40 The Collie or Sheep Dog. 



work alone, and produced from parents whose capabilities 

 and excellences in this respect have been of the highest. 

 We occasionally see at the various trials with sheep held 

 in different parts of the country, a rather handsome dog 

 that is a fairly good worker, but such is the exception, 

 and I am sorry to write that, so far as shepherding is con- 

 cerned with the collie the handsomest dogs are usually the 

 worst workers, at any rate in public. Some exhibitors will 

 tell you how splendidly trained to sheep or cattle their 

 prize-winners are, but if they be so, such performances do 

 not appear in public. Attendances for many years at 

 some of the principal trials have led me to form this opinion- 

 Indeed, on occasions, the duty has devolved upon me of 

 awarding a special prize for the handsomest dog that has 

 worked his sheep to the satisfaction of the judges, and such 

 prizes, excepting in one or two instances that may be alluded 

 to later on, have always gone to dogs that could not have 

 obtained more than a h.c. card at any dog show in the 

 kingdom. There are cases where good-looking dogs, bred 

 from prize-winners on the bench, have been entered on the 

 off chance of the judges allowing them to compete for the 

 " beauty prize," irrespective of their work in the field ; but 

 the latter is generally so bad that the exhibition-bred 

 animal is not allowed to enter the ring at the end of the 

 day when this special honour is to be awarded. 



Of course I do not mean to infer that the handsome prize 

 winner will not work at all, my contention merely being 

 that he cannot perform his duty so well through lack of 

 opportunity in his progenitors, as the more common-place 

 creature whose ancestors have spent all their lives amongst 

 the flocks. A properly-bred collie will take to his work as 

 naturally as a sporting dog will take to his ; and I very 



