WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE SHELTIE.
GENERAL APPEARANCE
The Shetland Sheepdog (Sheltie) truly is a breed of great beauty, intelligence and alertness. Many people refer to them as miniature Collies, and
while that may have been true in the early days of the breed, it is not true now. Shetland Sheepdogs are bred true�devoid of any for many generations. They are
a very manageable, portable size, which suits many families who want a pet they can take anywhere while not taking up too much room. To gain a more complete
understanding of the Shetland Sheepdog, we look to the American standard, which describes the Sheltie as �a small, alert, rough-Sheltie should be of a dog
that is balanced, slightly longer in body than height, with a proud stance, head held high, not cringing or flattening along the ground. In the following discus-
sion, the sections in italics are taken directly from the American Kennel Club standard; the rest is commentary.
SIZE
Described as a small breed, the dog should stand between 13 and 16 inches at the shoulder. Note: Height is determined by a line perpendicular to the ground from
the top of the shoulder blades. Disqualification�Heights below or above the desired range are to be disqualified from the show ring.
COLORS
Color is immaterial from a working standpoint, because a good herding dog can be any color. It is said that sheep better distinguish the dog if it is not all
white, since that is the sheep�s own color. But how can a dog herding all day in bad weather stay its own color anyway? Allowable colors for the show ring
are:
Sable, which ranges from golden to red to deep mahogany with an overlay of black.
Tricolor, which should be an intense black with tan and white markings.
Blue merle, which is a basic back-ground color of silvery blue with black merled throughout and tan markings usually over each eye, along each side of the
face and sometimes on the legs and under the tail.
Bi-black, which is the same as the tricolor without tan markings. The bi-black, incidentally, is the original color of the Sheltie, not the sable, as most
people commonly believe.
The current standard penalizes any Sheltie that is more than 50 percent white, although before 1952 �color-headed whites� were allowed to compete in shows.
Today, white Collies are allowed to be shown. The color-headed white is, genetically, a sable, black or merle dog on which the white factoring has created
a white or spotted body color. They are produced by breeding two dogs carrying the white factoring. The head is always normally colored and marked. The body
may be totally white, colored or spotted. All the above colors will have varying amounts of white markings, the most common being around the neck, up each
leg, on the face in the form of a blaze or star and on the tip of the tail. White markings are one of the least important parts of a show dog. Full white
collars are attractive, but not entirely necessary for a show dog. This is where personal preference enters, because while some people love a lot of white
on the blaze, others may like only a pencil-thin stripe up it. White body spots are considered a fault; however, they do not prevent a herding dog from
successfully herding its flock. Brindle is listed as a Disqualification, but to my knowledge there has not been a brindle Sheltie for many, many years.
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