12 CapitalPress.com
January 8, 2016
Scottish shepherds brought Border Collies to U.S. in 1800s
DOGS from Page 1
them together, which is needed
to move them.
“The females can be a lit-
tle more sensitive so you have
to be careful not to act mad at
them. The advantage to using a
whistle is you get rid of voice
inflections. If you yell too
much, sensitive ones will quit
and go home,” he said.
Watching a good handler
with a whistle at competitions
is “like someone playing mu-
sic” because different tones
and sequences are different
commands, he said.
Long history
Border Collies descended
from the domesticated, region-
al collies of the British Isles.
Collie in old Celtic is believed
to mean “useful.” The term
Border Collie refers to the An-
glo-Scottish border and was
first used by the Internation-
al Sheep Dog Society in the
United Kingdom in 1915 to
distinguish the dogs from other
collies.
The Border Collie traces
back to a dog known as Old
Hemp, who lived in Northum-
berland from 1893 to 1901. He
was a quiet, powerful dog to
which sheep responded easily.
Shepherds used him for stud
and Old Hemp’s working style
became the Border Collie style.
Scottish shepherds brought
Border Collies to the U.S. in the
1800s. Sam Stoddart, a Scottish
shepherd and well-known Or-
egon rancher, helped spread
their use in Oregon and Idaho.
Thirty-five years ago, cattle
ranchers in the West used Blue
Heelers, the Australian cattle
dog, more than Border Collies,
says Geri Byrne, 59, a trainer
regarded by the American Bor-
der Collie Association as an
authority on Border Collies in
the West.
“A Heeler can drive cattle,
but a Border Collie is more ver-
satile,” Byrne says. “Its natural
instinct is to round them up and
bring them back to you.”
It was at the Red Bluff Bull
Sale in Red Bluff, Calif., about
30 years ago that Border Col-
lies began catching on more
with ranchers in the West, she
says.
Dog stories
The Byrnes bought their
first Border Collie at Red
Bluff in the 1990s. They
called her Moon and she
proved herself well. One of
her memorable moments was
getting even with a cow that
took advantage of her in the
waters of a creek crossing.
“After they got out, I put her
on my four-wheeler to save her
from walking. When we got
to the meadow, she found that
cow and chewed on her,” Byrne
says.
Some years later, it was
Moon’s daughter, Di, who
jumped off a cliff above the
same creek to reach the cows.
“My husband was a little
concerned until he saw she
was OK. It was a steep slope
of about 50 feet on which she
landed a few times on the way
High-priced
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Border Collie Gus, 2, and his owner, Dave Billingsley, are shown at Billingsley Ranch near Palisades,
Wash., on Dec. 31. The ranch house and stockyards are in the background.
Billingsley
Byrne
down. You or I couldn’t have
gotten where she got. I guess
you could say she had more
heart than brains,” Byrne says.
“We worried her name might
be prophetic.”
Another time, Byrne and
her late husband, Dan, left Di
in the cab of their pickup while
they tended some cattle on
their Tulelake ranch in north-
eastern California.
They returned a short while
later to find the seat ripped up
and the steering wheel chewed.
“We learned our lesson that
Di would chew her way out to
come help us,” Byrne recalls
with more amusement than she
probably had at the time.
At Montgomery Creek
Ranch north of Bishop, Ca-
lif., owner Dave Doonan, 52,
recently took a 16-week-old
Border Collie pup out with
him to feed the cows.
“She about tore me up to get
out (of the pickup) to see the
cows,” he said. “She scratched
my neck and the seat to try to
get out the window. She knew
she was supposed to do some-
thing with those cows.”
Doonan has had Border
Collies nearly 10 years. He got
them as he acquired more graz-
ing allotments and says a good
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Gus, 2, gives what Dave Billingsley calls his “RCA-Victor” pose at
Billingsley Ranch near Palisades, Wash., on Dec. 31. He is one of
two Border Collies on the ranch.
Border Collie equals three or
four people on horseback.
“Some of our ground is
boggy. The cattle know that
and go out there to hide. You
don’t want to go out there on
horse or foot, but the Border
Collie can go out and bring
them back,” he said.
Richard and Jeanette (Stod-
dart) Yturriondobeitia have
four Border Collies on their
12-Mile Ranch in southeastern
Oregon, about 35 miles north
of McDermitt, Nev.
“We use them everyday.
They’re just like another person.
They know their job. They don’t
argue. They don’t complain and
they show up for work,” Yturri-
ondobeitia, 70, said.
The dogs make it easier
to get things done with fewer
people and they can take hot
and dry weather better than
most dogs, he said.
“Our neighbor to the north
has some of the best blood lines
of Kelpie (an Australian sheep
dog). I wouldn’t discount them
but I prefer my Border Collie.
On average they seem a little
easier to deal with. Some oth-
er dogs don’t learn as fast and
don’t want to work as much,”
Yturriondobeitia said.
“The Border Collie’s natu-
ral instinct is to want to help,
that’s their biggest attribute. I
watched my daughter lose her
gloves the other day and the
dog (Dude) picked them up
and handed them back to her.
It was pretty cool. She didn’t
have to get off her horse,” he
said.
Dave Billingsley, 73, own-
er of Billingsley Ranch near
Palisades, Wash., said Border
Collies are almost too smart,
loyal and have an innate sense
of bunching cattle and keeping
Walker has worked with
most breeds of stock dogs but
prefers Border Collies because
they are versatile, easy to train,
good-natured with kids and can
catch cattle no one else can.
“They don’t make good
house pets because they will
get bored and crazy and tear
things up. They need a job. ... If
you don’t have a job for them,
they’ll find one,” Walker said.
“When guys call me looking
for a working dog and want to
leave them on the porch, I don’t
sell to them because what will
happen is the dog will be off
on the neighbor’s cattle and get
himself shot,” he said.
There are a couple dozen
stock dog breeders and trainers
in the West.
Walker raises a litter or two
a year. He sells basic-trained
dogs for $1,500 and finished
dogs for $5,000 to $7,500. He
says that’s about the norm,
with dogs that are better
trained fetching higher prices.
His dogs have won national
championships, and on Dec.
9 he sold his top dog, Cable,
for $21,500 at the Western
Bloodstock Sale in Fort Worth,
Texas. Another Border Collie
sold for $27,500 at the same
auction, a record high, he said.
“It’s like horses or anything
else. Pedigree and ability. Ca-
ble is a pretty exceptional dog.
Usually when someone has a
dog like Cable they don’t want
to sell it,” Walker said.
The bite, the eye
Border Collie blood lines
developed by Missouri breed-
er L.R. Alexander 15 years
ago created the tougher Bor-
der Collies Western ranchers
were looking for, Walker said.
“The rancher needs an ag-
gressive dog he can control that
gets in a cow’s face,” he said.
“A cow dog has to bite.”
Ideally, ranchers most-
ly move cattle in low-stress
situations where biting isn’t
necessary, he said. But there
are times, he said, when a
1,500-pound cow is taking on
a 50-pound dog and “if you’re
the cow dog you have to bite.”
Shepherds don’t want dogs bit-
ing sheep so they rely on what’s
called “the eye.” The Border
Collie runs, crouching low and
uses a direct stare to intimidate
sheep or cattle.
“It’s the intensity of the
eye,” said Mike Neary, presi-
dent of the American Border
Collie Association and a breed-
er in Brookston, Ind. Dogs have
varying strength from strong to
looser eyes, he said.
“The eye is almost hypnot-
ic,” Byrne said.
Border Collies, Neary said,
have an instinctive ability to
balance, meaning being in the
right place at the right time to
handle livestock. They look
ahead, anticipating the cattle or
sheep’s next move.
Border Collies can be tight-
ly controlled with commands in
situations such as loading cattle
without a corral. And they can
be positioned by command and
then allowed to follow their
herding instincts.
A common command is
“speak to ’em.” “Away to me,”
means to flank the herd count-
er-clockwise.
“Come-bye”
means clockwise.
“The beauty of them is they
are never late, never hung over
and don’t complain,” Walker
said. “A little food and pat on
the head and they’re as happy
as hell.”
Challenges, future
Testing before breeding
keeps several disorders under
control, which leaves main-
taining the purity of the gene
pool as the greatest challenge,
Byrne said. The American
Kennel Club registers Border
Collies bred for show and the
American Border Collie As-
sociation doesn’t, believing
the genes should kept sepa-
rate to maintain the quality of
working dogs, she said.
Debbie Bailey, secre-
tary and registrar of the as-
sociation in Cataula, Ga.,
agreed genetic purity is a
top concern. The associa-
tion is pleased with the slow
and steady growth of about
14,500 new working Border
Collies per year, she said.
“All of us involved have
our own dogs,” Bailey said,
“and when we go out at first
light, when the steam is com-
ing off the grass, and watch
the dogs work, it is God’s
work at its finest.”
‘We have big differences with the Obama administration’
COURT from Page 1
It’s unlikely the amount of
such litigation will decrease
until Congress changes envi-
ronmental laws to give greater
weight to economic and rural
community concerns, she said.
Another possibility would
be to make public the amount
of money that environmen-
tal groups win from the fed-
eral government, which may
prompt the U.S. Department of
Justice to be less generous in its
settlements, Budd-Falen said.
“It’s all public pressure.”
Federal agencies have re-
cently made several decisions
that are likely to spur further
controversy in coming years,
said Scott Horngren, an attor-
ney who has represented the
grazing and timber industries in
numerous cases.
Environmental lawsuits
filed in federal courts *
1,421
1,222
Other U.S. courts
9th Circuit †
796
579 713 651
491
386
888
904
625
661
11-year
average
862
655
691
667
450 612
388
411
526
286
217 222
2005
’06
265
263 256
243 241 224
199
240 207
’07
’08
’10
’14
’09
’11
’12
’13
2015
* Includes lawsuits filed by organizations and the federal government.
† Jurisdiction includes Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Montana, Nevada, Oregon,
Washington and the territories of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Source: PACER
Mateusz Perkowski and Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
For example, the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service has de-
cided not to list the greater sage
grouse as a threatened or endan-
gered species, he said. Nation-
al forests are also expected to
implement management rules
based on new federal regula-
tions that guide such plans.
“My guess is that’s going to
spawn some lawsuits,” Horn-
gren said.
Nonprofit groups also con-
tinue to add new attorneys to
their ranks who want to chal-
lenge federal decisions in court,
he said. “There continues to
be an expansion of people
coming out of law school who
feel litigation is the best tool to
advance their environmental
views.”
The Center for Biological
Diversity, an environmental
group that litigates over endan-
gered and threatened species,
doesn’t expect the number of
such lawsuits to grow in the fu-
ture, said Amy Atwood, its en-
dangered species legal director.
Past lawsuits over species
often focused on the federal
government’s failure to make
a timely decision on whether
they should be protected under
the Endangered Species Act,
she said.
In 2011, the government
struck a settlement that requires
it to make ESA listing decisions
for 757 species by 2018.
With that deal in place, new
lawsuits are likely to focus on
the substance of these deci-
sions, but the total number is
likely to fall, Atwood said.
“Those cases are not as
straightforward. They take
more time to litigate,” she said.
While the 2011 settlement
has reduced the backlog of ESA
listing decisions, the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service has often
capitulated to make life easier
for natural resource industries,
Atwood said.
For example, the agency list-
ed the lesser prairie chicken and
Gunnison sage grouse as threat-
ened when they should have
been afforded greater protec-
tions as endangered species, she
said. “We’re dealing with find-
ings that are actually unlawful.”
Nonprofits are wrongly ac-
cused of profiting from such liti-
gation, since they actually spend
more on these cases than they
can hope to recover, she said.
Atwood also disputed that
environmental groups engage
in “sue-and-settle,” noting
that they’ve engaged in tough
negotiations when required to
mediate with federal agencies.
“We have big differences
with the Obama administra-
tion,” she said.
Conflicts serve as microcosm of tensions between ranchers and federal land managers
STANDOFF from Page 1
of federal lands, but on-the-
ground disagreements gener-
ally involve narrower and more
complex property rights issues.
“Occupying a wildlife ref-
uge where you’re not normal-
ly grazing or cutting timber is
probably not the best way to
make that point,” Horngren
said.
Ranchers who lease graz-
ing allotments from the U.S.
Bureau of Land Management
and U.S. Forest Service are
more likely to butt heads with
these agencies over the use of
easements for travel or to ac-
cess water rights, said Mark
Pollot, an attorney for the estate
of Wayne Hage, a rancher who
died in 2006 whose family con-
tinues to battle the federal gov-
ernment in court.
“Water rights are useless
if you can’t get to and from
them,” said Pollot.
When Western U.S. territo-
ries accepted statehood, they
had to abandon claims to land
owned by the federal govern-
ment, but that did not nullify
existing easements and other
rights owned by private citi-
zens, he said.
Contrary to the occupation
of the national refuge head-
quarters, which is unlikely to
accomplish anything, ranchers
can win significant victories
when they use legal means to
stand up for their rights.
The story of Hage — a Ne-
vada rancher and icon of ranch-
ers’ “Sagebrush Rebellion”
against federal agencies — is a
key example.
After decades of legal wran-
gling with the U.S. Forest Ser-
vice, Hage’s estate won $4.4
million from the federal gov-
ernment in 2008 after a judge
ruled the agency had unlaw-
fully deprived him of access to
water rights, road easements,
fences and other improvements
his family owned on public
land.
That award was later over-
turned for procedural reasons,
but the case is still pending be-
fore the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit.
In 2013, another federal
judge issued an injunction pro-
hibiting the Forest Service from
impeding Hage’s cattle from
accessing water sources.
Government officials en-
gaged in an “intentional conspir-
acy” to deprive Hage of his wa-
ter rights and due process rights
in a manner that “shocks the
conscience,” the judge found.
That ruling was challenged
by the agency and is now under
review by the 9th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals.
These conflicts serve as a
microcosm of the tensions be-
tween ranchers and federal land
managers.
“It comes down to the
broader issue of who gets to
control the water resources and
the infrastructure of the West,”
said Pollot, Hage’s attorney.
Tensions between ranchers
and federal agencies also arise
due to pressure from environ-
mental groups.
Local federal land managers
traditionally had practical expe-
rience in the livestock industry,
but now they’re more likely to
focus on avoiding lawsuits over
the National Environmental
Policy Act, said Karen Budd-
Falen, an attorney in Cheyenne,
Wyo., who represents ranchers.
“All they do is sit at their
desks and write NEPA (Na-
tional Environmental Policy
Act) documents,” she said.
When the public sees the
militia takeover of the refuge
headquarters, though, they
don’t realize that ranchers have
legitimate grievances with fed-
eral agencies that have been
recognized by judges and law-
makers, Pollot said.
Even so, the federal govern-
ment would be wise to consid-
er why such displays of public
anger are recurrent in the rural
West, he said. “You should at
least ask yourself if you’re do-
ing something to contribute to
it.”
Heated disputes over federal
land management are nothing
new, but the episode in Oregon
and the 2014 standoff at the
Cliven Bundy ranch in Neva-
da are “an old story with a new
twist,” said Char Miller, a pro-
fessor of environmental analysis
at Pomona who has studied the
longstanding debate over West-
ern lands.
“They’ve left the civic arena
and they’re ignoring the judicia-
ry,” he said. “This is a new stage
for the so-called Sagebrush Re-
bellion.”
The occupation may serve as
an outlet for frustration among
some rural residents who feel
modern urban society has
passed them by, but it’s a set-
back for ranchers and other who
want to rely on legal means to
achieve change, Miller said.
“This is a very self-centered,
myopic rebellion,” he said. “It
has undercut the capacity of peo-
ple with legitimate complaints
to voice those complaints.”