Pictures or it didn't happen....

Spotted in the wilds of Facebook today....a conformation MAS show breeder stating: "They are not supposed to be fine boned or leggy, performance people want that for sport but it’s not correct for the breed standard and their intended use. "

So of course, I checked to see how many of the dogs advertised on her site had herding titles or photos of them working and surprise! Exactly 1 herding picture, and it was on a dog they themselves didn't breed!

People, if you're going to claim that those of us who own dogs who ACTUALLY herd are breeding dogs that are "not correct for the breed standard or their intended use", you better by golly prove the ones YOU are breeding ARE correct for their intended use and that they're better at it than ours are. Put your money where your mouth is. Same goes for agility. If you're going to claim the dogs at the top (like Pixel) aren't correct and that the dogs you breed are superior, you better be proving it.

PICTURES OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN!!

Please start posting PROOF that the short legged, over-boned, over-coated, over-angulated show dogs you're parading around those rings are superior to the dogs you're bashing.

Now if you are NOT bashing the other breeders, I'm not talking to you. If you fully understand you're breeding for show type with no concern of being successful in herding (or sports), that's fine. But if you're going to claim your dogs are SUPERIOR for herding to the ones the sports and working breeders are producing, the onus is upon you to PROVE IT.

Or, as we say in the agility world, "Run your dog, not your mouth".

If you aren't willing to prove it, sit down and be quiet. And don't make the excuse that you can't afford to prove your dogs in herding. If you could afford those pro handlers and those magazine ads and those trips to Westminster, you could afford some herding lessons too. After all, you're claiming to be so concerned with honoring what the breed was intended to do right? So obviously proving your dogs can herd should be just as important to you if not more so than working on your bronze-diamond-platinum-plutonium-kryptonite level Grand Championship.

You say your dogs are more athletic and better built to herd?

Where. Are. The. Pictures.

Go on...we're waiting....