{"id":96062,"date":"2026-10-18T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T06:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/?p=96062"},"modified":"2026-10-17T19:36:29","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T01:36:29","slug":"the-man-in-search-of-the-perfect-dog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/the-man-in-search-of-the-perfect-dog\/","title":{"rendered":"The man in search of the perfect dog"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The sign affixed to a sandwich board outside a wine shop in tiny Boonville, Calif., was straight to the point: \u201cPuppies inside.\u201d Joshua Korbel, a 43-year-old sound engineer liked wine and puppies both. \u201cAnd so I put the brakes on and pulled over and parked, and then walked into that tasting room,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sign hadn\u2019t lied. More than a dozen puppies raced about the wooden floor and sprawled out on the L-shaped leather couch adjacent to the bar. They resembled short-haired Border collies, with pointed noses and floppy ears, but ranged in color from black and white to brown to an almost heather gray. They were some of the cutest dogs Korbel had ever seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were fox collies, explained Andy DuVigneaud, a winemaker and the shop\u2019s owner, as Korbel took a seat at the bar. Not a known breed \u2014 not yet, anyway, or not anymore \u2014 but DuVigneaud is out to change that. Because in this dog that arrived in California in 1885, he sees the perfect antidote for all that ails us in 2026. \u201cUs\u201d as in humans, that is, lonely and flailing as we are, and also our dogs, bred for work they no longer do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fox collie was a descendant of the McNab shepherd, a popular ranch dog with roots in the Scottish Highlands that had all but gone extinct by the middle of the 20th century. This rare pup was, under no uncertain terms, \u201cthe best dog in the world,\u201d DuVigneaud told Korbel. The fox collie can work a ranch and run all day but can also play fetch, hang out in the passenger seat of a car for long drives and relax next to you in bed. Unlike Border collies, say, whose breeding seems to prohibit them from sitting still, fox collies are pros at the art of chill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With his modest operation, DuVigneaud was working on repopulating the Earth with this perfect creature by breeding it back into being, and doing so, some 150 miles north of Silicon Valley, in perhaps the least technological and most old-school way possible: simply finding the dogs he likes most and mating them for more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Fabled McNab<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DuVigneaud grew up in the Anderson Valley, a gilded, painterly region of Northern California known for its grapes, orchards and livestock ranches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He still lives on the remote hillside where he was born in the house his father built, with his partner, nearly two dozen dogs and a few cats. DuVigneaud, 49, resembles something between a hippie and a mad scientist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a kid, he said, he knew lots of McNab dogs \u2014 a shepherd-collie mix popular among the area\u2019s ranchers. This breed was created by a Scottish immigrant, Alexander McNab, who arrived in California in 1866 and found the region\u2019s shepherd dogs so lacking, according to the Continental Kennel Club, that he later imported a pair of so-called Scotch collies from Scotland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBriefly worded, he is the ideal shepherd,\u201d Lulu McNab, Alexander\u2019s daughter, wrote of the Scotch collie in The Overland Review in 1898. The dog is prized, she added, \u201cboth in the Old World and the New, as one of the best aids money can procure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But not all McNabs were the same, DuVigneaud remembers. As a boy, he heard his neighbors talk about a particular strain of the McNab: dogs that tended to be smaller and shorter haired, often reddish in hue. These were not only the hardest workers but also had the most loyal and calm temperament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DuVigneaud never forgot this lore. He had always wanted to find one of the fabled McNabs, but, having spent his 30s and 40s running a tasting room and starting a cannabis company, he spent too much time out of town. Covid isolation put a stop to that, and he, like approximately 23 million other Americans who got pets during the early pandemic years, bought a McNab named JJ. She had all the qualities of the mythic strain he had been looking for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smitten with JJ, DuVigneaud began to do research on the McNab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He learned that Andrew McNab journeyed back to Scotland several more times over the years to fetch more Scotch collies, which he began breeding with Australian shepherds and Border collies. He called the mixes McNab shepherds and sold them to ranchers throughout California \u2014 back when humans and dogs both had clear-cut jobs to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roughly a hundred years after McNab found his way to Northern California, the McNab was a popular breed recognized by the Continental Kennel Club. It assigns the McNab the highest scores possible for its loyalty, temperament and intelligence. (Top kennel clubs do not recognize the McNab as an official breed.) DuVigneaud is now trying to bring back the original Scotch collie, which he has rebranded the fox collie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JJ was the key. DuVigneaud decided that JJ was the closest living analogue to the original Scotch collie that Alexander McNab first hauled over from Scotland. DuVigneaud found a neighbor with similar McNab strain and bred the two together. The fox collie was born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since first mating JJ in spring 2020, he has bred 16 litters of fox collie puppies, which he figured out how to do via a combination of intuition and online research (he works under the guidance and license of a breeder friend), doing extensive DNA testing to avoid debilitating genetic traits that plague many purebred dogs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He selects which dogs to breed based on \u201csize and temperament,\u201d he said. Over time, word of the fox collie seems to have spread: DuVigneaud said he had received more than 400 serious inquiries about the dogs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Korbel, who was living in the Bay Area when he first saw DuVigneaud\u2019s sign, remained enchanted with the fox collie puppies, and made a point to visit them each time he passed through town. DuVigneaud added Korbel to his \u201chope list,\u201d different from a wait list in that it\u2019s not organized in order of appearance, and is not really a list at all. Rather, it is a collection of pastel index cards with contact information and whatever details the applicants feel pertinent about what they are looking for in a dog (Natalia, age 10: \u201cI want a fluffy puppy. I want a dog who wants to sleep in my room\u201d) or about their lives (Sebastian and Rowan: \u201cWe have an apartment in SF, 2 blocks from golden gate park. We\u2019re hikers, love the outdoors, and adore our pets\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like the Michelin system, DuVigneaud awards particularly compelling cards one or two stars. He then divides the cards into several zip-top bags based on rank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DuVigneaud liked Korbel: two stars. He offered him a dog just weeks after they met \u2014 almost unheard-of. The dog was the only brown one in the litter, so Korbel named her Morena \u2014 Spanish for brunette.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Korbel has no regrets. \u201cShe has been, like, the best dog ever,\u201d he said. \u201cLike, I cannot believe how good this puppy is.\u201d When we spoke, she was 4 months old and he had had her for only a few weeks, but she was already fully potty-trained and could stroll with him around San Francisco almost entirely off leash. She even taught herself to do tricks on the bike track at a nearby skate park after an afternoon of people-watching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I visited DuVigneaud\u2019s home in August, greeted by a raucous chorus of barking \u2014 and a skitter of freaked-out cats on the roof. DuVigneaud opened the gate, and fox collies began dashing around the yard, rolling over one another and jumping into his lap. I asked him how many dogs he had. He wasn\u2019t sure. His partner, Cory Lester, took out a utility bill and began writing down names clustered by littermates. She got to 20 before she realized that she had forgotten Sweet Potato. A few minutes later, DuVigneaud called from inside the house. \u201cDid you get Winn-Dixie?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWinnieeee!\u201d she cried. She had not. Twenty-two in all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Puppy With a Purpose<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By most estimates, dogs as we know them have been domesticated for over 15,000 years. It used to be that humans bred dogs to do specialized tasks, like corral sheep in the meadow at sundown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, explained David Howe, an anthropologist focusing on how dogs have shaped human society, we train dogs to redirect these behaviors (teaching a golden retriever to fetch a ball instead of a dead duck, say). Until very recently, \u201cmost dogs had a utilitarian working role,\u201d Howe said. \u201cIn the modern world, we don\u2019t need them for those roles anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, the dog is in most cases \u201ca technological pet for emotional support.\u201d In the United States, where in 2023 the surgeon general declared loneliness to be a public health concern of epidemic proportions, dogs can supplant the connections we lack from fellow humans \u2014 and give us a daily purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For now, DuVigneaud is the only one breeding fox collies. With so many stray and abandoned animals in need of homes \u2014 last year, 2.8 million dogs entered U.S. shelters and rescues, according to Shelter Animals Count \u2014 DuVigneaud has his share of detractors. He rejects the criticism. \u201cWe have too many people,\u201d he said. \u201cIs it unethical to have kids?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though organizations like the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals emphatically encourage people to pursue adoption, Jennie Lintz, a senior director for the A.S.P.C.A., acknowledged that \u201cthere are people who might want a specific kind of dog for a specific reason\u201d and go to a breeder instead. The group\u2019s position is that those people should find what it calls an ethical breeder \u2014 someone who tests for genetic traits, has a list of people who want puppies before the puppies are born and vets the people he sells to. DuVigneaud seems to fit the bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DuVigneaud is selling the dogs for $1,000 \u2014 though he maintains that he isn\u2019t in it for the money. So why is he doing it, then? His answer has all the high-minded egotism of a would-be Silicon Valley titan. He\u2019s doing it, he says, \u201cto change the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DuVigneaud anticipates that the slim share of the world\u2019s herding and working dogs that are still on the job will soon be replaced by drones or other technologies. With its perfect work-play temperament and devotion to humans, the fox collie, he believes, can save purpose-bred dogs from obsolescence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be clear, many breeds originally created to serve have found homes by the millions, where little is expected of them beyond companionship. But unlike the fox collie, those dogs often require enormous amounts of exercise and stimulation to compensate for their lack of work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He sees his mission as helping people, too. Humans are experiencing our own crisis of purpose with the advent of A.I., and a little unconditional love, like the kind Korbel says he has experienced in the three weeks since taking Morena home, might be just what we need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I visited DuVigneaud\u2019s home in August, a forest fire was seething not far away, but was being contained; by the time we got to the tasting room, his truck, as usual, packed full of perfect dogs, we could smell the smoke. The future felt particularly bleak, but at least there were puppies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n