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I very much agree with Rosemary. My background is a person who has volunteered in dog rescue for 12 years, devoted about four of them mainly to border collie rescue, I own a border collie myself and have worked for veterinarians, including several who specialized in reproductive medicine, so we catered to breeders. I currently care for dogs at a boarding kennel/veterinary clinic. Chickens are alas, my second love. Here is my advice for you:
Breeding dogs, when done right, is a very complicated and competitive world. Very little money is made by those who really do it right. Doing it the "wrong" ways, and there are many, many mistakes to be made especially if you don't put alot of money into it up front with great dogs, that lead to more dogs burdening the already overcrowded shelters. You might be surprised at the number of border collies currently being put down every year at your local shelter. They are a hard dog to rehome and can be a very challenging pet. People take them on and have no idea what they are getting into.
And as the person who collected money from the breeders to pay their veterinary bills, I saw it happen over and over again that they would sigh and realize they would never recoup all their expenses for this litter. On c-section and your litter gets pretty expensive. Our veterinarian suggested a breeder have at least 2,000 of ready cash set aside just in case their are complications with your litter, and I've seen it go much higher than that. I think it was Grey Horse Woman or (I'm sorry I forget the name of the person who posted) who outlined well the expenses leading up to even getting to that stage.
This year our rescue organization has taken in many more purebred dogs than ever before because of the economy. Border collies were very common here when our county was changing over from more rural to more urban in some areas, so the types of dogs available in any given area goes through cycles. City families adopt border collies because they are "small". It can be very hard for these dogs to be family "backyard" dogs as they have problems with chasing moving objects such as children's legs as they are swinging on swings, laser lights, bicycles going by, etc. They just can't sit around alone. Mine will try to herd butterflies. They certainly herd children.
Border collies are at their best as either working dogs on a farm doing actual herding, or with someone wanting to be "active" with their dog in some way. Agility, jogging partner, etc. If they are not kept busy they can be extremely destructive. Someone who really works with their dog and spends tons of time training it to do tricks or otherwise be highly trained can have a successful border collie pet, but they are the exception, not the rule. Some of them are overly sensitive and others need a really strong leader figure. They can be awesome dogs and I love my BC like I love my kids, she is the best. ........
However I really hope you decide not to breed dogs. Nothing personal. We should leave dog breeding for those people winning blue ribbons at the top dog shows and whose dogs will 100 percent be in demand. Perfect health specimens and standards of their breeds, done by people as dedicated as some I've seen. I believe that in a breed such as this, people working their dogs for agility and real herding ought to be the ones breeding border collies that are also winning at the shows because that is the place this breed excels and where its drawbacks are overshadowed by the dog's intellect.
Also, there are puppies in rescue if you are patient. Contact your local border collie rescue and let them know you are patient, but you'd like as young as possible. My own border collie was four months old when we adopted her from our rescue.
A great place to start with any breed is just to own one, you might try a spayed-neutered one!
