Border collie
FCI:
Border Collie Group I. - Sheepdogs and Cattle Dogs, Section 1 - Sheepdogs Recognized in 1976.
General Appearance:
Border collie sheepdog is born for hard work in the herd. It is intelligent, vigorous, and perfectly manageable, live attentive, obedient, alert, but also courageous. Its owner is very keen. It works very quietly and effectively, moves very quickly, special, only its own insidious way and the direction of which it is able to change almost immediately.
Temperament/Behaviour:
If it is a companion dog, it usually chooses one member of the family that it suits it. If it was soon properly socialized, it gets well with other dogs and cats and other small pets. Its relationship with the children is good, but if it can see e.g. children are chasing in park, because of strong working instinct, it stars to match all together. It excels docility, enthusiasm for work and willingness make commands and the wishes of the owner, and thus it is not difficult to bring up and manage even for beginner. Owner must deal with it by nice way. Its owner should also be patient and gifted by natural authority, owner should not be fickle and unstable. Bad training could cause nervousness and aggression. It is extremely difficult to move unless an active working dog, it is necessary to provide enough physical and mental work. Just walking, although intensive, it is not enough. It needs to make some tasks to train agility, flyball, frisbee, obedience, or at least fetch, jump over obstacles in the park.
When it is absence of physical and mental activity it could become too harsh and unpleasant. For various dog sports and competition „created" and if it is properly trained, thanks to its diligence, it usually reaches first positions in competitions. It is great in controlling of herds and individual animals showing a Border collie sheepdog competition, the visitors their performance is always literally captivated. At the direction of shepherds and sheep can punish - tweak into some sensitive point on the body. Absolutely unique is its ability to fix the gaze grazing animals, not only sheep but also cattle and poultry.
Body:
Exterior perfectly balanced in terms of a Shepherd, whose charm and graceful features combination with strong body. Perfect proportionality of body parts raises legitimate impression that it is a very hardy dog. Any tendency to coarseness or excessive lightness of body building is not acceptable. Ideal height at withers for males is 53 cm, females are slightly smaller.
The skull is quite broad, occiput not pronounced. Cheeks not filled or rounded. The frontal slope is very pronounced. Muzzle is tapering to nose, moderately long and strong. The muzzle is about as long as its skull. The nose should be black, chocolate brown in colour when it may be brown, by blue type it should have a slate gray colour. The nostrils are wide open.
Eyes should be stored in eyecups far apart, they are oval shaped, medium size, brown colour, only in merle coloured individuals accepts one or both wholly or partially blue. The expression has a mild, keen, alert and intelligent. The earlobes are reasonably large, medium, set well apart, erect or semi-erect. Then, pointing straight forward, diagonally forward or sideways.
During listening they are significantly moving. Requested are powerful teeth and jaws with a perfect regular and complete scissor bite. The neck is adequately long, strong and muscular, slightly arched in the neck, shoulders towards expanding. The tail is set low, well hairy and reasonably long, so the bone reaches minimum to the hocks. At the end is bent upward. When it is excited, it can be carried higher, but never above the topline of the body.
The chest should be deep and fairly broad, with proper sprung ribs, shoulders are broad and muscular, but not are sprung. The forelegs are parallel, strong bone, but not too heavy. Elbows close to the body, its athletic appearance, slightly longer than the height. Pasterns should be moderately sloped, the blades are oblique, so that their tops upwards and backwards.
The hindquarters must be broad and muscular. Thighs should be long, strong and muscular; knees bent appropriately, ankle strength, low above the substrate. Hock must be parallel to each other, metatarsal bones are strong. Feet should be oval in shape, with arched and tight toes, fixed and padded tall and short, strong nails. The gait is free, smooth and tireless.
They recognize the two types of coat, long and short. In cases, topcoat dense, medium-hard, soft and dense undercoat, this is a great protection against weather conditions. For a long hair coat creates a rich "mane" on his neck, "feathering" rear forelegs and "pants" on the back of the thighs. Acceptable is different coat colour, never predominate white. Faults from the above standard requirements must be considered as defects and precisely evaluated by the degree of expression with regard to health, welfare and the ability of traditional work dogs or bitches. To negative defects include aggression or fearfulness and any apparent abnormalities physical or behavioural.
