Dasher Down Kennel

06/16/2024

Happy Father’s Day to daddy Dale Parker and Baloo Parker! 🍾

08/14/2022

We had a beautiful family reunion today: Auntie Lucy (Baloo’s littermate), and her most recent nieces, Phoebe (formerly known as Maddie) and Luna (formerly known as Tahiti). The little girls had a play date and it was great to see them so happy. Luna Is turning into a very confident young lady, and both puppies are still super snuggly. Miss Lucy continues the family tradition of excelling at fetch and frisbee.

08/14/2022

6 years ago and today - Lucy, Baloo Parker’s beautiful littermate (who still lives in the family) 🥰

06/28/2022

Fun fact of the day: as you can see in the photos from yesterday, little Skupper’s nose is turning brown. This means that his genetic coat color is chocolate brown or red merle (and the ee red gene is turning all light and dark brown hair into blonde hair). 🥰

06/26/2022

Rolo and Skupper, the two remaining puppies that will live with us. They both do that one-ear-up-one-ear-down thing that their great-grandpa Skye the Great introduced into the Dasher Down gene pool. And as expected, coming from a long line of extra beautiful and handsome border collies, these two are turning out quite stunning!

06/25/2022

This is so sweet. ❤️

06/06/2022

We haven’t really publicized this yet for this litter - but all pups can be registered with the ABCA, as both parents have ABCA pedigrees. We don’t know too much about Molly’s background, but Baloo’s ancestry (2 generations back) included an Iowa show champion (Baloo’s grandpa Skye), as well as an Iowa obedience champion (Skye’s cousin I believe - they were raised as brothers and were super close in age). Meadow, Baloo’s dam, has always had enormous agility skills (she is 11 now and still jumps 4ft like “oops, there was something in my way, almost didn’t see it!” - in her younger years she jumped 6 ft, as did Baloo’s male ancestors. We’ve had several puppies in past litters who have shown exceptional agility talent, exceptional herding talent (aunt Trixie keeps herding the new puppies around a it’s too cute!), and also sensational talent for obedience and show if trained correctly. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of our pups that I would have said were less than extremely intelligent - so they can probably easily learn whatever you’d like this pup to do mostly.

They are also fantastic companion dogs. All of our dogs are phenomenal at comforting us when we’re sad, and they also behave on certain ways when Dale’s health is not good (worse than normally - and on the rarer occasion that I’m not ok they exhibit the same behavior). So I think they could also be trained to be a service or support dog very easily!

Girl no. 1 (formerly Maddie, now re-named to Phoebe) was picked up yesterday and seems to be doing great in her new family (she will live with a litter mate of Baloo’s, so her aunt, and her family is within our actual family).
Girl no. 2, Tahiti, will be picked up early afternoon today and will move to Indiana to live with friends of Dale’s and my daughter-in-law.

Still available: the 3 handsome boys 🥰 we will keep one of them, but we don’t know which one yet (most likely the last one of the bunch). :)

05/27/2022

Pupdate: red merle boy does still need a home where pets are allowed. As do his blonde and chocolate brother.

05/26/2022

Both girls are now officially spoken for (one of Dale’s sons and his female are taking Maddie, and a friend of Gavin’s wife will take Tahiti); Dale’s coworker will take Big Red - which is also nice bc Dale and Juan have been having a few little get togethers here and there so there will be plenty of times when we can still see Big Red after all. Now we are just one more family short to take either Chewie or Gnarly (both names are still negotiable - they are not responding to them yet). Gnarly just broke out of his shell slightly today - I heard puppy snarling in the puppy room and walked in on Gnarly and Maddie playing tug with a microfiber cloth… and then found Dale’s beloved Queen album chewed on, and a certain Momma dog apparently wanted it dark last night - we would put a click on light on a dresser in one corner so they weren’t all in the pitch dark… and she u unplugged it, and separated the plug-in half perfectly from the upper half that plugs into the light. No damage… but Molly took one of those halves if the cord and hid it under a blanket. I swear one day border collies will drive cars and teach at MIT!!

05/25/2022

Mr Chewie doing his favorite thing - getting belly rubs from a human. 🥰 you can’t not love this little guy 😍

05/25/2022

Guess who didn’t check on the puppies enough today… 🥴
So far we have two families who have for sure committed to taking a puppy, and both families prefer a female (with one family considering Archie as an alternative). We are also considering to keep one puppy, though we are hesitant keeping a boy because Baloo is a pretty dominant male - but he might get used to one.
So we definitely still need doggie parents for at least 2 boys. Gnarly is a super duper sweet, quiet and cuddly boy (kind of on a shy side - and he was most definitely an innocent bystander in this photo ☺️), and Chewie is also super sweet and cuddly, and more of a fun outgoing/curious puppy.
All 5 show great affection for humans and for the other dogs in the house, so all of them will probably get along great with other dogs.
All 5 are also carriers of the ee red recessive gene. If two carriers of this gene are bred, there is a chance of blonde puppies being born. The blonde is a genetic variation which covers up any non-white fur and turns it blonde. Border collies with this genetic variation are perfectly healthy, however it is impossible to tell the difference between a merle and non-merle unless you take a gene test. This means if you plan to breed them one day, you must be sure to have the gene test taken unless you can rule out the puppy it’s a merle (Mollie and Meadow both had pedigrees that ruled out that they could be Merle’s, which is why we could safely breed them to Storm/Baloo). These 3 blondes could all be Merle’s because Baloo is a merle - so to breed any of them safely the gene test would be necessary.

05/23/2022

Maddie, the first ever blonde puppy born with Dasher Down. Also a total sweetheart and very cuddly.

05/23/2022

Feisty little Chewie is also a total cuddler and loves getting attention from his humans or other dogs.

05/23/2022

Little Gnarly the good little choir boy - always sits prim and proper when everyone else is racing around. This little guy knows what he is and isn’t allowed to do at 6 weeks old 😇

05/23/2022

Tahiti (blonde girl) - very quiet and super cuddly

05/23/2022

He’s handsome and he totally knows it: Archie the red merle boy 🥰

05/19/2022

Mysterious thumping sounds coming from the puppy room. Dale Parker: “Drums…. Drums in the dark… they are coming.”

05/08/2022

03/29/2022

Throwback to the day I flew to CA and picked up my little hot California blonde chick up. She had fun at the airport, then cried because the plane ride was intolerably boring (they had NO TOYS on that plane!!) and eventually we spent a night at a hotel before daddy was able to pick us up. Both of us were able to avoid any unpleasant incidents :D And now my little baby girl is grown up and continuing the emperial line of Skye, the original sire of Baloo and his bloodline.

Newest addition to Dasher Down: Molly from Yosemite Ranch Border Collies (same as where Meadow came from, though not related). She is a handful! 😃

03/29/2022

And the magic number is.... SEVEN! possible EIGHT, according to the vet. We need a few more puppy names than we had expected. ;)

03/27/2022

Cuteness Alert: Baloo and Molly are expecting their first litter - ultra cute puppies due on April 1st! 🥰

07/07/2021

04/28/2020

The future happy couple we plan to breed with maybe in a year or so: newly appointed top dog Baloo and little Miss Molly (can you guess who’s wearing the pants in that relationship? 🤔😄).

04/28/2020

Our pack has recently lost Top Dog Storm, who passed over the rainbow bridge. Now Baloo has taken over the job of canine pack leader. Eventually we plan to breed again with Baloo and Mollie (blonde with pointy ears; she is still a bit too young though).

08/26/2019

Newest addition to Dasher Down: Molly from Yosemite Ranch Border Collies (same as where Meadow came from, though not related). She is a handful! 😃

11/01/2018

Happy C**t!

04/23/2018

Partners in crime: Baloo (litter 1, age 2), and Trixie (litter 2, age 5 months)

01/13/2018

Pupdate 8 weeks:

12/29/2017

Pupdate @ 6 weeks:

12/20/2017

Baloo is in love with the puppies. He keeps trying to play-bow for them, but they don't know what to do yet...And he is also extremely protective of them....super cute 😍