Dogs for sale ….
Two working Border Collies sold last week for just over £6,000 each.
Ron and Rex were part of the Skipton Sheepdog Sales in Yorkshire last week, and were bought 4,900 guineas plus VAT. Although many greeted the sale with astonishment, working farmers, shepherds and the 6,500 members of the International Sheepdog Society who compete in dog trials, would certainly argue that a good sheepdog is worth its weight in gold.
Rex is a 26-month-old border collie owned by Aled Owen from Corwen in Denbighshire. Aled is the World Sheepdog Trials Champion, but his dogs are not just show animals. ‘I use them every day on my farm,’ he says. ‘It takes a good dog to drive 250 sheep. I think Rex is also destined to be a winner. I didn’t like selling him, but he needs to be challenged to his full potential.’ Rex was bought by one of Mr Owen’s friends, Nigel Watkins from Carmarthenshire, a working farmer who also competes in dog trials.
‘The bidding for Rex was like machine-gun fire,’ says Gus Dermody, a presenter on BBC’s One Man And His Dog, who attended the sales. ‘It was incredible. The trouble is there is a shortage of good dogs. Shepherds have such a workload these days to make a living, that they haven’t time to train their dogs any more – so the prices are rising.’
Ron is 14-months-old and was sold for a record-breaking £5,145. Ron’s trainer, John Bell, said he knew the dog had star quality the moment he bought him as a six-month-old pup in Northumberland. ‘Quite honestly he is just a special dog,’ he said. ‘He was going far better than the average and he is also, at 14 months, a year younger than the average.’ Ron was bought by a Scottish farmer.
The sale drew an audience of 1,000 and broke all records for sheepdog sales.
Potential buyers travelled from as far as the Shetland Islands and the west of Ireland in search of the elite of the sheepdog world, while others even put in bids by telephone.
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