This week I had several phone calls with the same question ''where can I get a good dog?'' Then the question occurred to me ''what is a good dog?” For me there are two factors that will determine what type of dog you are going to end up with.

Number one is good genetics and number two, but no less important is the way you are going to raise your puppy.

Have you ever been in a conversation with a top stud breeder of sheep or cattle? It is amazing how much these people know about their animals. Some of them can point out a specific animal and tell you for the next half hour why it is such a great specimen. They make intensive studies about bloodlines and different breeding, and these days most people do some sort of performance testing with their animals. One of the latest methods they have developed is a system where they can predict the breeding value of specific animals.

Yet when we look at sheepdogs, some people think that all black and white collies are sheepdogs.When they need a dog, some people will buy anything that looks like a sheepdog or even better get it for nothing. There are some old folks who believe you don't pay for a dog.

Having been involved with sheepdogs for many years now, I realize how difficult it is to breed something special; a dog that will have that little extra magic. Unfortunately you cannot performance test dogs like other stock.

With all other stock you will look for traits like growth, fertility, size or maybe colour, but with sheepdogs you are looking for that ability in the animal that will make him work sheep in a certain way.

A lot of external factors like the way you raise your dog or the way it is trained influences this working ability. Border Collies are sensitive dogs and rightly so because they must have the desire to please their master and to be obedient, but we also expect them to think for themselves and use their own initiative when they work.

When I look for a dog I will definitely look at the pedigree first. If possible I want to see the parents working or some of the same progeny. You need to make sure that you like what you see. This is where a registration scheme like the South African Sheepdog Association or the ISDS in the UK plays an enormous role. Here you can look at different bloodlines for generations back and compare offspring and different lines with each other.

One of the only places to compare sheepdogs with each other is at a sheepdog trial. At trials, all dogs work under the same conditions with the same type of sheep, here you can see how different these dogs can be, although they do the same job. The sheep will also react differently to the dogs. Trials can be a good place to look for a specific type of dog, one must just be careful as winning trials is just part of the job, dogs need to be able to do the work at home as well. In the UK old shepherds have carefully bred and selected their dogs over many years and sheepdog trials have played a big role in their selection.

Over the past 24 months I have taken in about 70 dogs for training. Of these dogs, 25 went home without training, I just could not get them going. It is difficult to say what the biggest problem was, but genetics was definitely one of them. The dogs that had good breeding behind them certainly stood out from the rest.

A lot of these failed dogs carry what I call baggage. I mean the things that have happened to them while they were growing up, which will influence them for the rest of their life. It is really tough to train a dog and to deal with these problems at the same time. For example, lack of confidence or a fear of people. (See in the article section " How to raise your working sheepdog")

Next time your are looking for a dog, do yourself a favour, go that extra mile to look for a well bred dog, and put some effort into raising your pup correctly, you will be amazed at how easy it is to train your dog and how quickly you get positive results.