#borderpap

[blueboyluca]

Kiss My Dust "Shelby" was the Crufts Novice Cup Overall Small Winner! Clear rounds in both Jumping and Agility.

[dozydawn]

[silly-pupper-drawings]

Original photo by @blueboyluca

[Image ID: Two pictures. The one on top is a sketch of black ink on white paper. A dog is sitting and looking up at the viewer. They have two very upright ears, their mouth is hanging open, and their tongue is hanging out. Most of their head is darkened in as well as their left shoulder (right for the viewer) and part of their right shoulder. In the bottom left of the paper are some words: "Original Photo by @blueboyluca" and a symbol made up of an 's', a 'p', and a 'd' with "@silly-pupper-drawings" next to it.

The bottom picture is a photo of a black and white border-papillon ("borderpap") puppy who is sitting on a patterned carpet and looking up at the camera. His mouth is wide open with his tongue hanging out and his ears are very upright and nearly next to each other over his head. There is a white TV stand behind him and the front paws and side of another dog are visible along the right edge of the photo.

End ID]

[blueboyluca]

I get back from Alice Springs this afternoon and this puppy starts her Prozac prescription tonight

they're really weird

[despazito]

There's nothing inherently wrong with new crossbreed projects and I do think it's a bit uncouth to use "designer dog" as a blanket pejorative because folks set out on breeding new crosses for an array of different reasons. Like if you wanna argue semantics the eurasier could have easily been dubbed a designer breed that's just been canonized into the FCI registry, they weren't bred with any specific "work" in mind beyond being a companion animal.

Personally my guidelines for designer dog (negative) are crosses that are planned purely on aesthetics while negating any temperament matchups but most importantly one that's actively being marketed to the normie masses as their new perfect pet and clearly using mill tactics to produce and sell puppies. I think that's what separates doodles from silkens and things like agility borderpaps or lurchers. If a dog nut did their homework and wants to start a little breed project with their circle of dog nut friends it's not really hurting anyone, those aren't the crosses that fill up shelters. It's pretty easy to tell which "designers" are made primarily with monetary gain in mind and which aren't.

[border-collie]

I think the perfect dog breed (for me, god forbid it gets into a pet home lol) would be:

Between 10 and 25 pounds

High energy, lower prey drive

Double coat, comes in rough and smooth

Very biddable

Comes in lots of fun colors

NEVER bearded

Fast

Not A Terrier

Which is yeah, just a scaled down border collie. Which is why I get the appeal of borderpaps and have liked all of the ones I have met (vs borderwhippets where I've liked none of the ones I met) but good god, the border collies they are using for most sports mixes have the worst pedigrees in the breed just littered with epilepsy, epi, dog agression, etc.

[hazard-and-friends]

re our current meme topic of choice, mal-crosses: i care way more about two things. 1, are the parents stable and functional animals in society (whatever that looks like for them), and 2, is the owner prepared for the probable challenges this dog will bring?

this is just as true for mal-whippets as it is for borderpaps and for goldendoodles and for BBMs. healthy, behaviorally normal parents have a higher likelihood of healthy, behaviorally normal offspring, and if the humans know they're signing up for a risk of X, they're going to be more proactive about it.

but that's not particularly catchy so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[akcshadowgovernment]

I do not like herding dogs but a borderpap would be different. a fluffy screaming dog that dreams of doing postgrad would be so great if it was small

[pawsitivevibe]

Borderpap

Her name is Sparkplug. Sparky sometimes. I got her for the sporty things. Maybe I'd make an honest try at flyball this time. She'd crush the small dog category in agility. She'd enjoy sprinter!

Except she turns out pretty neurotic and when I take her in the ring all she does is bark at me.

She's fast but it's when she's running away from me trying to catch her.

We love her anyway and keep trying but boy howdy is she a mischievous little scamp who tries my patience.

[blueboyluca]

Freshly bathed baby

[creekfiend]

TIME TO NAME SOME DOG MIXES THAT DONT EXIST BUT SHOULD I'LL START

MALIPAP

[abirddogmoment]

Drive is stored in the frantic demand-barking 🙂

[blueboyluca]

I can see myself in future with a Smooth Collie, Australian Shepherd, Miniature American Shepherd, Border Collie, Dalmatian, Mudi, Pumi, Smooth Fox Terrier, Kelpie, Sheltie, Labrador and other smaller mixes like a Borderpap.

anyways does anyone wanna share their dream breeds that they totally would own - at the right time and in the right circumstances?

[doberbutts]

How do you go about finding a reputable breeder when you have absolutely no idea where to start?

It can be a really daunting task and you have my sympathies! I also had no idea where to start before and now it's much easier for me to find a good breeder now that I've done it a few times.

First if you are getting a purebred I would go to your breed club's website. Depending on what you're looking for and what breeds, you may have multiple options. For instance, if I wanted a nice doberman for bitesport or protection purposes, I wouldn't go to the DPCA but instead to the UDC. From there, there should be a breeder referral list to get you started.

If you're looking for something more specific especially if the breed is known for it, the breed club website should have a page dedicated to dogs that do well. For instance, the future border terrier I'd like to be more seriously competitive in obedience than my two play-around-see-what-happens dogs I currently have. So I went to the BTCA's website on the page where they celebrate their obedience champions, and went investigating for kennel names that show up multiple times on that list.

You may have to word-of-mouth it a little bit in breeds not known for what you're looking for. GSMD aren't 'encouraged' service dogs even though I think they're very well suited to it for the right training style, and so it's barely a mention on the GSMDCA. Instead I googled '[kennel name] service dog' using that breeder referral page and further researched those that popped up.

From any of these launching points, it no longer matters about purebred or mixed breed. The breeder should be health testing their dogs to the maximum extent demanded either by their chosen breed club or if they're producing mixed breeds by ALL of the involved relevant breed-specific standards. Someone producing borderpaps should be testing for BOTH border collie problems AND papillon problems. Embark IS NOT COMPLETE HEALTH TESTING- it is a genetic test only and says nothing about the current health of the dog. Seeing only Embark should turn you away. Seeing people use Embark for their genetic testing is fine as long as they are doing the others required of them such as hips, elbows, shoulders, kidneys, liver, etc.

These health tests should be proveable in some way. Not everyone submits to OFA or gets their CHIC# which I personally think is silly because that's an easy way for this to be documented for a purebred dog. Even if they are not submitted to a larger organization a breeder should be willing to supply documents and certificates on the health testing once you truly start 'talking dog' with them. Anyone who gives repeated excuses to not have them is lying. For what it's worth, on ALL of my dogs, when I got them I was also given copies of these certificates for the relevant parents.

Next is temperament, and this is really where things can get interesting. If purebred, are the dogs correct for the breed? If mixed breed, are they correct for what the goal of the breeding is? You can have nicely health tested and high titled sport dogs all you want but if you can't walk them down the street they're useless to me. Certain titling makes it easier to tell but not always, good training can cover a lot of bad temperament.

I do want to see the dogs titling or working in some way as a working dog guy, but for instance chihuahuas are a companion breed and even though the CCA recognizes they can work, they don't even really celebrate the dogs that do title outside of the show ring. Fae's parents are not titled in AKC but her father is a singular point away from his championship and both parents regularly attend funrun dog sporting events like coursing and agility. So they may not be titled but they do go out in public and prove that they're fun dogs to do fun dog stuff with even if they're not super competitive, which is the entire point of a chihuahua. I always recommend evaluating this in person and seeing if the parents are the type of dog you actually want to live with.

Lastly the care and treatment of the dogs themselves. You can do all of these things but if your dogs live in cages in your garage except when there's visitors I want nothing to do with your breeding program. Are the dogs bright, responsive, alert? Shiny coats, healthy teeth, do they seem well socialized for their breed(s)? How does the breeder act around the dogs? Cold and indifferent, or do they seem to love their dogs? You may not always see the parts of the property the dogs are kept until you're someone they trust very well- I didn't see where Sushi's breeder keeps her dogs in her house until last week. But I did see multiples of her dogs outside of that area and there was nothing that would have made me think she doesn't treat her dogs at least as well as I would.

From there it's really nitpicky stuff. Personally I have no desire to entertain off-standard breeders of purebreds because they usually fail one of the above tests. Since I like working dogs, the mixed breed people I hear about are all word-of-mouth through the working dog groups I'm part of. So for me most of the nitpicky stuff is: I don't have to agree with a breeder's politics 100% (and usually don't lmao) and I'm not really looking for a new best friend, but a responsible breeder checks in with their produced dogs and wants to keep up with you, and that means I have to deal with that person in my life for the next 10-15 years.

Let's be honest here: I'm black, disabled, transgender, gay, and poor. I don't want to deal with people who have a problem with any of that for the next 10-15 years and I don't want to be associated with similar either. I've crossed breeders off my list for bigotry of all types as long as I know how to clock it. So someone may pass all of those above tests but I still don't want one of those dogs because I don't want to continuously hear them rant about how 'the Jews' are ruining the country and that's not even a made up example sadly. Again I don't need to agree on all of their politics but I do make sure to the best of my knowledge that I'm choosing someone I'd be pretty okay talking to even 10 years from now.

[twogriffons]

person with a borderpap saying theyd never own a doodle 🤡

[boofblr]

Pet Names! Booker! Fen!

as someone who lives on booktok part-time i think booker is a v endearing name. picturing a scottish terrier if only because of the MULTITUDE of bookends that star those little monsters

fen is great for a small sport mix — borderpap or borderwhip maybe? but since they aren't breeds then i will add miniature poodle as an alternative :)

send me pet names and i'll match them with a breed