42 Fun Facts About Shetland Sheepdog

The Sheltie's native islands lie between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and which country?

Norway. The islands were ruled from there for centuries before they passed to Scotland, long enough that Norn, a descendant of the old rulers' language, was still spoken there more than two centuries after the handover.

Which habit do vets warn new owners that most Shelties share?

Barking. A noisy dog was a useful one on an island farm, where part of its job was to warn the family of intruders and visitors, and Shelties still greet guests with a volley of it.

Which coat colour is an outright disqualification for a Sheltie in the American show ring?

Brindle. The tiger-striped pattern is the one coat colour the American standard throws out of the ring, and one breed historian suspects the rule was meant to weed out the traces of an early terrier cross.

Under which name was the Sheltie first registered, before Collie breeders forced a change?

Shetland Collie. Collie breeders, who looked on the little island dogs as mongrels, protested so fiercely that the Kennel Club dropped the name and listed them as Shetland Sheepdogs instead.

How do both the British and American standards expect a Sheltie to react to strangers?

With reserve, but no fear. The breed is devoted to its own people and merely watchful of everyone else, which is why vets tell owners to introduce a Sheltie puppy to plenty of new faces early.

Which gland is often underactive in Shelties, a problem usually controlled with a daily pill?

The thyroid. When it runs slow the whole dog slows with it, growing sluggish, plump and thin-coated, but a simple blood test finds the problem and most dogs on medication live a normal span.

Shetland's first sheepdogs are thought to have been of which type?

Spitz. That is the usual account, though even breed historians hedge it; what the records do show is that the Collie look came later, when the island dogs were crossed with collies from the Scottish mainland.

Shetland's early farm dogs were crossed with dogs brought ashore by which visitors?

Whaling and fishing crews. Breed histories single out the Yakki, a dog that came off the Greenland whalers when the fleets put into the islands' ports.

Which part of a Sheltie's coat do the standards want abundant, and especially impressive on males?

The mane and frill. Exhibitors may tidy the hair on the feet, ears and hocks before a show, but the ruff round the neck and chest is left in full.

Breed lore adds which toy breed to the Sheltie's family tree, said to have been left behind by a visiting yacht?

King Charles Spaniel. The story, passed on by an early American breeder, has a yachtsman's pet staying on the islands at a time when Shetlanders were breeding their dogs to anything small and fluffy.

Around 1900, islanders such as James Loggie began breeding Shetland's little dogs for which new buyers?

Summer tourists. Visitors wanted small, fluffy pets to take home, so some islanders stopped breeding for work and started breeding for a pretty coat and the smallest size they could get.

Why did Shetland's farmers end up with such small sheepdogs?

Their livestock was small too. Thin grazing and a hard climate had shrunk the islands' sheep and cattle, and small, nimble stock needed only a small, nimble dog that could work all day on very little food.

Besides one banned coat colour, what is the only thing that disqualifies a Sheltie from the American show ring?

Its height. A Sheltie must stand 13 to 16 inches at the shoulder; the club voted the rule in after informal agreements not to show oversized dogs were ignored, and American Shelties still run larger than British ones.

The Sheltie shares its working-collie roots with the Rough Collie and which other Scottish herding breed?

The Border Collie. America's standard traces the Sheltie straight back to it: collie stock taken to the islands was crossed with small, intelligent, long-haired dogs and so reduced to miniature proportions.

Which marking do both the British and American standards penalise on a Sheltie?

White body patches. American breeders wanted mostly-white dogs thrown out altogether, but were allowed only one new disqualification and spent it elsewhere, so the standard settles for a penalty heavy enough to do the same job.

Shelties are often taken for a miniature version of which famous screen dog's breed?

Lassie. She is a Rough Collie, and many families take the Sheltie for a pocket version, yet it is a separate breed and was never simply a Collie bred down in size.

The Sheltie's outer coat is described as long, straight and what?

The undercoat is soft, short and close to the skin, and the long coat should form a mane.

In a Sheltie, the merle gene turns which base coat colour into a marbled silver-grey?

Black. The gene thins the black pigment to silver-grey in random patches and leaves the rest untouched, which gives the splashed and marbled coat the standard asks for.

Why do breeders avoid mating two merle Shelties to each other?

Pups may be deaf or blind. On average a quarter of such a litter inherits two copies of the merle gene, and these mostly white 'double merles' very often have defective eyes or hearing.

Collies come in rough and smooth coats; how do the standards treat a smooth-coated Sheltie?

As a serious fault. Britain's standard calls smooth-coated Shelties highly undesirable and one American registry disqualifies them outright, whereas a Smooth Collie is an accepted variety of its breed.

How are a Sheltie's ears carried when the dog is alert?

Semi-erect and tipped forward. At rest the ears fold lengthwise and lie back against the neck; when something catches the dog's attention they swing up with the tips breaking over, and fully pricked ears are a show fault.

Merle Shelties are the only ones the standards allow which unusual feature?

Blue eyes. The gene that marbles a merle's coat also thins the pigment of the iris, so one or both eyes may be blue or blue-flecked; in every other Sheltie the standards insist on dark brown.

With no fences on the islands, what did Shetland's farm dogs spend much of their time driving sheep away from?

The crofters' gardens. The half-wild sheep roamed free, so the dogs' daily job was less to gather them than to keep them off the small plots and hayricks a family depended on.

In Stanley Coren's ranking of dog intelligence, the Sheltie came sixth, one place ahead of which breed?

Labrador Retriever. Coren built the list by asking some 200 obedience judges to rate the breeds; dogs in the top tier, the Sheltie among them, were said to grasp a new command in fewer than five repetitions.

Left with flocks on Shetland's uninhabited islets in summer, what were the dogs said to protect lambs from?

Eagles. Crofters ferried sheep out by boat to graze islets too small to live on and left a dog with them, and the threat to a lamb out there came not on four legs but from birds of prey overhead.

Why did the AKC refuse to register some of England's best Shelties in the 1920s and 1930s?

Collie crosses in their pedigrees. English breeders had openly mated Shelties to full-sized Collies to improve the look, the AKC would not accept the offspring, and American kennels lost some of the best dogs of the day.

Shelties are prone to mucoceles, build-ups of thick bile and mucus, in which organ?

The gall bladder. A 2010 study blamed a variant of the gene ABCB4, but a wider follow-up with the same researcher found the variant no more often in sick Shelties than in healthy ones, so the cause remained unknown.

A mutation in the MDR1 gene makes some Shelties dangerously sensitive to which common veterinary drug?

Ivermectin. The faulty gene disables a pump that keeps drugs out of the brain, so a dose other dogs shrug off can poison a carrier; every carrier is thought to descend from a single dog that lived in Britain before 1873.

A study of sixty breeds found the Sheltie among the least prone to which disorder?

Hip dysplasia. Only about 4 per cent of Shelties in the X-ray records had it, and the same study credits decades of breeders screening their dogs before mating for driving the rate down across breeds.

What causes Collie eye anomaly, which can blind a Sheltie puppy?

An inherited gene defect. It is recessive, so two clear-sighted parents can both carry it and pass it on, which is why careful breeders have puppies' eyes examined young and gene-test dogs before mating them.

'Sheltie skin syndrome' is the everyday name for which disease the breed shares with Collies?

Dermatomyositis. It inflames the skin, the muscles and the blood vessels and has no cure, which is why the American breed club lists it among the conditions it asks breeders to screen against.

Von Willebrand disease, a condition found in some Shelties, affects what?

Blood clotting. Affected dogs bruise easily and can bleed dangerously after an injury or an operation, so a blood test before surgery matters; with care most of them live normal lives.

Along with obedience, which dog sport do vets single out as one the Sheltie excels at?

Agility. What crofters needed for working half-wild sheep, speed, quick turns and a readiness to take direction, is exactly what the sport rewards.

Why do vets urge Sheltie owners to use a lead or a fenced yard near roads?

They chase anything that moves. It is the herding instinct misfiring at squirrels, rabbits and cars; one breed historian's Sheltie even took to chasing the aeroplanes that flew over the yard.

When play gets exciting, which habit may a Sheltie turn on running children?

Nipping at their heels. Driving dogs move stock by snapping at its heels, which is why such breeds are called heelers, and vets note that an over-excited Sheltie can try the same on a running child.

Who are thought to have brought the Sheltie's earliest ancestors to Shetland around a thousand years ago?

Viking settlers. Colonists from Scandinavia are thought to have arrived with their herding dogs, and one breed historian points to archaeological evidence of such dogs from before Shetland passed to Scotland.

Besides sheep, which animals did Shetland's farm dogs traditionally help to herd?

Ponies. The island dogs are said to have worked the islanders' ponies as well as their sheep, the same sturdy breed that was later shipped south in numbers to haul coal underground in British mines.

Which port replaced Scalloway as the capital of Shetland?

Lerwick. It took over from Scalloway on the opposite coast, and one breed historian traces today's Shelties through it: Lerwick Jarl, a dog of the early 1900s who was never even registered, stands behind them.

In 1468-69, Shetland was pledged to Scotland by King Christian I as security for what?

His daughter's unpaid dowry. Margaret married James III of Scotland, the money never came and the islands stayed Scottish; mainland sheep followed, and with them the working collies later crossed into the island dogs.

Which chore do vets say a Sheltie's coat needs several times a week?

Brushing. Left alone the long coat mats, most often behind the ears and under the legs, yet for all that hair a Sheltie needs a bath only now and then.

What makes a Sheltie's long outer coat stand off from the body instead of lying flat?

A short, dense undercoat. The American standard wants it thick enough to give the whole coat its 'stand-off' look, and the price of that is on the carpet: vets warn that both layers shed considerably.

Besides collies, which fluffy toy breed is often named among the dogs crossed into the early Sheltie?

Pomeranian. Breed histories mention it again and again, though the Pomeranian of 1900 was a far bigger dog than today's lapdog, closer to a small white Samoyed.