a
"laird,"
or other names depending upon geographical area). Some shepherds
are self-employed and contract their services out to farmers who do not
employ a full time shepherd. Under those
circumstances, the individual is called a contract shepherd.
There are also individuals appearing on this site who
would be referred to as sheep farmers for whom sheep are the main or
sole enterprise on their farms. A sheep farmer could be an individual
who is tending their own flocks, employs a shepherd, or contracts some,
or all, of the work out to a contract shepherd. Shepherds work long
hours in all kinds of weather. The individuals presented on this site
appear only by a first name and the region where they reside (unless
permission was granted for a surname to be used). It may be that some
individuals wish to respect their employer's privacy, and therefore, did
not want last names used. A stockman is someone usually engaged in the
business of raising cattle to be sold for meat. A herdsman, on the other
hand, usually works with dairy cattle, though some people refer to
a herdsman as someone working both kinds of cattle.
Pre-History and Development of the
Dog in Britain
Archaeologists have discovered remains of dogs in
Britain dating back to the Old Stone Age.
Such archaeological discoveries support
the suggestion by many individuals in the field of archaeology that the dog was the first of all
animals to be domesticated by humans.
The raising of livestock in Britain traces back to
the Bronze Age according to several scholarly writings.
During this era (~2,000 BC),
Britain's population became an agricultural civilization.
Raising livestock became an important part of that agricultural
environment. Would not dogs have become important to farmers
needing protection for their sheep and cattle from the wolves?
Perhaps this era marks the beginning of some form of selective breeding
in order to
enhance the guarding and working abilities of dogs.
It stands to reason that farmers likely began
breeding dogs for certain characteristics due to their need
for livestock management.
C ynologists (cynology
being defined as the "study of dogs") and/or authors such as James Watson, Robert Leighton, Edward
C. Ash, Clifford Hubbard and Col.
David Hancock devoted many years in researching canine subject matter to formulate
their historical writings throughout the 1900s until the present.
Unfortunately, there were some writers that borrowed the words of some
author(s) without doing thorough research. For that reason,
caution and skepticism might be a good thing to keep in mind.
The Boke
of St. Albans was published in 1486. It was the first book on
hunting to be issued from England. Many
authorities have stated that this book was attributed to
Juliana Berners, a prioress at the Sopwell Nunnery (around 1481). Ash,
however,
expressed doubts about Berners being the author of the writings because it was
established that no such prioress resided at this Nunnery during that
period of time nor was such a lady confirmed to be Lord Berners'
sister. Ash stated the Boke of St. Albans was mainly copied from "The
Master of Game" written between 1406 and 1413 by Edward,
Second Duke of York. Note: According to scholars, the Duke translated, with
interpolations, Gaston de Foix's "Livre de Chasse" though Ash
wrote that the Duke did write five original chapters. Hubbard's view
about Berners differs from Ash. In his book The Literature of British Dogs
(1949), Hubbard stated his belief that the section on hunting is likely Berners' own
original compilation based upon her signature at the end of the chapter.
Hubbard mentioned that certain types of dogs listed in the Boke
of St. Albans remain
unknown; however, some were known, and of those, they were not purely
native breeds. Rather they had been in the British Isles for a very long
time.
Hubbard
paid a high compliment to Ash when he wrote "...undoubtedly
the greatest work on the dog ever printed in English is Dogs: Their
History and Development (1927) by Edward C. Ash." That was
quite a compliment considering that "Doggy" Hubbard owned the largest
private collection of dog literature prior to the time of his death. Ash's
1927 book indicated that Conrad Gesner's writings were the first serious
attempt to deal with dogs. Gesner was also known as
Konrad von
Gesner. Dr. Gesner
(1516-1565), a Swiss
physician and naturalist , wrote to Dr.
Johannes Caius (pronounced like "keys to a lock"), an English
physician, asking for a description of British dogs. Dr. Gesner wanted
to include this information in an updated version of his earlier natural
history writings.
Dr. Caius (1533-1603), the physician-in-chief to
Queen Elizabeth I, responded to Gesner's
request by writing a letter in Latin describing different types of dogs in Britain,
but that letter went unpublished.
Five
years after Caius sent his first letter to Dr. Gesner, he sent a second
letter which was more descriptive. Gesner used this information. This
second letter was published
in Britain as a small book with the title De Canibus Britannicis
(shortened title) in 1570 (five years after Gesner's death). The book's
significance was
that it was the first book devoted entirely to the subject of dogs.
Caius categorized the dogs into
classifications. One classification was the "shepherd's dogge."
Caius'
writings were translated by his assistant, Abraham Fleming, to English,
and that translation was published in 1576 under the name Of English Dogs
(shortened titled).
Regarding Edward Ash's own conclusions, he
wrote "It is difficult to say if the bearded
collie was in the distant past indigenous to Scotland, or whether at
some early age these heavily-built matted-haired dogs evolved in some
northern area of Europe and spread to Scotland."
The below images are from a portion of
a page published in a book on quadrupeds by Jan Jonston (1603-1675)
(also known as Joannes Jonstonus).
The image below on the right appeared at the
end of Edward Ash's The Practical Dog Book, Page 330, with the
words: "From a German Natural History of 1650." Ash did not discuss the image or Jonston in
his book, and why it appeared on that
page is unknown. Ash used at least one other engraving of a dog from Jonston's illustrations within his book.
Jonston was a Polish scholar and a
physician who descended from Scottish nobility. Jonston
had studied botany and medicine at the University of Cambridge.
His work in Latin
entitled Historiae Naturalis De Quadrupetibus (c. 1650)
included a section entitled "De Quadrupedibus Domesticis."
His work was translated into English in 1657.
Sixteen drawings of canines appeared
under several names starting with either "canis" or "canes."
An engraving entitled "Canes" set forth several dogs. This engraving, shown (in part) below,
demonstrated a shaggy and
long-coated type of canine similar to some of the early images of the Beardie-like
dogs. Notice that the tail has hair hanging in a downward
direction, and a beard is presented beneath the chin. To assist the
viewer, the other dogs were lightened so that this particular dog would
stand out in the foreground.
Another engraving had a caption "canis hunde."
That image,
below right, showed a head that
could be described as being similar to the shape of some "Beardie-like"
dogs from the 21st Century.
 
What is known about dogs that possessed beards?
The famous French naturalist, Georges Buffon
(1707-1788) published his Histoire naturelle (shortened title) in
15 Volumes from 1749 through 1767. It was later translated to English in
1781. Buffon concluded that all varieties of domestic species descended
from the shepherds' dogs; other authorities rejected this notion. Buffon included an image of Le Grand Barbet.
In 1553, Jacques of
Fouilloux mentioned the barbet spaniel in his treaty. "Barbet" stemed
from the word "barbe" (French designation for beard).

Thomas Bewick (1753-1828), the
famous English engraver, included illustrations on what he called "The
Shepherd's Dog" and "The Cur Dog" in his History of Quadrupeds
published in 1790. The engravings were included in James Watson's
book, The Dog, published in 1905-1906. Line drawings of those two engravings appeared in Ash's The Practical Dog Book, page
108. Ash identified "The Shepherd's Dog" by Bewick under the name of
"The Collie."
"The Cur Dog" by Bewick was
called "The Bob-tailed Dog or Cur Dog" by Ash. Why Ash renamed
the Cur Dog as a "Bob-tailed Dog" on page 107 of his book is unknown. Bewick engraved an
image referred to as "The
Large Rough Water Dog." It is shown below and is remarkably similar to
that of Buffon's Le Grand Barbet above.

Taplin (c.1750-c.1830), a veterinary surgeon,
published his book entitled Sportsman's Cabinet (1803).
It was actually published
under Taplin's pseudonym name of "A Veteran Sportsman." Included in the
book was an engraving of a Reinagle painting. That picture has been
included in numerous Beardie publications. Whether it was a Beardie-like
canine could be debated.
In one book, the painting was called "The Shepherd's
Dog." In another, it was referred to as the "Shepherd's Dog." In
another, it was called "The Sheepdog." In another, it was identified as "Old
English Sheep Dog."
In the first edition of
Edward Jesse's book entitled
Anecdotes of Dogs (1846), an engraving of a Beardie-like dog was presented;
he called it a "Scotch Colly." The terms "Scotch Collie"
(often with different spellings for the word "Collie") and "Highland Collie"
were often used to describe a type of canine based upon geographical region;
it was not used exclusively to describe a Beardie-like dog.

One of the earliest written use of the words
"Bearded Colley" for
the Beardie-like dog seems to have been
presented by Hugh Dalziel, in British Dogs (1879), when he wrote
the following under his pseudonym name of Corsincon:
Chapter III. — THE BEARDED COLLEY.
In the west of Scotland there is a rough-faced
and very shaggy-coated dog called the bearded colley, differing
mainly from the true colley in being rough-faced, rather heavier
built, altogether less elegant, and with a shaggier and harsher
coat.
I think they must be a cross with a rough
hound, otter hound, or deerhound—probably the former.
However, in Volume II of his three volume work,
published in 1888, on page 44, he wrote:
"The bearded
Collie of the South of Scotland, which I at one time thought it probable
was a cross with the Deerhound or Otter-hound, may perhaps more probably
be the result of a union between Collie and English Sheepdog; he
certainly possesses features such a cross might account for."
Dalziel, in his second edition, changed the spelling of "colley"
to "collie." As an aside: Col. Hancock's view is that any cross of a
Beardie with the deerhound was to make the
deerhound brainier and more responsive to training and not to alter the
Beardie in any way.
Vero Shaw wrote The Illustrated Book of the Dog (Assisted
by the Leading Breeders of the Day). This book was published by Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co.
The body of work making up this book was
originally published in parts from the years 1879 to 1881. It has been stated this book "...is only the
fourth general work on dogs with color illustrations to be
published in the English language."
(Note: Shaw's book is sometimes
referred to as Cassell's Book of the Dog. This title by Shaw can be confusing
due to another book being later published entitled, Cassell's New
Book
of the Dog, edited by Leighton, published in 1907.)
Shaw's book included a wood
engraving
entitled "A Scotch Bob-tailed Sheepdog." Shaw wanted the engraving to
reflect the type of canine Gordon James Phillips described in his letter of
November 15, 1878 to the
"Live Stock Journal."
Phillips
referred to a rough coated collie with a stump for a tail (approximately
six to nine inches in length). Later
Phillips' letter also appeared in D. J. Thomson Gray's book Dogs of
Scotland, 1891.
Gray concluded that it was unfortunate that Phillips had used the words
"the rough coated collie" in his1878 letter, because the description by
Phillips met the description known to Gray as the "Highland or Bearded Collie."

Much has been written about how the Bearded Collie
and the Old English Sheepdog were one and the same. Shepherds often
stated that their Beardie-like dogs were mistakenly called Old English Sheepdogs.
It still remains true today. There will be images provided on the full
website demonstrating the similarities of both breeds. The viewers can decide for
themselves.
What about colour? As previously mentioned, the first
Bearded Collie
standard (unofficial, of course, since it was not attached to any
registry; nor did the shepherds believe in standards) appeared in Gray's book, and a complete copy of the five page chapter will appear
on the full website. Gray, in his standard, stated in part:
"The Eyes, moderately full, vary in colour according to the colour of
the dog's coat. A wall or "china" eye is peculiar to the mirled
colour, but a dark brown eye is what is generally seen. Light yellow
eyes are objectionable."
Col.
David Hancock pointed out (though not in his article featured on this website) that the
word 'mirled' is archaic Scottish for marled, which means harlequin, and
harlequin is different from merle. Harlequin dogs often have
wall-eyes. It is possible that Gray may have been talking about a
harlequin coat as opposed to the merle coat. Recently, two Brindles were
produced in two different litters from the same dam and sire.
When did Beardie-like
dogs Begin to Trial?
The first sheepdog trial was held at the Rhiwlas Estate outside of Bala,
Wales, in 1873 (same year that the Kennel Club formed). Other trials followed. Because the shepherds were so
busy with chores, it was likely they had precious little time to enter
dog trials. But some "beardeds" did trial as far back as the late
19th Century. Jonathan and George Barcroft trialed their Beardie-like
sheepdogs in the late 1800s. Numerous articles from such trials will
appear in the "Barcroft" section of the website.
In 1899, a "Bearded" named Daur is listed as the winner
of a New Cummock trial from among 32
entries. A copy of this trial document will also appear on the
website. Dogs entered
in the New Cummock trial were
listed by the name of the dog's color, i.e., "Black and White"
or "Black and Tan" or, in the case of Beardeds: "Black
and White, Bearded"; "Black and Tan, Bearded"; "Grey, Bearded"; "Black, and
White Breast, Bearded"; and "Black, Bearded." The
dogs, described by color, but minus the designation of "Bearded," were
likely the ancestors to the working collie breed to later be named "Border
Collie."
What connection did the Beardie-like dog have with the
ISDS?
In the early days of the ISDS, Beardeds were registered. Maddie, a Bearded, owned by W. B. Telfer,
was registered as Number Eight. James Reid, a solicitor (lawyer) from Airdrie
has been credited with
giving the Border Collie name to that breed after the
International Sheep Dog Society (ISDS)
was founded in 1906.
Maureen Sale wrote a lengthy article
outlining much of the Beardie's early trialing history, and her article
will also appear on the website. Sale included a picture of Maddie,
next to her owner's side. This photo could easily cause one to ponder
how close was Maddie to being a Beardie-like dog. Perhaps she was part Beardie.
If
Maddie, indeed, worked in the style of a Beardie (a style described by
many shepherds in the late 1800s and throughout the 1900s, and
one which can be quite different from the Border Collie's style), then Maddie was,
indeed, a Beardie, particularly in the eyes of her owner. Mr. Telfer
certainly considered her a Beardie.
Beardie-like dogs in
Early Paintings
The Dog (1905-1906) was authored by James Watson; his book
included reproductions of paintings and important early prints to
include Bewick's etchings mentioned above.
Regarding the collie, Watson wrote: "We can say that the collie was
practically unknown in London as late as 1860." Watson scoffed at the
suggestion that the Gainsborough portrait of the Duke of Buccleuch,
1770, was holding a bob-tail. "Nothing of the kind; it is a large,
rough Scotch terrier with all the look of a Dandie." There is some
confusion about the date of the painting. A mezzotint was also rendered
by John Dixon in 1771, a year after Gainsborough completed the painting.
There are many references in several writings about
a dog appearing in a painting by the artist, Philip Reinagle. It was
purported to have been painted around the year 1803. In one book, the
painting was called "The Shepherd's Dog." In another, it was referred to
as the "Shepherd's Dog." In another, it was called "The Sheepdog." In
another, it was identified as "Old English Sheep Dog."
Watson stated:
"There is one
thing about the Reinagle picture which does not appear to have attracted
attention, and that is the Scottish scenery. The man sitting in the
middle distance may not have kilts, but he has a Scotch bonnet and a
crook. Of course it may have been a mere fancy of the artist to put an
English sheep dog in a Scotch or Highland scene, but it might have been
one of the strain from which we have the bearded collie in Scotland."
Books
Published in the 1900s
Leighton's
book The New Book of the Dog (1907), according to Hubbard, was
described as "...an important work for all times." This book not only
described British dogs, but included varieties of dogs from the
continental mainland of Europe and Asia. Many illustrations, to include
some colored plates, were included.
According to Iris Combe,
Herding Dogs: Their Origins and Development in Britain
(1987),
page 116,
James Dalgliesh wrote the chapter on collies for Leighton's book. (Note: if one is looking
for Leighton's book, it is actually entitled Cassell's New Book of
the Dog, etc.)
Combe quoted from Leighton's book as follow:
".... Dalgliesh refers to the bearded collie as
the Scottish or Highland collie, but other authorities would not go
along with this."
"From careful consideration of
the weight of evidence, it seems unlikely that the breed was
originally a tailless one, but the modern custom undoubtedly
accentuates its picturesqueness by bringing into special prominence
the rounded shaggy quarters and the characteristic bear-like gait
which distinguish the Old English Sheepdog."
Leighton, in his later book, Dogs and All About
Them (1910) wrote in the Preface:
"In preparing the present volume, I have drawn
abundantly upon the contents of my larger and more expensive New
Book of The Dog, and I desire to acknowledge my obligations to
the eminent experts who assisted me in the production of the earlier
work and whose contributions I have further utilised in these
pages."
Leighton named some of the individuals' contributions,
but Dalgliesh was not among them by name in his 1910 book. His book, Dogs and All About
Them , has been published online by the Project Gutenberg
(eBook #10991). Leighton likely relied upon
Dalgliesh's writings
about the Scottish Bearded or Highland
Collie, and the following appeared in the Collie section, Chapter
VIII, of this 1910 book:
"This dog and the
Old English Sheepdog are much alike in appearance, but that the bearded
is a more racy animal, with a head resembling that of the Dandie Dinmont rather than the square head of the Bobtail."
Notice what was written about coat color.
"He is a favourite with the
butcher and drover who have sometimes a herd of troublesome cattle
to handle, and he is well suited to rough and rocky ground, active
in movement, and as sure-footed as the wild goat. He can endure cold
and wet without discomfort, and can live on the Highland hills when
others less sturdy would succumb. In the standard adopted for
judging the breed, many points are given for good legs and feet,
bone, body and coat, while head and ears are not of great
importance. Movement, size and general appearance have much weight.
The colour is varied in this breed. Cream-coloured specimens are not
uncommon, and snow white with orange or black marking may often be
seen, but the popular colour is grizzly grey. Unfortunately the
coats of many are far too soft and the undercoat is frequently
absent."
In the Old English Sheepdog section, it was
written:
"Throughout the nineteenth
century, one finds conclusive evidence that the breed was very fairly represented in many parts of England, notably in Suffolk,
Hampshire, and Dorsetshire, and also in Wales. Youatt writes of it
in 1845, Richardson in 1847, and "Stonehenge" in 1859. Their
descriptions vary a little, though the leading characteristics are
much the same, but each writer specially notes the exceptional
sagacity of the breed.
The dog was well known in
Scotland, too, under the title of the Bearded Collie, for there is
little doubt that this last is merely a variant of the breed. He
differs, in point of fact, chiefly by reason of possessing a tail,
the amputation of which is a recognised custom in England.
With regard to this custom,
it is said that the drovers originated it. Their dogs, kept for
working purposes, were immune from taxation, and they adopted this
method of distinguishing the animals thus exempted. It has been
argued, by disciples of the Darwinian theory of inherited effects
from continued mutilations, that a long process of breeding from
tailless animals has resulted in producing puppies naturally
bob-tailed, and it is difficult, on any other hypothesis, to account
for the fact that many puppies are so born. It is certainly a fact
that one or two natural bob-tails are frequently found in a litter
of which the remainder are duly furnished with well-developed tails."
Luke J. Pasco, in 1937, authored Heather Jean
The Working Sheep Dog. He stated:
"While there are no
distinct types of the breed which breed true because of the constant
crossing within the breed, the individuals of the breed are often
classified into three different types. These types are the smooth
coated, the long coated and the bearded collie."
Col. Hancock in his book The Heritage of the Dog
(1990) stated:
"....Luke Pasco, the leading New England
sheepdog trialler of the 1930s, relates how time and time again he
was able to trace outstanding dogs to British stock, usually
imported from Scotland with a load of sheep or cattle and often
shrewdly included in the deal by American livestock dealers. He
referred to them as Border Collies, the name of the contemporary
pedigree breed, now favoured as a black and white breed with the
distinctive white collar. A more accurate generic term would have
been British farm collie."
The working Bearded Collie and the Border Collie
breeds have much in common in their ancestral lineage. Which one
precedes the other is unknown and unimportant.
In Ada Bishop's book, All about the Collie
(1971) she
included an entire chapter on the Bearded Collie.
She supported the idea that the Beardie was one of the most ancient
breeds in the U.K. versus an opposing viewpoint (see Combe below) that
the breed was of more recent origin.
Bishop wrote:
"There are two lines of evidence which support
this claim—one is furnished by the dog's natural history, the
other by his racial history.
Take them in turn. It is one of the most
salient characteristics of the dog that he breeds 'true to type'; no
matter what crosses are introduced; the typical 'Beardie' characters
are predominant, and are indelibly stamped upon the offspring. This
is surely not what one would expect in a recent, adventitiously
manufactured breed — the result of a first cross — and one would
instance it as a proof of his antiquity and concentration of strain.
As has been stated above, the Bobtail is by
some regarded as a possible progenitor of the 'Beardie'.
One is firmly convinced, however, that the
relationship which exists between the two breeds could be better
likened to that of cousins - i.e., they are both descendants from a
common stock."
In Iris Combe's book, Herding Dogs: Their Origins and Development in Britain
(1987), chapter 10, entitled "The Scotch or Highland Collie," page 115,
she wrote:
"The rough- and smooth-coated show collies are
frequently referred to as Scotch collies, as are the beardies; I
dispute the assumption and give my reasons in the chapters on the
respective breeds."
In chapter 15, entitled "The Bearded Collie or
Beard," page 162, Combe wrote:
"Other historians believe that he is descended
from a shaggy type of herding dog brought to Britain by the
Anglo-Saxon farming communities, and that possibly both the bobtail
and the beardie share this same ancestry. I have mainly confined my
study of his history and evolution to his role as drover's dog, in
which capacity I dispute the assumption that he is related to the
bobtail, for reasons I have given in chapter 4. Unfortunately, when
the bearded type was being transformed into a fixed recognized
breed, some bobtails were used. It is also claimed that this variety
of collie is of ancient Scottish origin, but I do not accept this."
Col.
David Hancock indicated it was likely that the
shaggier sheepdogs were called Beards (or Hirsels) in Scotland, Haggards
in Ireland, Grays in Wales and Shags in southern England, where the
bigger ones were used as drovers' dogs and dubbed Bobtails. For
a better understanding on how the harsh-coated
sheepdog breeds developed over many centuries, you are invited to read Col. Hancock's
writings for this website which will appear in the "History" section.
The Workers vs. the Show Dogs
Some
photos from the late 1800s and early 1900s demonstrated shaggy sheepdogs not far removed from
some of the late 20th Century and early 21st Century working Beardies. Among the differences
between the current working Beardies vs. show Beardies are not only the long coats, but
also there are
still merles, tri-merles, sables and brindles among the coat colours of
the shepherds' dogs.
Even back to the time when the first Bearded Collies were
first shown in Britain, various individuals
from the dog fancier's world were concerned about keeping the length of
coat true to the breed. Also, merles do not appear among the Kennel
Club registered dogs; Mrs. Willison (first to register Beardies with the Kennel Club after
WWII) had purchased a male named Britt, and his dam was Mootie, a merle.
That information was put forth in writing by Major Logan. He also stated that
Britt had a younger sister, named Nell, who was also a merle.
However, there does not seem to be any record of merles being born in any of Mrs. Willison's
litters.
It
is documented that Beardies were imported to other continents as
far back as the early 1900s. One such dog was written about in an AKC
publication dated January 1908 by Winslow Clark. He described a dog
named Bruce as a "Beardie." Mr. Clark's description of the trial held in
State of Vermont, USA, made it sound as though the trial
course was modeled after an ISDS trial course. This would make perfect
sense since the official records of the ISDS registry demonstrated that Beardeds
were registered in the early years of that organization. But where did
Bruce come from? Was he imported to the U.S.? Was he imported to Canada,
and visited the U.S. to participate in this trial? Lots of questions;
often the answers are unknown.
After the ISDS
stopped registering Beardies, Blue (owned, and handled, by Paul
Turnbull), was registered with the ISDS "on merit" in 1984. This "on
merit" term means Blue earned his way into the ISDS registry based upon trial
performance. Four litters by Blue, out of Kennel Club registered Beardie
Collie bitches, were granted registration by the Kennel Club.
Working Bearded Collie Registries
Only in the late
20th
Century were there attempts to register the working Bearded Collies of
the U.K. (meaning dogs not registered with the Kennel Club or any other
kennel club entity). Many owners of working dogs were unwilling to register their
dogs, whatever the name of the entity, for various reasons. The current shepherds' Beardies vary in appearance which seemingly matches what
occurred in the breed's history from as far back as old pictures and
writings exist.
Copyright Statement
© PLEASE READ: Every
reasonable attempt was made to
secure copyright permission for all materials.
In this regard, some copyrights have expired. In other cases, the doctrine of "fair
use" was utilized. The copyright statement at the bottom of
each website page indicates how to
contact a representative for this website if any
copyright appears to be violated.
Where licensing fees were
paid for use of photographs, please be aware that the license allows use of such
photographs on this website only. No image should be reproduced without
contacting the copyright holder.
In other
instances, licensing fees were not paid, but the article, photograph or
other material belongs to a library, magazine, or an individual.
Again, no item should be reproduced without contacting the copyright
holder.
Finally
Remember the saying "a picture is worth a thousand words." Some of the pictures provided by various individuals for this site fit
that description. Working dogs may not work in the same
manner as a trial dog. This does not mean a worker cannot succeed as a working
dog on the farm and a dog competing in trials. Certainly, Turnbull's Blue was a good example of
a dog able to
do both well.
If any shepherd participating in this website
project called his worker a Bearded Collie, no matter the appearance,
then let it be so.
Keep in mind, that many of the rough-coated or shaggy sheepdogs
were similar in appearance. Some of the old
photographs on this website will make it difficult to distinguish a
Beardie from an Old English Sheepdog. Many writers
describe them as being either the same, or a close relative.
|
|