Breed Notes Owned by a Mr White, who lived in Nottinghamshire, Maude was a daughter of Old Cockie and was a sable and white because all of his offspring were this colour. The mystery is where did he get this colour from as all Collies in those days were either just black and white or tricolour? Now some of us are thinking that this dog was most probably a Welsh Collie because he was said to be quite small as are the Welsh Collies and he was brown in colour with a white collar. Many of the Welsh Collies that are still on some Welsh farms are brown and white, very different from the Border Collie which are almost all black and white. Old Cockie was evidently a very good worker as well as an exceptional show dog. The most surprising fact about this very famous dog is that he was not actively used at stud until he was eight years old. Was it his colouring that put breeders off using him on their black and white bitches? Maude was bred by two brothers called J & W.H Charles who were to have a big influence in the early days of the breed. Meg, her dam, was a daughter of Trefoil the dog that came to this country from Ireland, owned by Mr S E Shirley, founder of the Kennel Club. Born in 1873 he became the dog that all Collies go back to on their male line. Meg’s dam was a bitch called Clyde born in 1872 whose parents are unknown. However on studying the KCSB records for that era, there is a mention of a bitch known as Clydesdale (Sister to Scott) or Clyde. Born in 1876 which sort of fits but as yet, without access to the KC Library to check original registrations, there is no official link to these two. Therefore, we have to assume that Meg and her dam were working farm dogs and were born before the formation of The Kennel Club and the KCSBooks. Entries then were not as accurate as we would wish and far too many had the same names! The most popular being Meg/Lassie/Nell/Scott and Glen. Occasionally, as Kennel names had not been fully introduced, certain bigger breeders did add area names but the majority were all single name entries. Maude goes down in the history of the breed as being the dam of Ch Charlemagne and the grand-dam of Ch Eclipse. Both of these dogs were to have a major influence on the breed in the 1880 to 1890 period when the breeders were setting a type for the breed. A lot of line breeding and even the odd inbreeding was taking place. In fact, Ch Eclipse was the result of a brother sister mating as his sire was Ch Charlemagne and his dam a bitch simply called Flirt was the litter sister of Ch Charlemagne. Maude did not produce many bitches to carry on her female line, but she will go down in the history of the breed as probably the most important dam of all time as every Rough Collie ever bred goes back to her. She was certainly the most important of all of Old Cockie’s offspring. Her sable colouring was somewhat different to the sables we see today. The colour was much richer and darker. The nearest we have are what we call mahogany sable that are, unfortunately, rather rare today. This was probably due to the influence of what we now call Tricolour, but then was recorded as just Black and White or even Black, Tan with white markings and featherings. The sables in those days often lacked the white collar but had white legs and of course the white tip at the end of the tail.
On a different aspect, when browsing through early KCSB copies, unlike today, with our recognised colours of Sable & White, Tricolour and Blue Merle, there are references to Yellow, Red Grizzle with line up face, collar mark, shirt feet and tag white. Also in 1878 there is a reference to Cinnamon and White, black pencilling on ears, frill and tail. Carole Smedley |
