Circle C and Cull Buck are both right.
The very fact that people call them Blue Lacys shows how much they've been marketed purely for their color. If you had a litter of Labs, would you advertise them as "8 Black Lab puppies" if 4 were black and 4 were yellow? No, and the Lacy is no different. The historically correct name is Lacy Dog and they come in blue, red or tri. Then there is all the advertising about a rare blue color gene. Total BS. There is no such thing as a blue gene, Lacys get their coloration from a dilution modifier that is present in all three varieties and is independent from the base color. But a bunch of people saw an opportunity to make money, they knew they would make a lot more advertising them as rare blue pets rather than a working dogs, and then they pushed up the price accordingly.
Which leads to the second issue Circle C addressed, people breeding for looks or papers rather than working ability. If you don't test working ability in the field, if you randomly breed pets, you'll lose the hunting instincts. My favorite is when people say their dogs don't work, but the dogs' parents did, so their pups will be born with all the drive necessary to do anything you want. Again, total BS. Sure, some of those pups will have it, but you are playing the genetic lottery. No veteran hog hunter is going to pay an inflated price for novelty pups that haven't been bred specifically working traits.
That's why I recommend people interested Lacys as a hog dog only buy from breeders who are working both parents. Fortunately this trend of backyard pet breeders is fairly new, it probably started around the same time the Lacy was named the State Dog of Texas in 2005, so you can still find working lines. But you need to do some extra research to get them. Like all pups, there is no guarantee they'll turn into jam up dogs, but it exponentially increases your odds.
Not to shamelessly plug the association, but this is why Monteria, Bayed.Blue and I worked with some other dedicated owners to start the National Lacy Dog Association. The site is
http://www.nationallacydog.org and the blog is
http://workinglacys.wordpress.com. The point of that organization is to preserve the Lacy as a working breed. Hopefully it will make it easier for hog hunters to find the right dogs so they don't end up with duds that turn them off of Lacy Dogs.
OK, I'm getting off my soap box now. I just get a little passionate about the issue
And bghogdogtx, congrats on that new pup, the Lows breed some great working Lacys.
