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Blue had only basic training when I
acquired her at four years of age. She was bred in mid-Wales by
a farmer who had acquired her dam as a pup. I bought her because
of her lineage. By purchasing her, it gave me a second line of
breeding free of Turnbull's Blue. Although Turnbull's Blue was
bred by a very good friend of mine, I kept him out of my
breeding lines so as to keep an outcross within the breed of
working Beardies. Turnbull's Blue was handled so well by his
owner that he was registered on merit with the International
Sheepdog Society. Because of that, he was used at stud quite
often which resulted in his blood flowing through the vast
majority of working Beardies in the U.K.
Blue took some time to settle to my commands,
but after she did become accustomed to them, she became very
useful and worked well with my other main bitch. She would
gather and fetch in a very controlled manner. Maybe her biggest
fault would be the fact that she had a little too much eye for
my personal liking. Too much eye tends to make a dog sticky.
What I mean here is that I want my dog to flow around the sheep;
not stopping where another command needs to be given to get her
moving.
Blue's greatest asset has
been the quality of her pups. They have turned out to be really
good workers with less eye than her, and, in turn, her female
pups have also produced good working pups.
She was unique to me in that I considered her
a "blue fawn." I do not know if other Beardie breeders
would consider her classified as such; some might think of her
as a blue merle. The reason I do not accept this colour (blue
merle) as being correct is that she had no black on her. Why was
she not just a blue? When her coat was parted, the undercoat was
fawn and her nose was coloured brown. Her eyes were hazel. To my
knowledge, she was the only Beardie of this colour. Her pups
were either slates, tris, or fawns. She never threw a blue. So
far, her daughters' pups have never thrown a blue fawn. I keep
hoping to produce one.
I kept two of Blue's pups from her last litter.
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