Miles Allen raises border collies and rams in Central Texas.
-- Staff photo by Coppedge
Farm dog sparked career
By CLAY COPPEDGE, Country World Staff Writer
July 31, 2008 - Miles Allen knows first-hand what a good border collie can do for a person’s spirits. Seven years ago, while he was going through devastating treatments for Hepatitis C, a friend gave him a female collie.
Allen, now 59, had gone from a strapping, robust 200 pounds to 140 pounds as he struggled to rally from his illness. Doctors gave him a 50 percent chance of surviving the ordeal.
“That dog got me up and going,” he said during a recent visit to his place in Williamson County where he lives with his wife Peggy, his father-in-law, about 40 border collies and a sampling of his trophy rams. The bulk of his Barbado rams are at his place in Santa Anna in Coleman County.
As the son of an itinerant ranch hand, Allen grew up all over the state, working the ranches with his father and attending a different school every year.
“I enjoyed it,” he said. “All my family was ranchers. We ranched in Coleman County, and I still go up there and help my uncle. We run about 100 rams there in Santa Anna.”
Allen was familiar with border collies before he got the dog that got him up and going. But after his illness, he settled in to raising dogs along with the trophy rams. He also worked as a truck driver, first for a local Charolais ranch then as a long-haul truck driver.
He always had a border collie with him when he was hauling cattle and used them when he worked on ranches.
In 2003, Allen’s female collie won first place at a trial in Odessa. He bought a male dog, developed a breeding plan and put a certain number of the offspring up for sale. The results have given him at least a break-even living along with a lot of happy customers.
“I try to match the dogs with the owners,” he said. “If they’re not happy with the first one they get, I’ll match ‘em a second time to get them what they want. A lot of people say ‘That’s what I wanted the first time.’ Sometimes I get a call back and they tell me that the dog was the best thing they ever did for their daughter. ‘She was a disaster before she got this dog.’ Stuff like that. Most of my customers come from word-of-mouth.”
A fair number of the people who buy his border collies these days come from Killeen, specifically Fort Hood. Of those buyers many are recent military veterans who have learned what Allen learned: border collies will get you up and going.
Spend some time every day with a border collie and you will have a best friend, he said.
“Border collies aren’t happy unless they’re with you. Border collies are bred to be with their masters. They will be your best friend. A lot of the military guys are getting them because they’re pretty good medicine for Post Traumatic Stress. They can read your mind. They know how you’re feeling. They will get you up and going.”
Allen has come to specialize in white border collies. He has a white one, Fluffy, which he says is the only (almost) pure-white border collie that he knows of. Others are predominately white, with splashes of color here and there. The first white one was an accident, but since then he has learned what it takes to get the white collies.
“I think I have more white border collies than anybody in the United States,” he said.
Allen employs a simple method to choose which dogs he will keep for himself. The first puppy from a litter that comes to him is the one.
“I’ve had pups come to me with their eyes closed. They will respond to the sound of my voice,” he said. “I know that’s a dog that’s going to stay with me.”
Ranchers like a dog that will stay with them, that will work with them and won’t get tired. A rancher in Coleman County told him that a border collie he got from Allen was the first dog he’d ever had that would follow him when he was on horseback and lay down when asked.
In Coleman County, Allen works Corriente cattle with his uncle. Corrientes are Mexican cattle that are used primarily as roping cattle. Some of them are half-wild and will run into thick brush and hide. A dog that tracks by scent will find the cattle and bring them in, Allen said.
Allen said he wouldn’t be able to raise sheep without a border collie.
“There’s no way I could handle these sheep without a dog,” he said. “That’s the only way to handle these Barbados. All you need to get them loaded up is a bucket of corn and a good dog. The sheep learn that if they come to me the dog will leave them alone.”
Like he does with his dogs, Allen breeds his sheep for color. He also looks for horn length and has several rams with horns that are 30 to 40 inches long.
“The horns are what a lot of people are looking for,” he said.
Though the rams and the border collies comprise equal parts of his business, it’s clear that Allen has a soft spot in his heart for the collies.
“If you need to work stock, get you a border collie,” he said. “If you’re going to just sit on the porch, get you a border collie because that dog will be your best friend. It just wants to be with you.”
