Collies and Shelties

Bumping this up.
 
If any collie (or sheltie) people who are involved with showing or competing with their dogs have about 5 minutes for a survey, please email me ([email=trainsdogs@gmail.com]trainsdogs@gmail.com[/email]) - I'm trying to do some jewelry vending at collie and sheltie specialties and want to ask questions.
 
Cait

My shelties are complete opposites. As a puppy my older sheltie Hunter was timid and didn't warm up to strangers (typical to the breed), not very playful with toys and was a very quick study.  Amber our 8 month old has never met  a stranger and is very bold and playful, but not the brightest[8|]  I guess it has a lot to do with their breeding as well.  Hunter came from some very nice lines, but we don't know about Amber because she came from an animal shelter at 4 months old.  Amber is really sweet, but we are on a roller coaster ride with her right now, she is really something else. 

It's so funny how each dog is different. I have had Shelties either love toys or could care less about them!  I  had one Sheltie that I know for a fact would have been a frisbee champion of the world if his owner (me) could have thrown a frisbee good enough! []  My hubby could do it and that dog was marvelous, but hubby didn't want to take time out to enter the frisbee competition world. Such a shame cause I think Micah would have not only loved it but needed it too! He was always such an insecure dog and full of anxiety. He needed something to do.   He finally died of cancer in his old age. He did live a good long life though.
 
I heard on the news today that the Sheltie rescue society up in Phoenix is going to have a Halloween costume contests for the dogs that need to be adopted. Hopefully they will be!

In the pictures of LizzieCollie she looks like my  sheltie Amber, looks like the same sable.  I love the color, my sheltie is also still growing out.  She looks a little strange right now, there are people who don't think she is a sheltie because of the way her fur is more of a short to medium length.  I keep giving her a supplement for her coat so hopefully it will come in and look really nice and healthy.
 
We have been talking about the differences between collies and shelties and differences in personalities within the same breed.  I am just wondering, does anyone know or have you experienced differences by the color of the dogs?  I know it sounds strange, but I have heard that there are differences in some breeds.  I haven't personally experienced anything like that.  IMO I think that in the future I would always want to go to an experienced breeder who does temperment testing with the puppies.  I found that when I got my older female Hunter at 8 weeks that the breeder knew what I was looking for and really did a great job at matching us.  I can honestly say that I have never had a closer bond with any other dog.  I love her []  Amber is a rescue from the pound and although we did get her at just 4 months, I don't think I will ever be as close to her, because our personalities don't match well. 

I haven't seen a difference in temperament from one color to another. I've had all "5" colors (I'm including sable merle here because I think it should be an accepted color []) and their temperaments are the same, no matter the color.

Often people comment on certain colors having a certain temperament, like for instance chocolate Labs.  The reason their temperaments are different is that there are usually different bloodlines producing that color.   It's not actually the color itself, but the predominant bloodlines/premier sire producing the color.

I'd have to agree with Colliewog- I haven't really noticed a lot of difference in color = personality in Collies and shelties, but I think that's partially because there *isn't* a restriction on what colors are allowed to be bred together (other than no merle x merle breedings), resulting in popular sires being sed with each of the other colors. This is different than Cardis, where you can only breed blue (ie tricolor) merles to black dogs, so the blues are sort of 'closed off' from the rest of the Cardi population. Even so with that, there's nto that much of a correlation with color and personality (although the blues have a reputation for being airheads. ).
 
Mal has sable, sable merle, and blue siblings- his litter had every color but white in it!- and their personalities are all fairly similar with variations in energy level and amount of drive. I met two half-siblings (sable smooths, I assume non-merle but didn't think to ask- the common parent is Mal's Dad, CH Con-Te See Less Blues, who is a sable merle) this weekend and they also had similar traits. It'll be interesting to meet more Sele kids as I get the opportunity to.

I have a friend who is involved in a project looking for genetic links to behavior traits - one of the possible branches of that study will be this very question - whether pigmentation has anything to do with behavior/temperament. By the way, if you'd like to contribute to this study, it's very easy - just a questionaire and a cheek swab -http://psych.ucsf.edu/K9BehavioralGenetics/ It is open to all breeds and mixed breeds.

The color superstitions are much stronger in the Border collie, which has been bred throughout its history without regard to temperament issues other than what makes a good working dog. Dogs with nasty temperaments don't tend to work well with people and make really lousy under-the-pub-stool dogs - the pub being where most shepherd and their dogs ended the day.

Anyway, they say that red (bb chocolate, like a lab) dogs are highstrung, weak on stock, and tend to be pressure sensitive. I have to say that I've known very few red dogs that actually went against this stereotype. Actually, I can't think of one. Red runs through every major line, so it's not a founder phenonenom. However, there are highstrung, weak, and pressure sensitive dogs of every other color. It's just not as consistent. My friend who is on the K9 genetic behavior project actually started out poo-pooing this superstition - she has a red dog herself - but as the data come in, she is starting to wonder about this. She says there's starting to be strong anecdotal evidence that the bb gene may be linked to some behavioral issues.

Some people say that all else being equal, the tris will make better trial dogs as they take direction beeter. I've had a bunch of tris and they've been all over the board on this one, I don't really see it. But I've kept to tris within the same lines, so that might factor into it.

There's a prejudice against merle because it is said they have a hard time getting sheep to respect them and they are too cautious on stock and i've also heard they have trouble flanking square (in other words, they don't "feel" stock well). Other colors are simply ignored now as they appear very rarely and their appearance is viewed with great suspicion.

Anyway, what I was going to say before I got sucked into all this, was that the show breeds have been bred speciically with a view to a narrow range of temperamental types (compared with the Border collie free-for-all). I think it would be interesting to compare the two populations, since they had their origins with the same stock way back when. I think the show breeds allow all colors but the red, so selection pressure would be against oddball personalities within every color.

Becca,
 
Intersting link about the research link between color and behavior. I asked them to send me kits for all my and my roomates dogs. I am a grad student in equine nutrition- but have always had a strong interest in color coat genetics of many species, and behavior in dogs. This satisfies both interests! I will be keeping a close eye on this study. Thanks!

You are welcome - please spread the word. The more dogs they can get in the database the faster they will be able to come up with some answers for us.

The neat thing is that, like the canine genome project, locating genes which can be linked to behavioral disorders can help humans, too, down the road. We're pretty sure that most human psychoses have their canine counterparts since our minds seem very similiar.

Sent off for cheek swabs for my crew too.
 
I've always personally thought that the reason for the red=hyper/weird link is more that to get reds/chocolates, you have to BREED for it- not necessarily constantly, but it just doesn't pop up as often so if the color is important, you'll overlook other traits to get that color. *shrug* But that could be said of any recessive.
 
I *did* think of a color stereotype about the Cardis- the blacks are thought to be 'smaller' than the other colors, and this is sort of born out, but doesn't make a whole lot of sense since the blues are just black merles!

Well, and any merle is that base color - black, chocolate, sable - but there's old wives tales about merles, too. But the "line" theory would definitely hold true for merles because the line for merle has to be unbroken. Merles appear to have been conciously (suddenly I can't spell) weeded out since the days when they were fairly common, before the prevalence of trialing.

In BCs reds pop up in many litters completely unbidden since most of the best dogs carry the gene. I don't know how true that is for labs - but you are right, funny things happen when you start concentrating recessives of any kind. I wonder whether there's a superstition about reds in Aussies or Beardies? Obviously there's no prejudice against merles there! []

Merle is interesting in Cardis. Although it was known to happen in the history of the breed ('mottled dogs' were among the early ones registered) it wasn't a recognized or prefered color. The first merles in the US were destroyed as being 'off colored' because they didn't recognize what they were (I'd give more information, but the only book which talks about this is "The Cardiganshire Corgi," printed in the late 30s- it goes for upwards of $70 on ebay and I don't have a copy. In Australia, the merles snuck in through the backdoor- a brindle boy was apparently a brindle merle (was known to have a blue eye) as he produced merle kids. Since red (yellow-based in corgis, like the 'australian red' BCs, sable English Shepherds, and yellow Aussies) isn't effected by merle-related dilution, it's very easy for the gene to lurk in Cardis (this is the rational given for the color-restrictions on breeding.) and difficult to tell if they are red merles unless they have blue eyes. Brindle and sable confuse the matter more!
 
Will have to ask the 'old timey' Aussie fellow I know- one of my grandad's friends used Aussies on their farm back in the 1950s here in TX and is a great respository for stories about the breed 'way back when'. He's no longer farming and his son prefers black mouth cur x heeler crosses for working cattle, but I never thought to ask him about that.
 
Beardies... I don't know anyone who actually WORKS beardies on a farm, to be honest, and I don't think there really is much of anyone in living memory who has. Like Cardis, their jobs reallyd siappeared a longer time ago than the Aussies, and i don't think they ever had much of one in this part of the world where it gets so hot.

Beardies are actually still quite popular in pockets overseas (Scotland and Wales primarily).  There's a lady who runs a Beardie/BC cross in the working trials - he's a beautiful dog, and is one of a long line of old-time working Beardies. http://www.pbase.com/pastorshill/image/49962368

What are the best foods for shelties and collies?  Are there any supplements for their coat and skin?  I have had my sheltie for 6 years, but she has recently developed demodex.  She has always had allergies to grass and we have worked around that by washing them daily.  I just want to give her everything she needs to get better.  Right now it is localized on her face and the vet doesn't want to treat it any further, but if there is anything that I can give her to boost her immune system or help in any way I want to do that.  I appreciate you help.

We are checking into adopting an adult female smooth collie.  I am trying not to get excited before we find out more about her, but it is really hard.  I am also nervous because we haven't had a collie before and I want to make sure that we can do right by her as well[]  I love the long fur and my sheltie is perfect for us, but I really like the smooth coat on this  girl - she is really so pretty.  I am just hoping that she will get along with my sheltie and the family.  Hopefully it will be a love connection.