BC Museum: Blue Border Collies

THE BORDER COLLIE MUSEUM Permanent Collection

BLUE OR GREY BORDER COLLIES

Note on the Color Pages: --PLEASE READ--

Up till now, I have accepted photos of people's dogs and have put them up on the appropriate pages when I have had the time. However, these pages are getting enormously large, for which there is a cost associated in both time and money (space costs). Furthermore, I have accumulated an enormous backlog of photos that I have not had time to put up, and given the size of the website in general, and the fact that I would like to expand it in other areas, I have not had the time to update the color pages.

So, sadly, I have come to the conclusion that I must cut back the existing pages by removing some photos and leaving only those that best represent particular colors or patterns. I will no longer be accepting photos of other people's dogs for publication on this website except from time to time if a perfect example and a great photo comes along. To those of you who have sent photos that have not yet gone up, I apologize for never having gotten to them.

Still, I have to say that I enjoy getting photos of your dogs and seeing for myself the huge variety there is in the breed. So, if you would like to continue sending me photos, and continue to correspond with me, I would like that very much, and am still available to answer any color questions you may have to the best of my ability.

Thank you for your support on the subject of color genetics in the Border Collie.

-- Carole Presberg, editor and curator, Border Collie Museum

Although it really can't be seen in this black and white image, Glen, left, is a slate grey (or more commonly called, blue) Border Collie with hairless ears who belonged to Marjorie Quarton of County Tipperary, Ireland. (Photo by Marjorie Quarton.) In her article, "Grey, Blue or Gunmetal", in the Shepherd's Dogge, Spring 1989, she talks about dogs of this color:

"I owned a grey dog called Glen, and his nearest grey ancestor was four generations back. I mated four bitches with Glen, and ony two bred a grey pup by him--one in each litter. However, a black and tan bitch regularly produced one or two grey pups by a brown (red) and white dog. Dogs and bitches which breed greys are as likely as not to be tri-colour or black and tan, with a greyish undercoat.

"I have seen perhaps twenty adult greys in Ireland, about half being of my own breeding. These dogs were born pale grey, darkening with age. Some were medium grey when adult, others were dark slate colour, almost black. They were neither very rough nor completely smooth- coated, and, unlike the merles, had no tan markings and no blue or silver eyes. In fact, eye colour was very distinctive, being almost exactly the same grey as the coat. Noses were dark grey, and the skin was dark--never pink. An unusual feature of many grey dogs was the absence of hair on the ears. This was the case in about half the dogs I examined. All the dogs whose ears were hairless were prick-eared."

Linda Rorem from Pacifica, California, also wrote a Letter to the Editor in the same issue:

"These greys appear to be the recessive dilute blue-grey, sometimes referred to as 'maltese', and distinguished from the other forms of grey (merle and dominant progressive grey) by grey noses and eye rims. There is yet another form of grey, observed in Rough Collies, that appears to be related to the dominant progressive grey. Like the dominant progressive grey, the dog is born dark and gradually 'greys out'--but then the process reverses and by the time the dog is fully grown it usually has returned to the darker birth color.

"To complicate things among these genetically different greys, the merle gene can act on the recessive dilute to produce a merle with dark grey nose and eye rims and a coat of patches of dark and light grey; and the progressive dominant grey can act on the rcessive dilute to produce a grey-nosed dog that is born grey and lightens in color as it ages. (Merle and dominant progressive grey can act on any color, turning black to grey but also producing red merles, and progressively lightening red to straw-color, etc.) In the Border Collie, the rarest form of grey appears to be dominant grey."

This is True Blue who was a rescue dog from Wisconsin Border Collie Rescue, and now belongs to Ann Marie Hill of Hyde Park, New York. The closeup of his coat shows the brownish-grey undercoat and the darker blue guard hairs.

The gorgeous blue bitch, above, left and center is Hazy (Bluewyle Hazy Shade og Winter) belonging to Emmy Marie Simonsen from Denmark. Hazy is a Danish Obedience Champion and does some agility as well. In the center photo she is shown with Emmy's black and white dog, Whisper (Bridacre Wisp), so that you can really tell she is blue and white, not black and white. Above right, is blue and white pup, Robbie (Whenway Decorated Hero), at 9 weeks old. Robbie is currently (2001) 3 years old, and was recently imported from England to Denmark by Emmy.

Violet (Detania Violet Elizabeth) is a beautiful blue tri puppy belonging to Hetty van Hessel of the Netherlands. Left, Violet as a young puppy, and right, she is almost grown. See how the blue color deepens with age. Hetty is a trainer and veterinary student who owns a number of Detania Border Collies bred by Angela Gillespie of Suffolk, England. Visit her website at http://www.barkingmaddivas.com. Besides photos of her dogs, she has a lot of other information and interesting links.

Above left, is El Blue, a blue tri puppy bred by Andre Camozzato from Porto Alegre, Brazil. Andre has been breeding and working Border Collies since 1994. He imported ten ABC-registered Border Collies from the USA and two ISDS-registered Border Collies from Wales from Glyn Jones, from his welknown sire, Bwlch Hemp ISDS 201604. El Blue's sire is Cap ABC 162919, above center, a son of Dwain Thompson's Tee ABC 40343. Tee was the USA National Cattledog Champion in 2001. El Blue's Dam (above right with the litter of puppies) is Apinta ABC 83373. Apinta, a daughter of Toss ABC 47845, the Brazilian 2001 National Sheepdog Champion, was born on Danvel Farm, Bois D'Arc, Missouri, on May 17, 1992. Andre is a farmer who also runs trials and clinics, and judges trials in Brazil. They started trials in Brazil in 2000, and since then they have had 10 Open Stockdog Trials. Andre has had 176 pups at his kennel since 1994 and this is the first blue pup he's ever had. All the rest were black and white or black tri. The blue color seems to show up best on pups, who are born light grey.

This beautiful pup belongs to someone named Lacey from Cambridge, Indiana. We don't know Lacey's last name or the name of the pup, but were very excited to read that this pup has hairless ears, like the blue dogs described at the top of this page by Marjorie Quarton.

Another set of blue pups, one blue tri, from Tricia Routhier of Maine. The parents are both black and white, the dam also a tri. There was one black/white puppy in the litter as well.

This gorgeous blue, patterned-white, smooth-coated Border Collie is Mac, who belongs to Jana Trask from New Zealand. Never having seen a blue BC before, Jana thought he was blue merle. He was bred by a commercial kennel as a herding or, as they call them in New Zealand, "eye" dog. Jana got him because some farmers think that, with a predominantly white coat, he would not be able to herd sheep. He has the "eye" but is disinterested in sheep, possibly due to a negative experience with them when he was a small pup, and Jana is going to be doing agility with him. She says he has a lovely temperament.