 Barked: Fri Feb 8, '13 2:43am PST |
 | |  | | Alva isn't so often mistaken for a breed.
I was asked if Alva was a sheltie when my puppy was almost over the size of a sheltie. And once someone said: "A fox!" Though I think it was a joke.
Then: "Is that a boy?" (Alva is a female name around here.) No, it is a girl, I just happen to like bright blue (her leash's color).
But what makes me wonder is that people are asking if she is some kind of mid-sized collie after I've said that yes, she is a collie and not a sheltie. It makes me feel that there should be a giant collie then, that, off course doesn't exist. And they also keep telling me how collies used to be bigger, at least in their childhood. I can think of two reasons for that. 1st they were smaller and/or time twists our memories. 2nd maybe they were watching Lassie. Lassie has always been played by male dogs and the American breed standard and thus blood lines are bigger than the European ones and I've also heard that dogs playing Lassie were bred to be big. What is weird, is that Alva is NOT small for a collie. She is a little over FCI standard in height (but at the minimum by AKC standard) and I've seen bitches smaller than her. I also doubt that the European lines would have been that much bigger in earlier decades.
We used to have two Belgian Tervuerens and I used to walk the younger one, called Netta.
Some people often asked if she was a collie mix.
Some other people asked if she was a GSD (mixed). I particularly remember one man, pointing at her and saying: "That one has Schäfer in it, doesn't it..."
But never, I mean never, anyone asked if she was a mix of these two breeds although that would have been my first guess, added with some nordic spitz breeds, if I didn't know the breeds. Funny...
And twice I was asked if she had wolf in her. One was drunk and the others were probably joking. And one woman saw her appear into the light of a street lamp from the dark when she was off-leash and thought she saw a wolf. She was pretty relieved to find out that the "wolf" had an owner. |  |  | |  |
|
| my posts | my page | msg me | gift me | become pals | [notify] |
1
