hanging tree cowdogs

they vary in working styles and ability.
they were more uniform when the original developers bred and culled them.
i've seen them range from hard to soft, timid to brazenly hard headed, and from silent to bay.
as with most crossbreds (four breeds nonetheless) it takes a very long time and breeders with very similiar goals, breeding and culling practices to get them coming consistant. in the beginning they had that. after the popularity increase, they didn't. most i've been around in recent years are nothing much more than border collies or kelpies except they don't breed as true.

early on they did have more bark, less eye, a little nose, and some hunt.
the people that got and used the first few generations of them after they were somewhat standardized, were border collie/ kelpie folk that liked the aspect of having that style of dog, only tougher, with more hunt and bite. in the end the selection always veered more towards the trial type dogs side of the htc's breeding and put them about on par with the harder end of border collies and kelpies, without the cosistancy.

kind of along the same lines of thinking most new folks have when the move into your neck of the woods. they move here because they like it, but the first thing they try to do after they get here, is change it to the way it was where they came from...