No, My Collie Doesn't Have A Cold

It’s called devocalization or ventriculocordectomy or vocal cordectomy –or, in plain English, de-barking. What happens is, as I understand it, a vet or vet tech sprays some “numbing medicine” down a dog’s throat to anesthetize the vocal cords, and then sticks a trocar or some other surgical instrument (or, nowadays, even a laser) down the dog’s throat, twists it around, and in so doing pretty much wrecks the dog’s vocal cords.

It doesn’t stop the dog from barking, of course; it just reduces the volume by quite a bit.

Sometimes, de-barking is done by court order, if a dog owner has so pissed off his neighbors by letting the dog bark all day and night that they turn to the courts to get relief. Sometimes, it’s done just because the dog’s owner wants it done. And, a number of dog show people just do it as a matter of course.

I think in most cases it’s cruel and shouldn’t be done.  Dogs bark for a reason. Some breeds bark more than others, but good training can minimize what humans perceive as unnecessary barking.

I’m writing this rant because again, in the past few weeks, I’ve had a number of questions from people who want to know why our “little girl” – Sunny – our purebred Blue Merle Collie pictured at the top of this post – has such a funny little bark. When she barks, it’s very low volume, and it sounds something like Jackie Gleason saying “hubba hubba hubba”.

At least that’s what my wife and I think it sounds like.

A few weeks ago we got a new route driver for one of the big national delivery services. I don’t want to give specifics in case his boss reads this and chews him out for “wasting time”. Since I’m self-employed and work at home, I’m usually around during the day when the delivery people are making their rounds. Anyway, when the new guy delivered some stuff, he said “does your dog have a cold?”

I knew right away he was talking about Sunny. One of her “jobs” is to alert me every time a TRUCK (she knows that word well) comes into the huge cul-de-sac that defines our secluded suburban neighborhood. During much of the day, when the weather is decent, Sunny and her older “sister”, Shadow, roam and patrol the vast expanses of our property, held in check by the fences we erected to keep them within the perimeter of what we call “The Morrissey Compound”.

 

 

Here are Shadow and Sunny (above), starting their daily patrol duties.

I explained to the delivery man that Sunny was, essentially, a “rescue” – we rescued her from her former life as a show dog. She won lots of awards, but her breeder/owners just didn’t think she represented “their look” all that well. Each breeder goes for a specific “look” for their dogs. So a few years ago when we came looking for a companion for our first purebred Collie, Shadow, the breeder said they had a really nice Blue Merle who actually had the same “father” as Shadow, and they were taking her off the show circuit and looking for a good home for her.

Because Sunny was a show dog, the breeder de-barked her. We didn’t know this until the day after we “rescued” Sunny and brought her home, and heard her bark for the very first time.

I explained to the delivery man that Sunny was de-barked, which is why she made that funny little sound he heard. (Shadow doesn’t bark at trucks or cars; she saves her “talking” for rabbits, squirrels, cats, and the other wildlife that appear from time to time around the Compound.) The delivery man was astounded when I explained to him what de-barking was. He thought maybe she had a cold or sore throat. He’d never heard of de-barking. He loves dogs. He was genuinely shocked. He wanted to know why anyone would do such a thing.

 

Now, every time this delivery man has a package for one of the seven homes that open onto our giant cul-de-sac, he comes over to the fence and plays with Sunny and Shadow for a few moments. They’ve come to know him, and wag their tails furiously as he approaches.

Collies were originally bred to be working dogs, to help Scottish ranchers herd their sheep. They were bred to run almost continuously during the workday, helping the rancher move the sheep from field to field. They’re extremely loyal and are pretty high on the “dog IQ chart”.

 

They’re also very gentle and loving when they’re not “on task”. Here’s Sunny (above) with our granddaughter. Sunny lets her bop her nose, pull her hair, and do all the wrong things that babies do with pets. Our granddaughter loves both our Collies, and she laughs and smiles when she plays with them.

So, no, my Collie doesn’t have a cold. She was de-barked. But we love her no less because she has a funny-sounding bark that causes people to ask if something is wrong with her. No, there’s nothing wrong with her.

 
As far as we’re concerned, she’s just fine.

Our Dogs Could Totally Win at Westminster

I know, I know….a lot of dog owners think their dog is just as good, if not better, than the dogs that win at the annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, which is being televised again tonight.  Our dogs are special to us, members of the family, and they’re both champions as far as we're concerned.
 

The picture at the top of the post is our girl Shadow’s daddy.  His name is Dylan - ok, his AKC name is CH Ka-Zes Tangled Up In Blue, and the CH means he’s a champion.  Many times a champion.  He’s also the daddy to our “little girl”, Sunny.

Here’s a picture of Shadow’s mom, Hope. CH Ka-Zes Hope Key To My Heart is her AKC name, so you know she’s won more than her fair share of dog shows, just like Dylan, and is also officially a champion.

Here’s a picture taken a couple years ago of Dylan and Hope’s child, our "big girl", Shadow –AKC name Ka-Zes Shadow Tangled Up Heart – the Collie who came to live with us in 2006.  She won’t be a champion because we’re never going to put her on the show circuit.  And, the only reason we were able to buy Shadow when she was a 6-month-old puppy is that her neck is too short for “conformity” – which is a term breeders use when they’re talking about whether or not a particular dog has the physical characteristics of past champions of the breed.

Here’s the first picture of our girl Shadow, still with all her fuzzy puppy fur, up on a stand getting a close look from her breeders, Kathy and Jerry Zehtner (Kathy Zehtner = the “Ka-Zes” part of the AKC name) at their kennel, Ka-Zes Collies, in Franklin, WI.  Kathy and Jerry breed champion Collies, and when one like Shadow doesn’t meet conformity, they know they can’t show her, so – they find a good home for her.  We had to jump through a lot of hoops with Kathy and Jerry before they would let us take Shadow home.  They asked us a million questions about our history with dogs, what our property was like, was it fenced, and how much running room there was. Collies have to run; they’re not apartment dogs.  They were bred to run all day, herding sheep in the hills of Scotland.  Years ago, Collies were common on farms in Wisconsin as working dogs. Kathy even had a conversation with our veterinarian, Dr. John Gustafson, to make sure we were responsible dog-owners.

As far as we’re concerned, Shadow – the classic sable Collie, like Lassie – is just as much a champion as that sable Collie who was competing in the Herding Dog class at Westminster last night.

Above is a picture of our “little girl”, Sunny (AKC Ka-Zes  Rivendell's Uptown Girl), who actually won a whole bunch of Blue Ribbon awards at shows sponsored by the Collie Club of America and the Collie Club of Wisconsin.  Sunny is a blue merle Collie, with the distinctive markings of that kind of Collie.

Here’s a shot of Sunny, back when she was called Christie. The “Uptown Girl” in her AKC name is from Billy Joel’s song about Christie Brinkley. In this photo, she’s just barely out of her puppy fur and already charming the judges with her good looks.

Sunny (my wife named her as a counterpoint to Shadow) came to live with us because although she has perfect conformity and won lots of Blue Ribbons at an early age, she turned out not to have “the Ka-Zes look”, as Kathy and Jerry said.  When Kathy and Jerry wanted to expand their breed line, they mated Dylan with another champion Collie from a different breeder (Judy Roller's Rivendells Collies in Mazomanie), and Sunny was the only female in a litter of nine, and she went to live with Kathy and Jerry as a show dog.  But her "face" was too different from the "Ka-Zes look".

When we decided we wanted a companion for Shadow two years ago, we called Kathy and Jerry, and, long story short, they said “let’s put Shadow together with Christie and see if they get along”.  They did, because Shadow is the most mellow dog that ever lived, and loves everything and everyone.  So we loaded Sunny and Christie into my SUV and brought them home. Within hours they became best friends, inseparable buddies, and they spend their time patrolling our grounds, racing back and forth across our “back 40”, and lavishing love and attention on their owners.

So, every year when we watch Westminster, we enjoy seeing all the fancy and expensive dogs paraded around.  But we know our two Collies are just as good as any of those dogs on TV, and would win all the prizes if we entered them.