Past Feature Archives: 2021 :: 2020 ::2019 :: 2018 ::2017 ::2016 ::2015 :: 2014
2021
2020
2019
2018
- Feature: Performance Week 2018 -- Stories From The Heart -- Callie's Story
- Feature: Performance Week 2018 -- Stories From The Heart -- Rory's Story
- Feature: Performance Week 2018 -- Stories From The Heart -- Kiko's Story
- Feature: Performance Week 2018 -- Stories From The Heart -- Elsa's Story
- Feature: Performance Week 2018 -- Stories From The Heart -- Splash!'s Story
- Feature: Performance Week 2018 -- Milestones -- Sequel's Story
- Video Feature: Performance Week 2018 -- Performance Video Gallery
- Feature: Performance Week 2018 -- 2018 CCA Regional Herding Trials
- Feature: Performance Week 2018 -- Reported Performance Headlines
Ring Patterns: November 2018
- Ring Patterns: October 2018
- Ring Patterns: September 2018
- Ring Patterns: August 2018
- Ring Patterns: July 2018
- Ring Patterns: June 2018
- Ring Patterns: May 2018
- Ring Patterns: April 2018
- Ring Patterns: March 2018
- Ring Patterns: February 2018
- Ring Patterns: January 2018
- Feature: The Shadowmont Story
- Feature: Tribute to GCH Kelso's Moon Dancin', RE, HSAs, VA, ROM, ROM-P
Around The Web: AKC Breed Column: Different Kinds Of Breeders, by Marianne Sullivan, courtesy AKC Gazette
- Around The Web: Reveille named the top dog mascot in NCAA sports : Watch The Video
- Around The Web: Collie Club of America, 2017 Shining Star Award
- Feature: 2018 CCA National Specialty Gallery
- Westminster KC - Rough Results/Video: GCH Lochlaren Kings Valley Fire Within, Rough Best of Variety, Judge Thomas Coen, Feb. 12
- Westminster KC - Smooth Results/Video: GCH Creekwood Lochlomun I'll Be D'amned, Smooth Best of Variety, Judge Thomas Coen, Feb. 12
2017
2017 Performance Week Features:
- Feature: Performance Week 2017 -- For the Love of It - part one
- Feature: Performance Week 2017 -- For the Love of It - part two
- Feature: Performance Week 2017 -- For the Love of It - part three
- Feature: Performance Week 2017 -- Collie Club of America Eastern Herding Regional
- Feature: Performance Week 2017 -- For the Love of Tricks!
- Related links: All Herding Regionals Results
2017 Ring Patterns
- Feature: RIng Patterns -- A look back at December 2017
- Feature: Ring Patterns – A look back at November 2017
- Feature: Ring Patterns – A look back at October 2017
- Feature: Ring Patterns – A look back at September 2017
- Feature: Ring Patterns – A look back at August 2017
- Feature: Ring Patterns – A look back at July 2017
- Feature: Ring Patterns – A look back at June 2017
- Feature: Ring Patterns – A look back at May 2017
- Feature: Ring Patterns – A look back at April 2017
- Feature: Ring Patterns – A look back at March 2017
- Feature: Ring Patterns – A look back at February 2017
- Feature: Ring Patterns – A look back at January 2017
2017 Special Features
2016 Ring Patterns
2016
2016 Ring Patterns: A month by month look back at the 2016 shows
Published: Saturday, December 24, 2016
2016 Performance Week: Journey To The Titles
Published: Saturday, November 12, 2016
CCA Nationals Of The Past by Sally Futh
Published: Saturday, June 11, 2016:
2016 Meet The Breeds in New York City by Jackie Caruso, Feb. 13
Published: Saturday, February 13, 2016
This year’s Meet the Breeds was another successful event for the Collie thanks to Collie Club of America members, Judy Virchow and Kathleen Pirro, and also to Polly Baird from New York City, who braved the sub-zero cold and the crowds to bring their dogs . . .View Story and Photos
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Feature: A Word from Dickens: CCA National Specialties of the Past, Part I, (1954-1959) by Sally Futh, Starberry Collies
Published: Saturday, January 9, 2016
Having just read a Christmas Carol for the kids at the local library, has me thinking back about Christmas past and CCAs past and future . . . And then there is a Tale of Two Cities and all the CCA sites we have seen -- It was the best of times . . . Read More
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2015
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Check out the recently updated Collie Club Directory with contact information and links to the most recent events advertised on Collies Online. Also listed are specialty results and the judges name for each Collie Club dating back to 2004.
> Collie Club Directory
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Sunday, December 27, 2015
As this year comes to an end, we thought it would be a good idea to "herd" all the Performance Week Articles published on this site into one easy to find page. To date, there have been 9 Performance Week publications from 2007 to 2015, with 37 articles. We have also included a link to view all the Performance Week ads published for each year.
> Performance Week Articles / Ads published on COL
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Saturday, December 19, 2015
The Proof Of The Pudding by Sally Futh, Starberry Collies
The Proof of the Pudding "Is in the eating," according to the old
proverb. Attributed incorrectly to Cervantes, but it is not
to be found in Don Quixote. And probably the saying comes from a few centuries later,
but it has been around awhile. Remember, puddings go 'way back in the UK,
both sweet and savory, and it's the Brit synonym today for desserts of all kinds.
At any rate, the saying does relate to the reason we show dogs.
It is popular to say that we show to judges for their opinion of our
breeding stock. This is not really true; we are showing the RESULT of our breeding program and progress.
The dog in the ring is not proven to be one which will improve our kennel's future quality; he or she is,
hopefully, another step forward in our search for perfection or achieving
embodiment of the Standard. His sire and dam are the breeding stock, and we are asking the judge's
opinion of the combination. If we have made the right choices, of our ingredients, baking the pudding the right length of time
and at the right temperature -- careful upbringing of a pedigree plan and the resulting litter and its choice
prospect, the resulting pudding should please the judge and stack up well next to its competition.
Ingredients are of prime importance. When our church ladies use a huge trough to mix
the figgy puddings that sell out long before the end of the Christmas fair, they use only the best spices
brought from city friends among the Persian dealers who import rugs and bring the baker specialty
herbs and spices for her exotic kitchen. Equally high grade fruits, bread, eggs from field - pastured chickens,
sugar and suet go into the puddings,and of course only drinking quality brandy! The result would please any
connoisseur or gourmet's palate.
Those spices are like the bits and pieces of guidance, advice, information you pick up along the way from
mentors, other breeders and friends. Sometimes words of wisdom from a completely different field can be
incorporated into your breeding philosophy. Planning a breeding requires no less care.You don't count on the sire's record
of producing winners to offset a mediocre dam's failings. Of course you hope that the combination will work and
that the points where he is strong will effect the improvement you are looking for in your own line. And that
none of his failings will show up in the offspring you select to be your standard - bearer.
However, the first question is: Will this breeding forward my line, my kennel, my breed? If not, why am I doing it
? Just to keep your family going, to produce more run-of-the-mill champions, to achieve a ROM, to have something to show at next year's national? These are all reasonable short-term expectations, but maybe not worthy of the game.
Make your New Year's resolution to plan for the long term and maybe you'lll get there sooner than you think!
Enjoy your Christmas pudding and a very Merry Christmas to all our friends in collies.
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Sunday, December 13, 2015
Buddie named AKC Breeder of the Year
At the AKC/Eukanuba National Championship yesterday (Dec. 12) in Orlando, Florida, the American Kennel Club announced that Tartanside's John Buddie is its Breeder of the Year.
Tartanside Collies has breeder-owned over 150 champions, including 12 Register of Merit dogs, and overall Tartanside sires and dams have produced 350 champions.
The annual award honors those breeders who have dedicated their lives to improving the health, temperament and quality of purebred dogs.
> Read more
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Tuesday, November 24, 2015
The passing of two elder statesmen
by Sally Futh
This past month has seen the passing of two people important to our breed: Richard F. "Doc" Greathouse and Dorothy Schroeder Welsh.
Doc, a native of Louisville, went to medical school from the Navy and specialized in pediatrics. He was also county coroner for many years and brought his kindness and empathy to that job as well. He began to
breed Collies in the late 1940s and achieved success following the precepts of his principal mentor, Gus Sigritz of Cherrivale. Doc handled his Devonshire Dark Cheri to Winners Bitch at the national and judged
there several times. He served as president of the parent club and led the club in concern for and activism on health issues. In later years he also enjoyed success with Norwiches and Papillons. As a multibreed
judge he had many friends throughout the dog fancy and all remember his storytelling ability. But he always told it like it was and had to be respected for his frankness about problems in the world of dogs.
Dorothy Schroeder Welsh was a rare seventy-year member of CCA, starting with Hertzville breeding in the early 40's. Her Bellochanty Collies and friend Dorothy Platt's Dorwood Collies competed with great success around the Midwest. She married a fellow judge, Walter Welsh rather late in life, and moved to his Christmas tree farm in Wisconsin from suburban Des Plaines, Illinois. She served as longtime delegate to AKC for the Chicago Collie Club, a member of the AKC board of directors, and president of the Dog Museum in St. Louis. Her smile and obvious enjoyment in finding a good dog to put up are trademarks of the win pictures treasured by exhibitors from Collies down to toy breeds. She went to emeritus judging status several years ago when she no longer enjoyed the rigors of travel to shows.
All of us who knew her, as well as Doc, will miss them both, and we feel fortunate to have lived in the "golden age" of so many great dog people.
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Saturday, September 26, 2015
Feature: Performance Week 2015
Happy Performance Week! It is here at last! We are thrilled to share with you five articles, including a collection of incredible videos, about Collie lovers and their dogs participating in a wide range of events. We hope that you will be as impressed and inspired as we are with the amazing things people are doing with this wonderful breed. Thank you to everyone who takes the time each week to report their results from performance events. And, thank you to the performance advertisers for their support of this issue as well as throughout the year.
> Rescue Remedy -- Remarkable stories at the intersection of rescue and performance with owner Bobby Chastain
> CollieFlix -- A collection of Collie performance videos that will knock your socks off!
> The Nose Knows -- A Collies Online interview with Marilyn Clayton
> Results from the 2015 Collie Club of America Herding Regionals
> Treibball Temptation -- A New game you can "Trei" with your collie
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Saturday, August 8, 2015
A life with Collies: A tale of two National Specialty winners—An interview with Virginia Reed Mehr, Creekwood Collies
To own two different National Specialty Best of Breed winners is a rare thing, indeed. Bellhaven's Florence Illch owned four different National Specialty BOB winners in the '30s and '40s, Wooley's Lane's Nancy and W. Henry Gray owned two in the '40s, GinGeor's George and Virginia Horn owned two in the '60s and '70s, Tartanside's John Buddie owned two in the '70s and '80s, Buddy Morris owned two in the '80s and '90s, one in each variety, and Gambit's Linda Hash-Davis and Barbara Hash-O'Keefe owned two in the 1990s and 2010s. Now you can add Virginia Mehr to that short list. Read more
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Saturday, August 8, 2015
Sunnybank news: 19th Annual Gathering at Sunnybank to take place Aug. 15-16
The 19th Annual Gathering at Sunnybank will take place Saturday and Sunday, August 15 and 16 in Wayne, New Jersey at Terhune Memorial Park. All proceeds from "The Gathering" benefit the Collie Health Foundation. CHF is currently funding a host of worthy AKC grants at research universities from around the world. The variety of research includes studies related to epilepsy, bloat, the canine genome, and the health implications of early spay-neuters, and several others. Last week we asked readers to tell us what they love about this event and we received some great responses:
"No other event in the dog world engages as many different communities and interests as does the Gathering . . . conformation breeders, rescue, fanciers, performance aficionados. All embrace the foundation established by the writings of Albert Payson Terhune who romanticized what we all know to be true about the Collie's nature. No other breed has its own Mecca to celebrate and immerse ourselves into the ambience of The Place."
–Nancy McDonald
"Where else can you go to find your childhood dreams come to life? Sunnybank is beautiful Collies, best friends, and summer perfection—under the gentle gaze of The Master and The Mistress."
–Chris Lafferty
"The First year we went was the first year of the Gathering. I found a string ball in the leaves under the big trees at the back of the HOUSE. I swore it was Lad's and I kept it until it literally went to dust. Either the first or second year of the Gathering Bert came. The Place had been sad and lonely for a long time. A cool breeze settled over us and the vines vibrated . . . was he testing us? Bill and Dale said, Oh yes, he was watching us and deciding if we were proper guests."
–Pati Merrill
"Nowhere else can you walk the grounds of the man that instilled in us the love of the Collie, and bring together those that love Sunnybank. Todays Collies that still trace back to the Sunnybank greats are amazing to see on those very grounds."
–Judy Leathers, National Chair of the Terhune Sunnybank Memorial
"It's deeply satisfying to see modern-day descendants of the Sunnybank Collies walking the grounds of The Place where their storied ancestors once lived. Sunnybank comes alive again that weekend!"
–Krissy Marshall
"'I've been going to Sunnybank for the Gathering since the third year. It's a magical place where you can actually sense the spirits of the Sunnybank Collies all around you. I don't mean the graves, but the actual living spirits of the dogs. It's a place of peace, comfort and a welcome home for those of us who make the journey to "the place.""
–Joan Hamilton, Starbarks Collies
Saturday, July 11, 2015
Judge News
The June issue of the AKC Gazette reports that Marcy Fine of Overland Collies in Ohio is approved to accept Collie and Junior Showmanship assignments on a Permit basis. The April edition reports that Laura LaBounty of Special Collies in New Hampshire has completed her permit judging assignments and has been added to the list of regular approved judges for the breed. It also lists Bree Ardizzone of Travler Collies in western New York and Lily Russell of Tango Collies in Iowa as Permit judges for Junior Showmanship. The March edition reports that Krista Hansen of Camloch Collies in western New York has completed her permit judging assignments and has been added to the list of regular approved judges for the breed. The February edition lists Misti Labs of Misty Manor Collies in Indiana as a Permit judge for Collies and Juniors.
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Saturday, June 6, 2015
Feature: THEY Get it! by Sally Futh
Breeding to the dog of the hour has become all too common in our dog show world of today. As would be pet owners flock to the breed featured in the latest hit movie or the one which won Westminster without regard for a Beagle's need to run or bark, or the grooming required on a Poodle, so do breeders' fickle fancy yearn to have the next top winner just like this year's holder of the purple and gold rosette.
You are all waiting to watch and see this evening if American Pharoah wil make it as the next Triple Crown winner . . . and here's hoping! Racing needs the publicity and glory. If so he will probably go on to try to add the summer jewel of the Travers Stakes at Saratoga, but will be retired, maybe after the Breeders Cup this fall, as his stud rights belong to other TB breeders.
Someone asked if his stud fee would be affected by adding the Belmont Stakes to his great winning record. However, the correct reply was probably not; his fee will be relatively moderate until his first crop hits the track and shows he can produce as well as win. What WILL increase is the fee for his sire, Pioneer of the Nile, currently in the middle range at $30,000. It is likely to jump to $100,000 like Tapit, the current leading sire (whose daughter Untapable is probably going to win this afternoon, too. Hot Tip! But equally poor odds).
Smart breeders will jump on the PotN bandwagon if they have a mare like or bred like AP's dam to produce a superior horse to race in 2019 or one which will sell well at the '18 yearling sales.
So what is this saying? If you like a current big winner, look to his sire, as well as studying his (or her) dam and see what it took to produce that eye catcher. As Van Dyck was fond of saying, WHOSEEBY?
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March 7, 2015
Feature: Conditioning by Sally Futh, Starberry Collies
Condition is a word which means different things to different people. To many Collie breeder-exhibitors, it usually means whether or not a dog is in coat. Another thing which is discussed, ad nauseam, is whether or not judges favor professional handlers.
> Read more of the feature: Conditioning by Sally Futh, Starberry Collies
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January 29, 2015
In Loving Memory
Verna Allen of Royal Rock fame in Port Jefferson Long Island died Tuesday, January 27. Verna was probably the oldest life member of CCA, having passed her 90th birthday several years ago. She was a founding member of Collie Club of Long Island and bred English Setters and Norwich Terriers which won top honors in the show ring and breeding shed as well as Collies. Probably the most notable of the Collies she bred with her partner of more than 60 years, Leslie Canavan, was CH Royal Rock Gamblin' Man. While Les was an all-breed professional handler and later a much sought after judge, Verna was content to stay home, manage the boarding kennel and bake her famous cookies which Les would share at the shows. Verna was a kind and gentle person, but was quick to retort if one was so foolish to say something stupid or untrue, and she didn't suffer fools gladly. She will be missed by all who were lucky enough to know her. Our love and sympathy and prayers go to her daughters Nadine and Sandy as well as Les.
-- Sally Futh
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Saturday, February 14, 2015
Feature/Photos: 2015 Meet The Breeds in New York City by Jackie Caruso
Meet the Breeds 2015 was one of the most popular Meet the Breeds in the history of the event, according to the AKC. It was clear that New Yorkers love their purebred dogs and they turned out in droves to meet them, in spite of the cold and snowy Saturday in New York ...View Story and Photos
2014
Saturday, August 30, 2014
A Day In The Life . . .
> A day in the life of an agility trial by Alicia Moore
> A day in the life of Claire Apple by Kathy Moll
> The Walkabout Dogs by Leslie Rappaport
> A spectacular day in the life - A COL Interview
> Central Penn Collie Club Herding Clinic and Instinct Test
> View All 2014 Performance Week Ads
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