It is unfortunate that she and her husband used such poor judgement in
moving the all animals from Alaska. As you may know or learn, the dogs
and cats were confiscated re-entering the US from Canada and she and her
husband convicted of animal cruelty for the dismal transport
conditions....I recall that one dog actually was found dead or died
shortly after being taken into custody. The biggest tragedy was that our
illustrious government ordered the whole lot to be spayed and neutered,
this act in one sweep ending the results of many years of careful
breeding to remove Collie Eye Anomolie from at least one significant
portion of the Collie gene pool. What makes me hopping mad is the damage
the government can do when it shoves it stupid little nose into business
it knows nothing about.  The Judge that ordered the nertering out to
suffer the same for all the damage he caused to the Collie breeding
world. It matters not what one thinks of Athena and her husband, other
than to reflect on the FACT that they DID produce a line of Collies with
great looks, great temperment, and freedom from all the usual genetic
problems associated with the breed in modern times.  The whole thing is
a trasvesty, ....The Collie world in general being punished so severely
for the actions of two humans making poor transport decisions, and
another ordering the wholesale spay/neutering of all the Collies. The
whole thing is a textbook case of what NOT to do. It went way beyond
punishing the guilty, it punished the Collies and  WE all loose in the
long run.
Jennifer



Merry Moore wrote:

>..
>Thought some of you might be interested to know that the opthamologist
>used to work in Alaska and knew Athena.  I knew she'd been on the list way
>back when, but hadn't realized she'd died.  :(  The opthamologist had
>nothing but good things to say about her, kept saying that if
>opthamologists were in charge of the breed standard there would be more
>dogs like Athena's and Sasha in the gene pool.
>
>Merry
>
>
>
>