FRÅGOR OCH SVAR OM MR BINKS AUSSIES

When did you first become interested in Purebred dogs? Might include but not limited to What breeds, to what extent were/are you involved. Well, we always had dogs around, but it was not until I got my first Tibetan Terrier that the interest in showing, participating in breed club work, learning all about the breed etc finally resulted in my first litter. The meeting with my first Tibetan Terrier lies over 20 years ago now and it took me on a fascinating and wonderful journey; I was very active in all aspects, taking a special interest in preserving the old genuine blood lines from Tibet. We still have one of these original dogs at our home; a terribly clever and very special little thing... Our kennel name originates from those days - people often ask who's Mr Binks? The answer is: Mr Binks was the first ever Tibetan Terrier to become a champion, winning his cc:s in India in 1931. Since our kennel name was already well known in our country and stands for quality breeding, there was no reason to register something more aussie-related. My husband Berndt has a longer record - he's been training, judging etc working breeds for almost 40 years. When did you first get interested in the Australian shepherd? Might include research, shows attended, kennels visited etc. For ages, Berndt had been talking about having "a dog of his own" again; being a performance/working breeds judge, the little Tibetan Terriers were not exactly his cup of tea. He had always been working his head off and had not for very long had the time to raise and train a dog. When Berndt then finally had the time, he could not decide what breed he wanted. So nothing happened until the day we ran into our very first Aussie in England. Berndt lost his heart at first sight - he had indeed found "his dog"! At this time, Aussies were not registered by the AKC, which meant problems, since in Sweden only KC-registered dogs are allowed to compete in working trials such as tracking, report and search. Obedience competitions are open to all dogs, though, so Berndt decided he might as well try that instead and in 1991 he finally imported his first Aussie from England. Later to be known as Sweden's first OT Ch, SV-93 SUCH SLCH Mareith Beldistar, aka Askan (SUCH = conformation CH, SLCH = obedience CH). We never planned to have more than one Aussie, and breeding - no way! We actually just bought two beautiful new sets of golf equipment! But Askan was a most charming and fascinating experience and - once a breeder, always a breeder - I soon realized that I got certain plans... In the meantime, the AKC had recognized the breed and in 1993 our KC followed. True to my nature, I had plunged deeply into everything concerning the breed, gathered as much information as possible, joined the ASCA, bought every book available on the breed, etc. It seemed obvious that if I wanted to do this seriously, I needed a wider choice than England could offer at the time and there was no other way than to take my breeding stock from the very source - USA. One of the many books I had sent for was Sandy Cornwell's "Judging the Australian Shepherd", where I recognized many of my own ideas and thoughts about dogs. So I wrote her a letter. I had been told that "working/traditional" Aussies were very vicious and not suitable as pets or family dogs, so I remember that one of my first questions to Sandy was could she please give me some more information on this issue. Anyone who knows Sandy might well imagine her answer... Many letters went back and forth and Berndt and I finally combined a visit to Sandy's with the Nationals in Arizona in 1994. We met lots and lots of wonderful Aussies during our stay and the one we finally decided on, Fairoaks Sami Jo, became the foundation bitch for our kennel. A decision we have not regretted for one moment! To us, Sami Jo is the epitome of an Aussie; clever, sound, beautiful, devoted, and humorous and with a strong herding instinct as well - and still - I sometimes think that some of her progeny even beat their dam. Dogs like these certainly don't come by the dozen! So in February 1995 Sami Jo and our other new addition SV-96 Windchill of Imagineer finally arrived at the Gothenburg airport and went right into our home quarantine here at Lilla Kråkebo for 4 months; Sami in whelp to CH Starstuff's Still Crazy CD STDsd, "Drum", which resulted in a litter of 9 lovely pups. Since then I have visited the US and the Nationals at several occasions. To me it means a lot to be able to take this opportunity to see and get to know all these different Aussie types and to study them at work. Especially if you are trying to build something of your own in a country where the breed is still considered rather exotic and unknown you must widen your horizon. Still, it is very difficult. At two occasions I visited the Nationals looking for suitable males that could provide us with frozen semen, at both times I went home without having found what I was looking for. What are the goals for the future in your breeding program? To establish a line you can be proud of, that reflects your ideas and standards, takes a lot of time, hard work and a very critical mind. Once I feel that I have established a strong and healthy line, I hope our Aussies will be recognized by their type ad working ability. So far we are more or less still in an experimental stage. I have been working a lot with outcrossing to see what I like and what I get compared to what I expect. This is a very good way to get to know a breed too. My foundation consists of my Fairoaks based bitches, Fairoaks Sami Jo (Fairoaks Atreyu STDd OTDcs x Boot Hill Ronita of Fairoaks), LP Mr Binks Drummer Girl (CH Starstuff's Still Crazy CD STDsd x Sami Jo), Mr Binks Sister Kate (Mistretta's Painted Lizard x Drummer Girl) - three generations, Mr Binks Maryland Cookie (Mr Binks Huckleberrry Friend x Sami Jo) and Mr Binks Billie Jo (Eagle Ridge's Tatonka STDcs x Sami Jo) and Lyveden Fairapache Cima (Fairoaks Akeeno x Apache Trails Fairoaks Shanita at Lyv). I have always been interested in the old traditional lines and running into Sandy Cornwell and her Aussies has been a real blessing since we seem to have the same sense of humor and the same way to look at things. I have certainly learned a lot from Sandy too!. I have used two different males for outcrossing (A.I), first Mistretta's Painted Lizard, used on both Sami Jo and her daughter, LP Mr Binks Fairoaks Drummer Girl. From the second combination we kept Mr Binks Sister Kate for future breeding. From here I can go back both ways, breeding one litter to Fairoaks based lines, another to Mistretta based lines. I am very happy with my two litters sired by Lizard. The pups are a very good type and very nice and easy to work and live with. Outcrossing doesn't become really interesting until you start line breeding back on either side. I don't like outcrossing for more than one generation, don't like too many lines and types to come together. You must be able to recognize the traits you see and where they come from if you want to establish and maintain a distinguished line in your own breeding and steer away from hereditary defects. Now I plan to continue breeding by using my homebred dogs which is, I suppose, what every breeder likes to do. It gives you a solid base since you know what you are dealing with for some generations and you have been able to see the dogs grow up and know what lies behind their different temperaments. My second A.I. import - from Eagle Ridge's Tatonka STDsc, "Todd" (WTCH Windsong's Falcon RTDsc x 45 Ranch Bull Rap STDsc OTDd) - has so far only been used on Fairoaks Sami Jo. The nine pups are just10 months old, but indeed very promising; super temperaments, good conformation and several already showing a very well developed herding instinct. I'll follow the same pattern again - use Todd on Sami's daughter Drummer Girl. It will be very instructive to compare the results before I decide how to continue with that line. We also had a litter from SV-96 Windchill of Imagineer x SV-93 SUCH SLCH Mareith Beldistar whose pups have shown outstanding performance and conformation results; for example Sweden's first and only triple Australian Shepherd CH (Conf, ob, tracking) SUCH SLCH SBCH Mr Binks White Sox, SUCH SBCH Mr Binks Tuxedo, owned by Lena Stangvik (Kennel Windedo). Out of our homebred Mr Binks Huckleberry Friend and Fairoaks Sami Jo there's also a litter with several very promising and successful dogs - SUCH SBCH Mr Binks Texas and Korad SUCH Mr Binks Indiana Jo, to mention two of them. It is probably difficult for you Americans to realize how tough it is to start with such a small nucleus of a breed. When your breeding stock is limited, you are sometimes tempted to use dogs you do not consider first class. I once attended a clinic by Carol-Ann Hartnagle who said something like "Good enough is not good enough for breeding" - I feel that is something every breeder should keep in mind. There's really no excuses for breeding Aussies that lack guarding and working instinct, breed type and true Aussie mentality, dogs with poor bites and lacking teeth, fair hips, heriditary eye defects, etc, however pretty they may be. And if you don't breed for "aussie-ness", you'll soon end up with just another dog. Tail docking on the other hand has nothing to do with "aussie-ness"....it may change the appearance but not the character. The Swedish Government has a ban on tail docking, even though our laws are not as strict as the German laws which forbid even importing docked dogs, but it's definite. I had difficulties to accept tails on Aussies in the beginning, but now I know that it is the Aussie caracteristics that are important to me and caracter is not located to the tail. OK, I try... breeding NBT to long tail has resulted in 50/50 litters so I figure the heriditary pattern being the same as in our Swedish Vallhounds, which I am familiar with. But I would never sacrifice other vital traits for a NBT.. ....It seems we have very short NBT:s in our lines - there have not been any half or 3/4 long tails, which I do not like to see. The problem is not really appearance; since this is a docking breed and has always been, probably not many breeders ever cared about defects and consequently never bred for good tails. Why should you, if docking solves the problems. So who knows, really, what problems this will bring? Most people here prefer long tailed dogs and this is no doubt slowly going to change the conformation of the Aussie, but it is too early to speculate. What we look for is primarily a super working and performance capacity. We never deliberately select for show winning looks but for versatility and genetic and functional soundness. When it comes to it, there's nothing as beautiful as a functional dog anyway. Of course we look for breed type and beauty, which is unfortunately not always the same thing as show winning looks. Clean movements, medium bone, a good neck, strong colors, well defined masculinity or femininity and over all balance are very important to me. And a beautiful strong head with eyes showing alertness and intelligence! I want Aussies you don't need to look at twice to determine if they are a working breed or if there's "somebody at home"! However, due to the still rather limited gene pool - we must concentrate on overall quality and more comprehensive things than for instance markings, earsets, tails, etc. Major traits like genetic soundness (hips, elbows, eyes...), herding instinct, versatility, teeth and an overall sound conformation must come in the first place. There's a long tradition of working performance in Europe, developed especially during World War I and including programmes of various field events for the working breeds such as tracking, report, schutzhund and search. Every little town in Sweden has its club house and training grounds and the dogs belong to a special working breeds club, under the supervision of the KC. With working, please understand tracking etc, herding dogs belong to other clubs. The No 1 working breed has for ages been the GSD, but in later years, many other herding breeds like the Groendendal and the Tervueren have increased in popularity. And this is also where the Aussies enter the arena. Our Mr Binks Aussies have been very successful from the very start. Apart from having bred more Conformation CH:s than any other breeder in the country, we can boast working trials champions, obedience CH, security dogs for the Home guard. Also, Mr Binks Fairoaks Drummer Girl was the first Swedish Aussie to qualify for the championship trials in Agility. We have bred 6 "Korade" Swedish Aussies - all Sami Jo kids from 3 different litters... Korad is a prestiguous title, originally developed as a evaluation tool for breeders and also to determine what dogs are suitable for work in war time, to work for the police force, etc. The dogs have to pass some very trying, demanding and difficult tests. No test is complete without a gun shooting test and to become a SBCH, SLCH or SUCH (working breeds) the dogs must pass the shooting/character test. Speaking for myself, I would never use an Aussie that failed mental tests in my breeding program. Breeding for herding instinct and stock savvy is indeed a challenge. We see it in many dogs of our own breeding and we know they would be just super in the right surroundings. The problem is that where herding dogs are used for everyday work at farms, the Border Collies are hard to beat. The Swedish Herding Dog Club arranges all the trials and their rules are so very much focused on the BC that it is very difficult for the Aussie with his different style and temperament to pass the initial tests. Still, it is the responsability of every breeder to see to it that the qualities of the breed are not being lost. Under no circumstances Australian Shepherds may loose their herding instinct. Our breed has a great potential to reach top results and wins among the performance dogs, and you must not forget that this kind of working ability is initially based on the herding instinct. If it is not there, you are certainly not going to reach the top. In our breeding program we would not use Aussies that obviously lack herding instinct. We keep a few sheep ourselves for the dogs to practise on and to help us evaluate their working ability. What are you most interested in, conformation or performance events? To answer this question you'll have to deal with the problem of the polarisation of the breed. Imagine a country where very few people - judges, breeders...! - have met more than a handful of Aussies in true life and whose idea of the breed is based on glossy pictures of Show Champions stacked in the most favourable position. Of course, "form follows function" is a very nice and accurate way to explain what you should look for - but what if you aren't even sure about what the function is? However beautiful an Aussie may look to you in the ring, if you cannot imagine him in a working situation, he is not good enough, and that's it. It is really the same the other way around - I hate to see good-working Aussies that seem to be on the verge of loosing their characteristic looks and breed type and having obvious faults. Speaking of the polarisation of the breed - we risk losing the breed type - moderation and versatility for one thing - if we end up with a breed consisting of two different types, both lacking aussie-ness. Those involved in this breed must work together and try and maintain a moderate type with all the typical breed caracteristics intact. A breed type where we recognize a good/functional working/performance dog. It must be possible to preserve the original breed type, i e an Australian shepherd who is a versatile worker and at the same time beautiful to look at. This should be the aim and purpose for everybody who loves this wonderful breed. Don't forget that what we once bred away from in a breed, can never be brought back again! Performance is different from conformation events. For a breeder it's the proof that your ideas are right - and that the people trusted with your pups are the right kind! Some combinations don't match, some personalities don't meet in harmony, but when they do, it is unbeatable. It's also so much hope and future in this field. I mean, if judges don't like your dog however often you show, what can you do about it? If you fail in performance, on the other hand, you can tell yourself "We'll go home and practise more, we'll train differently, we'll step on the gas and show them next time...etc" Also you are judged by your own performance, in conformation there's always so much personal opinion involved. We do not really like to place pups with people who do not practise some kind if performance - obedience, tracking, agility, herding etc. or people who are unexperienced with dogs. This is not a breed for everyone. He's got this creative intelligence, he's more active than most other breeds, learns easily, very smart, loving and biddable. But if he is not given the opportunity to use his intelligence and energy, he can turn into a rather difficult dog. Our expericence of the difficulties people have met with here, is that the problems are to a big extent related to weak leadership - if handled too meakly or vaguely, the Aussie tends to try and take over. Your country has a quarantine. Do you think that they will be less strict in the future, making it easier to import new breeding stock? No, as long as we haven't had any cases of rabies, there is probably not going to be any changes. Finland had the same laws as we have, but when they had some cases about ten years ago, they abolished the quarantine law right away. I don't mind quarantines if the alternative is having rabies in the country. Personally I am quite satisfied with importing frozen semen for A.I. If you can visit the US to see the stud dogs you are interested in and then import semen, I think this is a very good and not too expensive solution, provided of course you have a good brood bitch already in the country. Another thing is that when the first Aussies came to our country they did really create a stir. Had it been possible to import dogs without restrictions then, we would today no doubt have seen quite a few Aussie puppy mills, so there's really nothing bad that doesn't bring something good too, as the saying goes! I am personally definitely not going to put a dog in a public quarantine here, it's a very tough situation for the dogs and it takes four long months - when we imported Sami and Chilly we built a small quarantine station on our own premises. Expensive of course, and a lot of work, but absolutely great for the dogs! What condition do you think the breed is in your country because of the limited gene pool caused by the quarantine? I cannot see that the quarantine laws have such a big impact on the breed any more. It had, of course, in the beginning, 6-7 years ago when there were very few Aussies in Europe. Then you had to turn to the US to get your breeding stock and there was no other choice but the quarantine. Which was tough for the dogs and also very expensive. A risky business since you knew so little about the breed and could easily be made believe just anything. Now there are quite a few Aussies in Europe and we can travel to other European countries to mate our bitches. We cannot import young pups from non-quarantine countries, though. The pup has to be vaccinated against rabies at not earlier than 4 months of age. Then you must wait another 4 months to make the antibody check up, so the youngest possible is 8 months. I guess we could have an even better co-operation between the European countries. But this is also a language problem - there are so many different languages and we simply do not understand each other that well. People are learning more and more english, and that is going to solve these problems and open up more, but it will take another generation of breeders, I'm afraid. Still, this is not the main problem (attention - soap box) - the problem is lack of knowledge and insight - in my opinion many breeders are definitely not doing their homework. Instead of using good males already in the country - maybe it is not sophisticated enough - they are prepared to use just any house pet coming in from the US or any other foreign country for that matter. Going head over heels for any new import, not realizing that if you go just a few generations further back in the pedigrees you'll recognize the same ancestry/ dogs we already have in so many pedigrees already. Believing more in whatever information available from just any first-time aussie breeder/owner over the Internet than what they can be told in their own language.. That can sometimes be more of a disadvantage to the breed than any quarantine laws. . Is there anything you'd like to add? I'd like to take this excellent opportunity to thank all my American friends who have went through so much trouble and hard work to help us get even more than we expected - and for all your advice, information and FRIENDSHIP. Without you, we would certainly not have been where we are today. These Aussie-years have been such an unexpected adventure and bliss happening to us when we thought we were more or less over with dogs. And we have not regretted a minute of it. Everybody knows that breeders lead a very special life, and that we experience many ups and downs throughout our active lives. I wonder if there aren't more downs than ups, should you ever try and figure it out.... But still, nothing compares to the small moments of joy; messages that brighten up even the darkest day and seem to arrive when you need them the most: "We did not win, but everybody loved him!", "Best In Show - now what do you say!?", "The sheep all ran away but the instructor said he'd never seen such BALANCE!" And doesn't that make it all worth while??!!