Shetland Sheepdog Trivia
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42 free Shetland Sheepdog trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Shetland Sheepdog trivia quiz covers the Sheltie from its obscure island origins to the agility ring. Questions run through the Spitz-type island sheepdog, the Yakki brought by Greenland whalers, the yacht-borne King Charles Spaniel of folk tale, James Loggie's Rough Collie cross, the 1909 Kennel Club recognition and the row that forced 'Shetland Collie' to become 'Shetland Sheepdog', plus Badenock Rose and Lord Scott. The standard is covered in detail: the harsh double coat and mane, sable to mahogany, blue merle, tricolour, the 14.5-inch ideal, semi-erect ears, almond eyes and the wedge head. Health questions take in Collie eye anomaly, MDR1 drug sensitivity, von Willebrand disease, the striking gall bladder mucocele figure and hip statistics, while temperament covers Coren's 6th place out of 138. There are also questions on the Rough Collie comparison, the Icelandic Sheepdog, the Shetland pony and the islands themselves. Questions run from easy to expert with the difficulty shown on each one, and every answer was checked against a reference page and carries its citation. If you enjoy it, try our Dogs and Border Collie quizzes next.
30 of 42 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Sheltie's native islands lie between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and which country?
Norway
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.
Q 02Which habit do vets warn new owners that most Shelties share?
Barking
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.
Q 03Which coat colour is an outright disqualification for a Sheltie in the American show ring?
Brindle
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.
Q 04Under which name was the Sheltie first registered, before Collie breeders forced a change?
Shetland Collie
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.
Q 05How do both the British and American standards expect a Sheltie to react to strangers?
With reserve, but no fear
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.
Q 06Which gland is often underactive in Shelties, a problem usually controlled with a daily pill?
The thyroid
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.
Q 07Shetland's first sheepdogs are thought to have been of which type?
Spitz
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.
Q 08Shetland's early farm dogs were crossed with dogs brought ashore by which visitors?
Whaling and fishing crews
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.
Q 09Which part of a Sheltie's coat do the standards want abundant, and especially impressive on males?
The mane and frill
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.
Q 10Breed lore adds which toy breed to the Sheltie's family tree, said to have been left behind by a visiting yacht?
King Charles Spaniel
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.
Q 11Around 1900, islanders such as James Loggie began breeding Shetland's little dogs for which new buyers?
Summer tourists
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.
Q 12Why did Shetland's farmers end up with such small sheepdogs?
Their livestock was small too
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.
Q 13Besides one banned coat colour, what is the only thing that disqualifies a Sheltie from the American show ring?
Q 21How are a Sheltie's ears carried when the dog is alert?
Semi-erect and tipped forward
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.
Q 22Merle Shelties are the only ones the standards allow which unusual feature?
Blue eyes
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.
Q 23With no fences on the islands, what did Shetland's farm dogs spend much of their time driving sheep away from?
Its height
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.
Q 14The Sheltie shares its working-collie roots with the Rough Collie and which other Scottish herding breed?
The Border Collie
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.
Q 15Which marking do both the British and American standards penalise on a Sheltie?
White body patches
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.
Q 16Shelties are often taken for a miniature version of which famous screen dog's breed?
Lassie
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.
Q 17The Sheltie's outer coat is described as long, straight and what?
Harsh-textured
The undercoat is soft, short and close to the skin, and the long coat should form a mane.
Q 18In a Sheltie, the merle gene turns which base coat colour into a marbled silver-grey?
Black
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.
Q 19Why do breeders avoid mating two merle Shelties to each other?
Pups may be deaf or blind
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.
Q 20Collies come in rough and smooth coats; how do the standards treat a smooth-coated Sheltie?
As a serious fault
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.
The crofters' gardens
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.
Q 24In Stanley Coren's ranking of dog intelligence, the Sheltie came sixth, one place ahead of which breed?
Labrador Retriever
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.
Q 25Left with flocks on Shetland's uninhabited islets in summer, what were the dogs said to protect lambs from?
Eagles
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.
Q 26Why did the AKC refuse to register some of England's best Shelties in the 1920s and 1930s?
Collie crosses in their pedigrees
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.
Q 27Shelties are prone to mucoceles, build-ups of thick bile and mucus, in which organ?
The gall bladder
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.
Q 28A mutation in the MDR1 gene makes some Shelties dangerously sensitive to which common veterinary drug?
Ivermectin
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.
Q 29A study of sixty breeds found the Sheltie among the least prone to which disorder?
Hip dysplasia
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.
Q 30What causes Collie eye anomaly, which can blind a Sheltie puppy?
An inherited gene defect
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.