MENDOCINO CO., 4/17/26 — Drive south on Highway 101 toward Hopland, and you’ll pass a turnoff for McNab Ranch Road. Most people zip by without noticing. But that little road is the namesake of something Mendocino County can claim that few other counties in America can: a working dog breed that originated here in the late 1800s and is still riding shotgun in ranch trucks up and down the North Coast. Meet the McNab.
Did you know
…the McNab is one of the only dog breeds developed in California, and the only one tied to Mendocino County?
The breed traces to Alexander McNab, a Scottish sheep rancher who emigrated from Glasgow in 1866 and settled on a 10,000-acre spread in the valley south of Ukiah. In 1885 he returned to Scotland and brought back two Scotch Collies, Peter and Fred, who became the patriarchs of the breed. The Collies were brilliant in the Scottish highlands and underbuilt for the Mendocino summer — soft feet on the rocks, too much coat, no real answer to half-wild range cattle.
So McNab crossbred. He bred Peter and Fred to local dogs of Basque Spanish and English working stock — leaner dogs that already knew how to work in heat. He selected hard for stamina, smarts and tough feet, and he favored smoother coats for the California climate. Within a generation he had a dog that belonged here.
… there’s a Mendocino winery named after the breed?
McNab Valley itself is named after Alexander McNab. McNab Ridge Winery, purchased by John Parducci in 1999 and now run by his grandson Rich, takes its name from the same ground. The labels carry a McNab dog silhouette. The Petite Sirah is a good place to start.
… McNabs have what ranchers call cat feet?
Tight, compact paws with no rear dewclaws, built for rough country. It’s one of the breed’s signatures, along with the lean 35- to 50-pound build, the typically black-and-white coat and ears that can go either prick or floppy. Serious McNab people don’t care which.
… they herd differently than border collies?
This is the detail working ranchers love. Border collies are eye-stalkers. They crouch low, lock eyes with the sheep and move them with intensity. McNabs work loose-eyed and upright. They trot wide, work the heads of the herd and use body pressure rather than stare. The reason is practical: cattle don’t respond to a stare, and you can’t whistle a dog through a stand of manzanita. McNabs were bred to think for themselves in country where the rancher couldn’t see them half the time.
… they’re as smart as a border collie, just smart in a different way?
Border collies top every dog intelligence ranking ever published — they sit at No. 1 in psychologist Stanley Coren’s well-known list. McNabs aren’t on those lists because they aren’t recognized by the American Kennel Club, and most McNab breeders prefer it that way. Once a working breed enters the show ring, the work tends to leak out of it within a few generations.
Ask any North Coast rancher and they’ll tell you a good McNab is right there with a border collie. The difference is in style. Border collies are virtuoso instruction-followers. McNabs are independent problem-solvers. Drop one in a brushy canyon with 30 scattered cows and no commands, and a good McNab will bring them home on its own.
… one McNab can do the work of two or three other dogs?
Range. They cover ground. On a 5,000-acre ranch — and Mendocino has plenty of those — that adds up. They also handle heat better than border collies and work cattle more readily than most Australian shepherds, which is part of why they’ve held on in working ranch culture even as flashier breeds cycled through.
… you can’t really buy one online?
There’s no breed club marketing puppies, no AKC paperwork, no glossy operation. Working McNabs change hands rancher to rancher up and down the North Coast, mostly through people who already know each other. A lot of breeders won’t sell you a pup unless they’ve talked to you first. That’s how the breed has stayed a real working dog for roughly 140 years.
The McNab is a Mendocino County artifact: half Scotland, half California, all local. Built by a stubborn immigrant who took one look at this country and decided to engineer a dog that belonged here.
Spot a lean black-and-white dog riding in the bed of a ranch truck on the way to the Boonville feed store. Give it a nod. You’re looking at 140 years of Mendocino history with cat feet.
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