Merle is living proof that sometimes an unintentional breeding can occasionally produce good decent results – more than just an urban myth.  He is the son of my own home bred Cash out of a Deena, a bitch I acquired from Barbara Ray in Virginia.  And while I had had grand plans of breeding them, Deena’s first love of the Frisbee rather than sheep had me re-thinking that idea.  Ah well, the best laid plans and all that, I’d have to wait for a better bitch to develop my breeding program.  But nature finds way... and Merle, along with 6 littermates made their way into the world a rainy day in late August 2005.   Of course I had to keep one! 

Merle wasn’t the stand-out pup in the litter, what some might consider the top pick; I just liked his looks and his genial manner, but the deciding factor was that my old beloved Brae, who was a notorious puppy hater, liked this one particular pup. The first puppy in his entire life that he not only didn’t bite but actually played with! Brae said ‘keep this one’, so I did.
Merle seems so far to have inherited the best traits of both his parents and very few of the undesirable: Cash’s feel for the sheep without the eye at the top of outrun, the straight-on love of driving, yet is flexible on his flanks; plus Deena’s strong character, it’s tenacity without the obstinacy.  The one unfortunate thing that did breed through was Deena’s love of mutton chops. 

This proved to be the real only obstacle in his training – what I call his coyote tendencies.  It took nearly a year following his first chase around the flock at 14 weeks of age to convince him that eating sheep was not the objective of training.  It was only the moments of talent and glimpses of confident innate skill that had me convinced to carry on – that perhaps there was a real dog in there. 

Then late this spring he settled in and his training then progressed so smoothly I felt perhaps by next year we could take a run at the 2008 Pro-Novice Ontario Championship and the Canadian Nursery Championship.  After all Cash had been the 2004 Reserve Nursery Champion – how cool would it be for his son to be the Champion? So with this mind, I entered him in the late summer and fall trials to gain some road miles before the winter training season.  Not surprisingly, the first few trial results were DQ’s, but then he really came on in the last three fall trials to leap frog into the Pro-Novice Reserve position! No-one was more shocked or pleased than I to say the least.

Merle is the best dog I’ve personally ever bred, raised and trained; I look forward to running him in Open next year – great experience for the Nursery. Genetics are a mystery huh? But in the end we’ll see, life is funny - the best laid plans and all that...