the average for a wolf is supposed to be about 12 years
interesting that hundreds of years of expert human breeding and too many breeds of dogs dont even have close to the same life expectancy of a wolf


i have to say if you charged more for working collie pups then the farmers would be tempted to breed more, espesh when they aint getting much from sheep
i dont think encouraging people to buy show collies is the answer,they can be just as intense. I think educating people that just because they like the look of a breed dosent mean they are suited to its temprament. many people shouldn't own

shona, i only know about a few farms but the prices ranged from £75 (or an extra twenty quid and he would go into town and get them registered as both parents had papers) to about £150, £400 for a year old

thanks for that, I don think the price of the farm collies has went up much over the years then,

was the £400 year old collie a farm collie?

Generally speaking, from adverts i've seen, farm collies tend to go for say, £120-£150 mark, show collies are around £400 mark. It also seems to depend on coat colourings as well.

Jed cost £130 but he was neither farm nor show, he's simply a BYB bred dog. His resemblance to a collie ends with his appearance, he has none of the collie temperament and this is a major problem as far as i'm concerned. He fits into none of the niches when it comes to his breed.

yup the year old was a farm dog too, although i think the farmer was at it, it was untrained with no drive, i think the people were scared the guy was gonna drown it so just paid him
hence why i think some farmers would get a little greedy if more money was involved

Of course it's just my opinion, same goes for us all.

I wasn't talking about Collies though, cos I know naff all about them. I'm usually talking about Gundogs in these such debates, cos those I do know about!

Massive thread so have not read it all.

I voted worker as I don't care for the look of show types at all, especially in the spaniel. Don't shout at me though because I do think you all have lovely show types, it's just not my personal choice.

I also like the bonkers, madness and muddiness of the worker types it suits my need in a dog perfectly.

Locally in Bcs merles (especially the rare red ones) will go for more than the standard B/W's.

From a good breeder you would be looking at £400/450....BYBs.....anything from £150-300 here I have seen.

Out of the paper....up to £100.

But I have to say - its all very well telling people to go to show line breeders....but if many people ended up with a dog like Celt... (who is show bred) live wouldbe very ahrd for them (well - it was for his brother who ended up being pts ).

thats not what im trying to say, thought I cant talk for others, I think someone whos breeding for both is the way to go, though I do understand that in collies the split is pretty big so finding a breeder that can produce both working/show quality pups may be a task.

Except for those at borderdawns kennels maybe?

rune