Gorgeous. How sad that you lost her. It’s so sad that our pets live such short lives compared to ours. It’s heartbreaking when we lose our furry babies. 
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Devastating…and each furry four leg leaves paw prints on our hearts the size of the universe…
Look at these little ones…!
It’s good that there are people prepared to take on and love the ones who aren’t quite so brave though…x 
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Have you ever watched the film “babe” Mandy…??? It came out when my eldest had just been born…we all loved it as it featured border collies and lots more…,…”if I had words to make a day for you…I’d sing you a morning golden and new…I would make this day last for all time…”
We loved it…still do…
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No I haven’t. Not normally the sort of film I would watch but maybe I will give it a go.
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Dogs, live too long, but not long enough Mandy 
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I have never ‘paid’ for a Dog, don’t understand why anyone would!!!
Far too many abandoned ones, to pay a ‘breeder’ to make money, producing, ‘Chrismas Presents’ 
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Oh it’s a brilliant film Mandy …makes me cry every time it watch it even now…x 
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That’s a really blinkered view bill…saying with respect as friends…even the border collie rescues I support in uk and now here will make a charge…offer a dog or a puppy or kitten for nothing and they could very likely end up as bait for dog baiting…illegal dog fights (fuckin’ scum of the earth s’cuse my language)
It has nothing to do with ethical breeders who only breed for their next generation…guardians of their breed…they are the ones health testing…dna testing…
If you paid zero for bijou then she’s extremely fortunate that you chose her…
I think you may be referring to the despicable puppy farmers out there…???
Sorry but no time for ‘Breeders’ Helen.
‘As a breed’!!!
Many, Far too many dogs need a home, no need to ‘make more’.
If what you want is a pet/friend/companion, (not a disposable fashion accessory, Christmas Present, no one is interested in by New Year, when they find, yuk, it pees and poo’s, needs fed and watered, walked, they didn’t tell me that in the shop!
When you see the money asked for some of the ‘Aristocratic’ animals, it’s just disgusting, makes me want to puke! (sorry).
Utterly, disgustingly, immoral
Bijou, Babeth found Her as a wee pup, abandoned on a ‘parking’, Babeth took her to the vet, had her checked out, chipped, and later steralized, so she wasn’t for zero 
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And that is wonderful for Bijou and she is very fortunate that Babeth found her and she’s now happy and loved and thriving…and much love to the both of you for giving her such a loving home…,
But you really cannot tar an ethical breeder…a guardian and custodian of their breed with the same brush as a puppy farmer or a backyard breeder…or a third party puppy dealer…or someone leaving a litter of puppies in a car park…,there is no comparison…
I’ve had an rspca
rescue dog and lived with the consequences…loved him to bits mind…my first Border Collie before I had my kids I paid £300 for…we’re talking well over 35 years ago…He was an angel…my next were around £400 to £550…I respect the enormous commitment that goes into a responsibly bred litter of health tested dna tested home reared Border Collie puppies.,(and all responsibly bred litters) The ethical breeders are as far away from “Christmas buyers” and the pee poo hating ignorant buyers you describe…as chalk and cheese and mixing oil and water…,
If we condemn all breeders then eventually we will have no breeds…Personally I love my breed…I don’t want to see all that I adore about the border collie disappear…,x
Our pet is a labracollie Helen, sharp as a needle clever, for me mongrel dogs are the best, before they have had the brains bred out of them, same as some people, royalty for example!
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I do however totally despise the ”greeders” out there charging three times plus the going rate than would be charged for a responsibly bred litter…charging 3 times the going rate for non health tested…colours not recognised by the kc designer cross breeds…stupid money with absolutely no regard whatsoever for the puppies they are producing…
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Bill…if she’s got collie in her then she’s bound to be sharp as a needle lol…One of my daughers had a Border Collie cross Staffordshire terrier…she was an amazing dog…saw my daughter through some really tough times…xx
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We will have to agree to have different views Helen, “colours not recognised by the kc” ???
Dad was into his ‘pedigree’ dogs, a boxer he bought, when I was about 7, from a breeder, he later found, had been castrated!
A Staffie had severe Kidney problems, a French Bulldog the same, a Pug, was just ‘nuts’, give me a ‘Mutt’ every time 
Our views are probably not so different when we find a common ground…x
Bijou is half Border Collie and half Labrador…both wonderful breeds…both totally different and both are Kennel Club registered breeds… with the Border Collie also being ISDS…the kennel club has minimum standard requirements for health testing…but both sire and dam and offspring are traceable through the registry…it’s easy to register with my kc and trace a puppy’s family tree…
There are also codes of ethics and standards and minimum standard requirements for health testing of sire and dam adhered to by the various breed clubs…many health tests going beyond the kennel club requirements…(not just the border collie)
There are unscrupulous ”greeders” out there who don’t health test…who don’t register their puppies with the kennel club…and there are those who “raise” their puppies on puppy farms where they have 500 breeding bitches who never see the light of the day who are bred on every season and in establishments where councils and the rspca think it’s ok that there are only 1.5 staff to allegedly take care of 500 bitches and their puppies…yeah right…try raising just one litter of puppies and you’ll soon realise how totally neglected 500 litters of puppies with only 1.5 members of staff really are neglected…
Unscrupulous breeders/greeders breeding for nonstandard kennel club recognised colours and even worse cross breeding non standard recognised colours…
(In the Border Collie a Merle to Merle breeding can result in blindness and deafness amongst other health problems)
Backyard breeders…only bothered about raising enough money for a holiday or Christmas…
Third party puppy dealers…,bringing in/smuggling in car loads of ill puppies from the continent…or buying litters of unwanted puppies in the U.K. and when purchaser comes to visit making out that an unrelated dog is the mother…
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Well I can’t account for any breeder castrating early when all evidence supports allowing a dog to mature…little evidence to support castration at all…If your dad wanted an entire male then why did he end up with a castrated male (although I appreciate it’s a while ago now…)
Staffie with severe kidney problems…how many years ago…??? Pedigree history…what lines…??? Colour…??? Vaccination history…???
Pugs…and French bull dogs there are very few healthy lines even today…both being brachycephalic breeds and both considerably over exploited by puppy farmers and back yard breeders…
The very best chance of buying a healthy pug or French bulldog or Staffordshire or boxer today is by carefully researching kennel club breeders who are doing all the recommended health testing…and more…liasing with breed clubs…going to meet breeders before puppies are on the ground…going to discover dogs…
Yes there are many in shelters and rescues…many mutts and mongrels and cross breeds and Heinz 57s through no fault of their own and it’s appalling…but it’s not the fault of the ethical breeders…most ethical breeders will try and take their own puppies back at whatever age for rehoming…will state it in their puppy buyers contract…and if they can’t take a puppy back then will direct to a breed specific rescue…:
in fact that’s why there are breed specific rescues…and why I support breed specific rescues…
List of vulnerable native breeds…
I don’t have a dog (so to speak, and on reflection it’s a miserable analogy) in this fight, but…
… it seems to me that "pure-breed’ variants on the canine species must be a case of miscegenation somewhere along the line, as interbreeding amongst variants is a species characteristic, and in-breeding is therefore always as much an accident as a norm?
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Hi Helen,
The boxer was kc registered and had an impressive pedigree, but castrated so grew to be like a pony, luckily with a beautiful temperament
Ginty the Jack! had a litter, sadly she smothered the dog pup, so I’m aware of the degree of care they need.
Never had much regard for the RSPCA, since the fiasco of one new chairman, first thing he did was spend 10k on new carpets for his residence, a lot of old ladies dosh
I gave the others away and kept one ‘Fleck’, I say gave away, the Fisherman I gave one of them to, insisted on paying me sixpence for her, consequently, that was her name, ‘Sixpence’.
I worked for a fella in Portugal, he and his wife ran a rescue centre, definitely not ‘breed specific’, they did a wonderful job there, one sad occasion I went with him to pick up a dog, it proved to be ‘passed it’, being eaten alive by ticks, he got the gear out of the ‘Landy’, and put it out of it’s misery on the spot, while I held it, that’s what I would call a caring dog shelter manager, just one instance of many kindnesses I saw him perform!
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Totally agree with you about the rspca…a rotten organisation…
It’s not only about ensuring a mother doesn’t inadvertently smother a pup…an ethical breeder will hip score…sometimes elbow score (depending on breed)…eye test for glaucoma and pra…(many other breeds are tested for other problems relevant to the breed)…dna test…carefully choose sires…many costs incurred before even considering a litter of pups…
There are new laws coming out in October around dog breeding…I’m hoping that the law stops those who should absolutely be permanently stopped…all the indiscriminate breeding I’ve mentioned…and doesn’t inadvertently target those doing everything right who love their breed and are the true custodians…
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