Ode to the Border Weenie

I'm not a fan of "designer" breeding-- honest. But I happen to be lucky enough to have rescued a dog who is of the most fantastic crossbreed possible. Everyone, meet my dog Jormungandr, the border weenie.

When I tell people I have a border weenie, I usually get one of four reactions:

a) AAAAAHHHH that sounds so cute!
b) a WHAT?
c) How did that happen?
d) What's it look like?

And my reactions are:

a) It's so cute. So. Cute.
b) A border collie and dachshund mix.
c) In every case I've seen, the mom has been a border collie and the dad has been a very determined dachshund.
d) Like a border collie, but long.

Jormungandr isn't the only one of his "breed." I've actually seen several other border weenies. In fact, a few months before adopting Jormy, I encountered an entire litter of the little guys right in my area:

Adorbz, right? The little ones in this pic had the smooth, flat coat of their dachshund daddy, but some of their litter mates had longer fur like their rough-coat border collie mama. 

Here are some other border weenies:

Aren't they just too cute to handle? The funny thing is that this accidental crossbreed actually ends up looking a lot like the Cardigan Welsh corgi, a breed only distantly related to border collies or dachshunds that was bred to herd cattle. Cardigan Welsh corgis look so much like border weenies that it would be easy to mistake the two:

Please spay and neuter your border collies and weenies, but, should you end up with an oops litter... give me a call. I can't get enough of how cute these little guys are.

Border Collie Breed Diversity

Think you know what a border collie looks like? 

Try to figure out which of these is a real, purebred border collie.

The answer? All of them!

Border collies are bred for herding, not conformation to a breed standard. Responsible breeders select parent-dogs based on their intelligence, agility, and ability to herd sheep, without any concerns about what the resulting pups might look like. Because of that, the border collie breed is incredibly diverse. Adults can weigh anywhere between 20 and 65 pounds and can be almost any combination of colors. They can have "rough" flowing coats or "smooth" flat coats. They can have floppy or erect ears. Many border collies from true herding stock would not meet the AKC criteria to be considered border collies-- but border collie enthusiasts say that their dogs, bred for work instead of the show-ring, are the only real border collies.

Dogs bred for agility or show are arguably not collies at all, since many consider part of the definition of "collie" to be "herder." This is part of the reason that most border collie enthusiasts are very opposed to the breed's recognition by the AKC. Breeding border collies to fit a specific standard of appearance is antithetical to breeders' goals of improving the dogs' health and herding ability across generations. If you meet a border collie who doesn't look like a border collie to you, odds are that she came from an exceptionally good breeder who is keeping in line with the ultimate goal of creating fast, smart, agile herders.

If a dog is bred from two border collie parents who herded sheep, it is a border collie, regardless of what it looks like.

Old Hemp, the First Border Collie

This is Old Hemp, the great-great-great-some-odd-grandfather of both of my doggies. All border collies (and therefore all border collie mixes) are his descendants. Old Hemp was born near the border of England and Scotland to two sheepdogs in 1891.

He started trying to herd sheep before he was even weaned and was much more agile, intelligent, and work-driven than any other dogs on the farm. Naturally, his handler took advantage of this and started breeding him to his other dogs, as well as renting him out as a stud. His pups and grand-pups-- most notably his grandson Sweep-- became famous for their remarkable intelligence and their herding ability.

Within just a few years, they became the dominant herding breed. From 1906 to 1951, every single dog who won the International Sheep Dog Society's competition was a descendant of Old Hemp. Today, essentially all agility competitions and sheepdog competitions are won by border collies, to the point that many have separate ABC, or "Anything But Collie" competitions where Old Hemp's descendants aren't allowed, since they have such a tremendous natural advantage over other breeds. They're also consistently found to be the most intelligent dogs, with many of them proven to have a passive vocabulary of hundreds of words.

All because of one bad-ass mutant sheepdog.