The future

As explained I have decided to focus on sables completely.

At present we own 9 collies that all live a pet life with us. Our litters are born in the kitchen and we raise the puppies within our daily household, as we strongly believe their characters to benefit the most from this procedure. I pick my puppies at about seven weeks old. I very much fancy a well constructed collie being slightly longer than it’s height – certainly never square – and with good reach of neck!

In Holland the majority of the collies are being screened for hip dysplasia and CEA/PRA which in itself is a good thing. Unfortunately the Dutch panel for the assessment of hip quality appears to be the strictest in Europe and thus the results are mediocre for a great number of dogs, which in other countries would still have been rated A2. I am not very happy with this situation as too many dogs are being discarded for this reason, making the already small basis even smaller. This is even a greater problem since too many people fancy quite serious inbreeding with animals that are already closely bred for some generations! I myself will always keep an open eye for new blood and in the future will keep on trying new and different ways to continue my breeding thus maintaining the challenge that breeding dogs is supposed to be!!!

I would like to thank  Ruud Santen ( Mountbatten ) who helped me with this article !!!!

Linda Berghout