Shetland sheepdogs

Shai

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#21
Frodo does too!
And he has the best Chewbacca impression on the face of this earth.
Kim would like to challenge that lolol. Hubby tried to change her name to Chewie on at least two occasions :eek:

One sad thing about the paps is that I have never heard them howl. (Except for Nard's baying, he doesn't bark just goes 'woowoowoowooooo') The shelties you could get to do a chorus with you easily. And Nikki had songs she'd howl to as well and words she'd mimic. She didn't honk though. Trey honked all the time. It kind of sounded like 'Ow. Ow. Ow.' :lol-sign:

Payton is adorable.

Shai I would definitely not be surprised if Kim wasn't part sheltie or collie. GSDs are also talkers as well.

I will say that the paps make monkey-bird sounds very well.
Yeah howling cracks me up. I've never heard Web or Mira howl, but Kim will to emergency sirens. We used to live a couple blocks from a firehouse and whenever the ambulance would start up I'd run outside with Kim just to hear her howl...:rolleyes: hehe

And yeah Kim probably has something along that line in her ancestry somewhere lol. Tennessee Supermutt. I figure mostly some generic collie type dogs, could be some pariah dog type in there too given some of her more odd behaviors...who knows. Love her, whatever she is. Just wish there were more like her :)

(Sorry to derail the Sheltie thread. Go Shelties!)
 

CharlieDog

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#22
Those videos are hilarious! Knox makes quite a few of those noises. Including screaming. He doesn't honk, lmao, but he grunts groans moans mumbles sighs and is a general pest most of the time.
 
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#25
I love the sheltie noise video, my first collie Beau always made the honk/grumble sound. Pretty well every time you asked him to do anything, he would obey but he could not resist mouthing back while he did so.:rofl1: He did it so much every time he moved that the first week after we adopted him we thought there was something wrong with him.
 

Shelteez

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#26
Shelties are very sweet dogs but not for everyone. They do bark alot but can be trained on command to be quiet mine knows this command. It takes special people to understand this breed that's why there is a saying that goes "only sheltie people get it". Casey is shy which is a normal trait in a sheltie, he tends to move away from strangers if you try to pet him and will watch you from afar, if he feels like it and you have food in your hand he'll approach you and will be your best buddy after that and will let you give him butt/body scatches :rolleyes:. Gracie will let strangers pet her but she is not the type of dog to approach you. She won't move away if you try to pet her though, she tolerates it. If you decide to go with a sheltie you have to understand their quirks, at the same time make sure you find a reputable breeder. There are tons of sheltie rescues out there too, i'd opt for that instead. :) One thing for sure shelties are a very sensitive active breed. Mine goes on walks 3 miles almost everyday and lots of activity games for mind stimulation.
 

skittledoo

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#27
Shelties are definitely on my *want* list....

I thought for sure I had decided on getting another border collie, but a smaller border collie than Bamm. I really want a smaller dog for our third. Right now I'm debating between smaller framed border collie, papillon (larger side of the standard) or a sheltie.

I adore two of the shelties at my work. One is Bandit. He is bigger than the other shelties we have. In fact, he is only a little smaller than Cricket. He can be shy at first, but really friendly. He will play with other dogs, but tends to keep to himself a little bit unless another fog initiates play. Toby is the one I want to take home. He can be a little reserved at first, but he is really friendly and has a great personality. He is the barkiest one at my work though. Toby has the coat I really like in a sheltie. He isn't over abundantly fluffy. His coat is still fluffy but it isn't quite as long. Indy is Toby's brother. He is very small and a stress case. He played with me a bit today.

Is there a reason they range so much in temperament? How easy is it to guess how big a sheltie puppy might mature to? Toby is exactly the size i would want. I think he is about 12 inches or so? Also Toby and Indy both have erect ears, but a lot of shelties I see usually have tipped ears. Is there a preference? I like the erect ears honestly.
 

Shai

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#28
Is there a reason they range so much in temperament? How easy is it to guess how big a sheltie puppy might mature to? Toby is exactly the size i would want. I think he is about 12 inches or so? Also Toby and Indy both have erect ears, but a lot of shelties I see usually have tipped ears. Is there a preference? I like the erect ears honestly.
(1) Because like many of the very popular breeds they are extremely versatile and have been bred for many different functions -- show, pet, sport.

(2) I don't know

(3) They are suppose to have perfectly tipped ears when shown in conformation. A LOT of the tipped ear shelties you see had their ears glued/taped as puppies to get the proper tip and if you wanted erect ears your pup may well default to that or you could tape them up to help if it's that important to you. It usually wouldn't take much a tall to get them up from what I've seen.
 

Beanie

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#29
The reason shelties vary so much in size is because it wasn't that long ago that collie was crossed in. Best guess is the sheltie came from Less than 100 years ago, as late as the 1930's that it's on record. There were also smaller collies being registered as shelties... that sort of thing. I would guess into the 1950's at least collie shenanigans were going on, if not longer, but it's hard to know for sure since stuff became very political and was not openly documented. Obviously you aren't likely to find (reliable) record of "so-and-so was a collie registered as a sheltie!" And then there's the matter of dogs who weren't registered at all.
To complicate matters, earlier in the breed's history there were smaller breeds. Possibly pomeranian, papillon, samoyed - nobody is quite sure.
So size is still being ironed out as a result of the breed's relative youth. There's also the matter of increasing popularity of the breed and BYBs/mills getting their hands on it. Happy was HUGE. If you're a BYB you really don't care about size. BUT even the best of breeders can have dogs go out of size. Payton is currently just out (over 16") unless his shoulders drop in maturity which happens. Typically you don't see itty bitty shelties or monster shelties like Hap if people know what they're doing, but it does happen. It's more common to see dogs who are just slightly under or slightly over.
Also, you can have puppies in a single litter vary widely in size. You're on my Facebook so you can see this picture... in Auggie's album, the family portrait (with a green background), all four dogs on the top row are from the same litter. The one on the far left is a BIG boy and the one second from the right is a tiny little guy, haha. Size genetics is frustrating stuff for sheltie breeders right now.

12" would be TINY. Even Princess Georgie the Tiny is between 13 1/4 and 13.5... not gotten a solid measure on her yet because really all we cared about was "over 13." But it could happen. I bet he's bigger than that though.

There are size charts for puppy growth. There is one in Sheltie Talk and there's a second one online that was compiled with different data and is different, I would have to look for it, but it's still just a guess. You can try to predict. Payton's breeder thought he was going to go out based on the size chart and wanted to cut him. I was willing to take the risk, for a good long while in the middle there he was actually on track to stay in... then he had another growth spurt and there you go. Breeders also generally know how their dogs grow, when their growth spurts are and when they mature/finish growing. So they can make an educated guess. But ultimately it's all an educated guess. You will find breeders who held a dog back and it ended up going out of size... you will find people who altered a dog because it was out after a year, then once it hit 2-3 years old and maturity finished, the chest broadened and the shoulders dropped and the dog went back in size...
So I suppose the answer to how easy is it to guess how big a sheltie puppy will grow is... not as easy as you might think? LOL. If size is a big factor I would recommend going with an older rescue, older than 10 months and you should see the permanent height.

As far as ears go, some dogs have ears that tip genetically. I tried to set Auggie's and once it became obvious he wasn't show quality I just ended up giving up. He HATED having his ears set so it wasn't worth doing. They broke low rather than staying prick... those are Auggie's ears. I kinda wish I had kept trying to set them in hindsight. =P
But mostly they are set that way. Most breeders set all puppy ears as a rule because you can't really just 'wait and see' how ears turn out and then try to fix it later, so you just start that way.
Happy and Kota both had prick ears. Happy's were HUGE to match the rest of his monster body hahaha. Kota had small ears and I took my fingers and tuliped them over once and he looked silly, so it's a good thing they ended up prick on him I think, LOL. Auggie looks silly when his ears are up though, sometimes when he's REALLY excited, he'll tip his head back so his ears go up and then his ears STAY up for a while and OMG! He looks ridiculous.
 

Laurelin

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#30
I have met some tiny shelties. At a show last year there was one that could not be much more than an inch taller than Summer. Summer is a hair over 10 inches.

My shelties ranged from 18 lbs to 35 lbs. it was obvious that Rosie was going to be big from the get go. Just big paws and everything. Trey was on the other hand, very small compared his relatives. Breeder held him to show and he ended up just a hair short. You get big and little in the same lines for the reason Beanie said- the collie genes are not very far back at all.

I know I am totally biased but you can't go wrong with either a pap or a sheltie for a small dog.
 

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