Top quality farm bred?

Thanks

B*gger all, to be honest. When I hear farm bred, it conjures up images of puppies reared in an outbuilding/barn without enough human socialization at a crucial age.  I'd prefer a puppy that I'd buy to be reared in the house or as close to it as possible. As for top quality - in who's opinion?

Agree with Phoebe. It conjures up a picture of 2 sheepdogs mated together, either intentionally or not, they may be working dogs who don't necessarily make the best companions & have never had a health test in their lives. What is more important is "KC Reg." "Health tested", "home reared" etc.

sounds more like a christmas turkey - certainly hope it's not a christmas puppy:(

What you need to see is "KC registered parents which have have all relevant health checks - certificates can be seen"

Margot

If it is livestock then it may mean something, though free range, organically reard would be more to the point as farm reared is too vague.

You also find these farm bred dogs are really hard,if not impossible to house train.They are so use to doing it where they stand that they dont know to go outdoors.A long time ago i had a farm bred BC and he wasnt house trained at all until he was gone 18 months old.He was scared wittless of vacume cleaners and doorbells and even visitors.It was hard going to get him use to being in the house.

On the same theme, what about "lavishly reared"?

Does this mean with a big behind?????????

:D :D  That's me!

Guiness, I am speechless, I have never heard such utter rubbish! I have 2 unregistered farm bred collies. Both were housetrained and asking to go out by 4 months. The third is dual registered and again bred outside and house trained by 5 months. I know lots of people who have dogs like mine in agility and none of them had problems with housetraining, maybe you weren't doing it right? As for the other things you mention my first dog was taken in to the house and handled loads by the people that bred him, he is the most confident dog and I have never known him show fear of anything. That said if I hadn't worked hard in socialising him and training him from a young age the good start they gave him may have been wasted. My pup is now 10 months old and he loves everyone and everything and again is another bold outgoing dog. My second dog can be a little noise sensitive due to the excessive number of fireworks that went off last year but he isn't afraid of everyday things and he loves people, especially children. His brother however is the opposite and very nervous and I think would bite out of fear, he is so bad it is difficult to believe that they are related, guess that's because he is farm bred :rolleyes:

My first dog was a farm bred sheepdog from working parents. I think, 40 yrs later,  he still holds the record for the fastest housetraining. However, I would never recommend one as an ideal pet for most households.

Anwen I agree with you, they certainly need something to do and wouldn't be happy just being a pet dog. I just happen to think that Guiness generalised a little too much on the basis of his/her experience with ONE dog   I only like working bred dogs cos I think they have more "oomph" and I would never have anytihng else.

The BC my family had when I was growing up was 'farm bred'. Both parents were working dogs and the rest of the litter went to working homes. If we hadn't taken her it is likely that she would have been done away with as, being the runt of the litter,she was of no use to the farmer Turns out she was born to be a family pet and was a much loved member of our family for 12 happy years until she passed away due to kidney failure. She was very intelligent, as BC's usually are, and not difficult to housetrain at all. She was extremely obedient and learned 'tricks' at the drop of a hat. If I thought all 'farm bred' BCs could be as wonderful as her, I'd have one tomorrow

Agree completely with this. In the last litter of working collies I bred 5 years ago, one of the puppies went to my sister and he lived outside from the age of 3 weeks until he was 18 weeks. My sister took him home at 18 weeks and he was housetrained within a fortnight. On the other hand I have a 7 month old Gordon Setter bitch who was born and raised in the house and is still not fully house trained.

Guiness, about one third of the collies I know are 'farm bred' agility dogs. They are all complete lunatics, high drive dogs that would go mad in pet homes but thats because they are bred to work. My BC was born and bred outside and isn't noise sensitive at all. And not one of the farm bred collies was difficult to house train. I would much rather have a high drive farm bred collie, providing health tests were done, than a breed collie any day but it depends on what you want them for. But there does seem to be a lot of generalisation about farm collies. Yes some are completely unsuitable as house dogs of any description but I think they are few and far between. In fact I've only met 2 that were not all there but out of all the ones I've known over the years thats not many at all. But to judge the advertised dogs as you did without more information was not really fair IMO.

Is the ad for "farm bred" collies, just out of interest? Or some other breed? Only I'm another one who is quite happy with a pup bred from working stock but it rather depends what breed you are looking for. My cocker spaniel was certainly farm bred - he was KC registered - but he made a wonderful pet and was very easy to housetrain.