History of the breed

Shetland Sheepdogs as they exist today are a relatively young breed. The original stock probably consisted of Scandinavian herding dogs from the same stock as the Norwegian Buhund or the Icelandic dog.

​

When larger sheep began to be imported to the Islands from Scotland, it is reasonable to assume that they were accompanied by working collies related to the ancestors of the modern Rough Collie and the Border Collie, and earlier importations of Scottish dogs may have been made by the islanders. Crosses were also made to dogs off the fishing fleets, with the Icelandic dog and the Greenland Yakki dog being particularly mentioned.

No doubt the crofters bred some of their bitches to what they considered the best of the imported herding dogs. At this time the selection was probably mostly for working ability on small numbers of Shetland sheep, Shetland cows, and possibly even ponies. All were small, and the sheep in particular were highly wild and agile, so agility, speed, biddability, and the ability to work on a minimum of food would have been prized above size or ability to intimidate lazy stock.

​

Early shelties were used not for herding so much as to keep the half-wild sheep out of the gardens and hayricks. Tourism became important to the Island economy during the 19th century, and one of the things the Islanders found they could sell to the tourists was their little dogs. Tourists liked little, fluffy mites, and many of the Islanders began breeding to anything small and fluffy. The use of a Prince Charles Spaniel left behind by a visiting yacht is mentioned by Catherine Coleman, and Pomeranians are also mentioned frequently. (A comment is needed here: Pomeranians at the turn of the century were much larger than today. There is a photograph of a typical Pomeranian from the Dogs article in the 1905 Encyclopedia Britannica, and the dog looks more like a small Samoyed than a modern Pom.) A number of the early dogs looked suspiciously like Papillions. Some were very short-legged and could have had Corgi ancestry.

​

By the end of the 19th and early in 20th century, some of the Islanders realized that the original breed was vanishing. Crosses with Collies, possibly including show Collies, began to be made on the Islands at that time in an effort to recover the original type. (Note that the Collie at the end of the 19th century was not the same Collie we see at shows today, but much closer to the old farm Collie in type.) Other supporters argued that improvement in type could legitimately be made only by the selection of those specimens showing the best of the old Island type. A third group existed, though not often referred to, that continued to breed for small size and pretty, fluffy pets. Shelties of all three types were exhibited through the first decade of the century and to some extent up to World War I. Collie breeders, who by that time had considerably refined the appearance of the modern show Collie, were vitriolic in their reaction to calling these little mongrels Shetland Collies, and within a few months of the first registrations managed to induce the Kennel Club to change the name of the breed to Shetland Sheepdogs. The dogs which have the most influence on our modern Sheltie, however, were the Collie crosses, often bred to the dogs selected for type.

​

​

A total of 46 Shelties appeared in the Stud Book through the 1918 issue (reporting on 1917 shows.) The bloodlines and colors recorded provide some interesting insights into the state of the breed at that time. Half of the dogs were tricolors. The next most numerous color, with 11 registrations was sable, with and without white. The remainder included 8 black and whites, 3 black and tans, and one blue, tan, and white (this was Peat: not a blue merle, from contemporary accounts, but a uniform blue, like a blue Great Dane or Doberman with white and tan markings.) Lerwick Jarl, an older unregistered dog of outstanding type, was probably the most important sire and grandsire during the early part of the period. His line continued to produce Champions after the War. Jarl appears in photos to be a black and white dog, and many of his descendants were tricolors or black and white. He is very definitely behind modern Shelties, and his sire line continued to produce winners in Canada almost until the beginning of World War II.

​

By 1915, however, a new line began to appear with Glebe Challenger and Suzanne of Mountfort, both sired by a dog registered in April 1914 as Wallace, by the unregistered Butcher Boy out of the unregistered Jean. This was the start of the BB (Butcher Boy) line which now dominates British breeding.

​

Then shows and breeding was halted because of World War I. Dogs born during this period were barred from showing during their lifetimes. The breed was not yet strong enough, in numbers or quality, to shrug off this restriction, and many of the bloodlines prominent before the War were lost. Miss E. P. Humphries, the owner of Wallace and one of the few breeders still registering dogs during the War, took a historic step, though a controversial one at the time, and mated Wallace to Teena, described as an 18" golden sable Collie with a white face blaze and prick ears. War Baby of Mountfort was registered from this mating as whelped April 17, 1918, with his dam shown as Teena (Small Collie.) While War Baby could never be shown, he had an enormous influence on later pedigrees.

​

Collie crosses, as mentioned earlier, were by no means unknown among Sheltie breeders. Ch Woodvold, the second English Champion of the breed, was widely known to have a Collie, Gesta, as his dam. His official registration, however, shows his dam simply as Gesta (unregistered) owned by his breeders, Keith and Ramsay. I am in the process of scanning the original registrations for other declared Collie crosses, but there are certainly none declared before 1915, and I suspect that War Baby may be the first cross officially registered as a cross. Crosses were undoubtedly taking place, and many were widely known among the breeders of the day. But few were officially reported to the Kennel Club. In some the Collie parent was given as an unregistered Sheltie, in others, the crossbred remained unregistered and was shown as an unregistered Sheltie in future generations, and in still others, a Collie was registered with a Sheltie pedigree. Evidence for some is still cropping up today; others will never be known.

​

Teena, in any event, went to J. G. Saunders of Helensdale fame. There she was bred to one of Wallace's best Sheltie sons, Rip of Mountfort (out of the unregistered Lerwick Mona, whose breeding is known through the survival of a handwritten pedigree.) The resulting litter, whelped November 1, 1920, is generally stated to have consisted of four bitches. Tiny Teena of Mountfort was registered by Miss Humphries as being out of Teena (Collie). Silverlining was registered by Mr. Saunders as being out of Teena, with no qualification. KoKo and Printfield Bess were never registered. War Baby and the four bitches had such an influence on the modern Sheltie that Teena makes up between 5 and 8 percent of the pedigree of the modern British Sheltie, appearing from tens of thousands to millions of times in the pedigree of a given Sheltie. 

​

War Baby was mated to the Wallace daughter Suzette of Mountfort to produce Rufus of Mountfort, whelped on November 10, 1920. Teena's daughter KoKo had gone to Mr. D. MacGregor, who bred her to Rufus. One of the pups went back to Miss Humphries and was registered as Specks of Mountfort (later an Eng Champion). Miss Humphries, meanwhile, had bred War Baby to the Wallace daughter Christmas Box of Mountfort, getting a bitch registered as Princess of Mountfort. Specks and Princess were mated, producing a puppy registered as Peter Pan of Mountfort on February 17, 1925. This puppy was purchased by E. C. Pierce, another breeder working with the Teena crosses, and renamed Eltham Park Eureka. He won his first CC at less than a year of age, and finished with an impressive series of 6 Challenge Certificates the following year. Luckily for the breed, he sired several litters in England before being exported to the United States. Luckily, because his export pedigree (and his pedigree in the Stud Book) identified War Baby of Mountfort as a crossbred, the AKC refused to register Eureka.

​

A new line, however, was already appearing. Chestnut Rainbow, although himself unregistered, was the son of two registered Shelties, Irvine Ronnie and Chestnut Lassie. On paper, at least, he was the result of a brother-sister mating between two straight Island Shelties, and a double great-great-great great-great-grandson of Lerwick Jarl. He was mated to an unregistered bitch, Chestnut Sweet Lady, who was supposedly a full sister of Rainbow's dam, Chestnut Lassie. It appears that Chestnut Sweet Lady was a tricolor Collie bitch with a crooked face blaze, tracing to the Mountshannon Collies. The cross was rarely alluded to, and then with great circumspection, in print, but seems to have been well known to the breeders of the day.