Breed Priorities – Shetland Sheepdog

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226 – July, 2024

By Nikki Riggsbee

The Shetland Sheepdog hails from the Shetland Islands, a group of islands 130 miles north of Scotland and west of Norway. The land is rough and the winds nearly continuous, a challenging envi-ronment for the people and animals there. Early dogs on the islands were small and thought to be Spitz type brought from Scandanavia, crossed with other breeds and sheepdogs from Scotland. The breed was used to work Shetland Sheep and function as a general farm dog.

English breeders became interested in the little dogs in the early twentieth century. Some crossed them with Collies, aiming to make a miniature collie. The two World Wars affected what was imported to the United States. While the UK and AKC standards are mostly the same, there is a difference in size. The UK standard calls for a size of 14½” for dogs and 14” for bitches. The AKC standard has disqualifications for dogs under 13” and over 16”. As a result, the American Shelties tend to be larger than those in Great Britain.

Ninety-eight AKC Sheltie breeder-judges with email addresses were found to invite to help with this project. Sixty-four initially agreed to take a survey on their breed’s priorities based on their AKC standard. Seven declined. Thirty-eight completed surveys were returned.

The respondents averaged forty-two years involvement in the breed. They had been judging for over twenty years on average. Just less than half have judged their national specialty, and all have judged other Shetland Sheepdog specialties.

Shetland Sheepdog Virtues

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226 – July, 2024

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