Breed Council Update

Breed Council Update

Since the last newsletter the breed council have held two meetings, taking up a large part of the meetings has been the annual Breed Council Day (please see flyer in this newsletter for full information) Each club took responsibility for one of the areas to be organised and for us we agreed to do the publicity and over 200 flyers were handed out at Crufts—various websites have been approached and gone onto sites. One of the main aims this year was to make breeders/owners in other disciplines away from the show ring aware of the testing and also that they could come along and have some fun.

We have also written to the ISDS to let them know about the day—although at the time of writing this we have not received a reply.

On the day we will have leaflets and experts available to discuss all the current testing plus information on the research into epilepsy in the breed and also the latest on the PRA-DNA research in the U.S.

Our chairman Val will again be conducting the good citizen award and judging the fun classes. So your club will be doing their bit.

All members are welcome. We appreciate for some it is a bit of a distance but really worth the effort to attend. Don’t forget that even if you cannot get there on the day, but need to do DNA testing, you can do that by post and send in before the day to take advantage of the discounted prices.

Another issue that was discussed was the increase in websites that advertise puppies for sale and stud dogs with little consideration of the standard of breeding or testing—it was agreed that we should via our newsletter suggest that buyers should be very careful when using these sites to purchase puppies. Of course, several are very good.

Some really good news thanks to the hard work of the breed council (and therefore all the committees) the K.C. have agreed the wording on registrations for all the current DNA results and these are now coming through.

Most people have commented on how helpful the K.C. has been—so if you have not updated your registrations now is the time to do so.

The other major achievement has been the new working test for Border Collies and at the last meeting the first of the tests were discussed and information sent back to the K.C. The K.C. have confirmed that they have received some applications and sent out several packs. I am looking forward to attending the first one (although not taking the test this time-but hope to train up at least one dog for future tests) it has been a very long time since the last test and I have attended all but one –so should be a good day out and may I wish anyone taking the test good luck and every success

If you have any items or comments on the Breed Council, please contact a Committee Member.