Shetland Sheepdog puppies (Sheltie): Dog Breed, personality, health and No:1 Characteristics Right Now
Shetland sheepdog Puppies(Sheltie):
Shetland sheepdog puppies are like a small version of the rough collie in appearance.
They are strong and compact yet agile. The head is wedge-shaped, although not as refined as the modern show collie. The small, high-set ears are erect, with the tips falling forward slightly.
The thick, double coat of the Sheltie provides excellent protection from bad weather. The outer coat is long and straight. The dog has a generous mane and frill and feathering on the legs and tail. The undercoat is dense and woolly. Shelties are either black, blue merle or sable and are marked with white, tan or both.
The Shetland sheepdog puppies, or Sheltie, is a small herding dog breed from Scotland with a long, straight, thick coat that comes in a variety of shades. Shelties look like a miniature version of the rough collie. They have upright ears that slightly bend over, an alert expression, a low tail, and an agile build. Bred to herd livestock, Shelties are quite intelligent and athletic. They also can be very loving and loyal companions.
Shetland sheepdogs are known for their gentle, sweet, pleasing personality. They are also playful and affectionate, all traits that have made them a popular family pet. Breed experts often comment that Shelties like to please; coupled with their intelligence, it is no wonder they excel at obedience training.
Shelties are leery of strangers. As a result, they are good watchdogs, likely to greet outsiders with lots of barking. They also bark when excited. While not usually aggressive, some Shelties may nip at people they do not know, whether the strangers are adults or children. Others may be somewhat timid with strangers.
Friendliness
The Sheltie is typically reserved, though not aggressive with strangers. They bark at any visitors that come along, which makes them good guard dogs. They are generally good with children but should be trained not to nip at heels or chase them. Children should also be taught how to act respectfully towards them. Shetland Sheepdogs usually get on well with other shelters but not so well with other dogs.
Shetland Sheepdog Puppies Appearance
The Sheltie bears a striking resemblance to the rough collie. Similar to their taller cousins, Shelties have long, slender, wedge-shaped heads that give them a refined appearance. But with their ample fluff, their kind, almond-shaped eyes, their small, high, erect ears bent slightly downward at the tips, and what many owners refer to as the “Sheltie smile,” they certainly don’t come off as being too prim and proper to be man’s best friend. They look every bit as bright, friendly, and affectionate as they truly are.
These double-coated dogs have a short, dense, woolly undercoat and an outer layer of long, straight, coarse hair. The ASSA notes that the Sheltie’s coat tends to boast a variety of colours: sable (ranging from golden brown to mahogany), blue merle, black, tan, and white.
As you may have guessed from their impressive manes, Sheltie fur requires regular attention. While every dog is different, most will need to be brushed once a week. However, brushing may need an extra boost in the fall and spring when shedding intensifies.
Size:
Weight Range:
- Male: 14-20 lbs.
- Female: 14-20 lbs.
Height at Withers:
- Male: 16 in.
- Female: 14 in.
Features:
- Dolichocephalic (long face)
Expectations:
Exercise Requirements: 20-40 minutes/day
Energy Level: Very energetic
Longevity Range: 12-14 yrs.
Tendency to Drool: Low
Tendency to Snore: Low
Tendency to Bark: High
Tendency to Dig: Low Social/Attention Needs: Moderate
Shetland Sheepdog Puppies Temperament
Beneath all of that flowing fur is a family-focused dog with a heart of gold and a sharp mind. “Shelties are wonderful with children and get along well with other dogs and with cats,” Hector says. This is particularly true if they’re raised with other animals, adds Mary Mahaffey, DVM, chair of the ASSA Research Advisory Committee.
Shetland sheepdogs are not, however, known for being immediately keen on outsiders and might bark until they warm up to new friends. “They are loyal to their owners and can be a bit reserved toward strangers,” Hector explains. “If you aren’t a member of their family, they appreciate the opportunity to choose to come to you first versus you running up to greet them.”
This brings us to another notable Sheltie trait: their inclination for communication. “They are a chatty breed originally used to keep livestock away from the house,” Mahaffey says. “So they do like to bark.”
But, Hector says, their barking shouldn’t be incessant. “They may do so to sound a warning or express excitement,” she explains. While chattiness can be hard to deal with (especially if you live in an apartment), you can also use this barking bent to your advantage, as a Sheltie will always announce when your pizza has been delivered.
Because they were bred to work alongside their owners, Shetland sheepdogs are intelligent, intuitive, and industrious—a winning combination when it comes to trainability. Hector describes them as “athletic and highly biddable, excelling in activities like agility, obedience, and rally.” Shelties are eager to please and ready to play, but as long as they get plenty of exercise and mental stimulation, they’re perfectly content to exchange romping for relaxing.
History of the Shetland Sheepdog puppies
Although these dogs might remind you of the famous TV collie, Lassie, the Shetland sheepdog is not actually a direct descendant of the collie—unlike some miniaturized versions of larger breeds. Instead, it is more closely related to the Scottish collie and King Charles spaniel.
The actual origin of the Sheltie is unclear. But local dogs of Scotland’s Shetland Islands were likely mixed with collies and other dogs that arrived from the mainland. The result was a dog with a thick coat that could withstand the harsh climate. And its small size was a valued trait because that meant it ate less than larger herding dogs.
Shelties started to gain popularity outside of their native home in the early 20th century. They were first called the Shetland collie. But after a disagreement with collie breeders, they were rebranded as Shetland sheepdogs. The Kennel Club of England first recognized the breed in 1909, followed by the American Kennel Club in 1911.
Shetland Sheepdog Puppies Health
The Sheltie tends to be a healthy breed and can live as long as 14 years. Like all breeds, however, Shetland sheepdogs are predisposed to certain health conditions. Mahaffey lists gallbladder mucoceles, hypothyroidism, and dermatomyositis as the top three breed-specific health conditions in Shetland sheepdogs (though it’s important to note that these conditions aren’t necessarily common in the breed, in general).
Gallbladder mucoceles: Gallbladder mucoceles are characterized by an accumulation of sludge and mucus in the gallbladder that can cause the organ to become obstructed or even rupture. If present, it’s typically seen in older Shelties, though younger ones can be affected. Clinical signs include vomiting, loss of appetite, and abdominal pain, and a diagnosis is typically reached via ultrasound or exploratory surgery. While the exact cause of gallbladder mucoceles is unknown, the treatment is straightforward: gallbladder removal surgery.
Hypothyroidism: Hypothyroidism is a condition in which the thyroid gland doesn’t produce enough thyroid hormone. Because it affects so many body systems, the clinical signs of an underactive thyroid gland can vary a lot but often include lethargy, weight gain, obesity, and changes in skin and hair coat. Most cases of hypothyroidism require lifelong medication.
Dermatomyositis: Dermatomyositis is an autoimmune disease that affects both skin and muscle tissues. Shetland sheepdogs and collies are the most common breeds to be diagnosed with the condition. Clinical signs include crusty sores on the skin in areas with very little muscle, such as the face, ear tips, legs, feet, and the tip of the tail. The muscles of Shelties typically aren’t affected. Dermatomyositis can’t be cured, but it can be managed with the help of medication.
Shetland Sheepdog Puppies Care
Plan on lots of exercise and mental stimulation for a Sheltie. Also, expect to spend some time each week grooming its long coat. And aim to start training and socialization from an early age.
Grooming is clearly a big deal when it comes to caring for Shetland sheepdogs. “Shelties have a double coat,” Hector says. “They need to be brushed once a week to avoid matting.” She notes that it’s especially important to focus on the fur behind the ears, under the elbows, and in the skirts (the long hair that falls between the front and back legs). Working with a bone-dry coat isn’t a good idea, so be sure to spray a mist of water on the area you’re brushing. And as for your Sheltie’s nails, Hector advocates for a trim every two weeks.
The earlier you start with a grooming regimen, the better. Sheltie puppies who are used to being regularly handled and examined aren’t just easier to groom—they make excellent veterinary patients, as well. With positive training and encouragement, grooming can become an enjoyable activity for Shetland sheepdogs and their owners.
In addition to daily, moderate exercise, socializing Sheltie puppies is extremely important and involves taking them out of their normal environment and exposing them to new experiences, people, and places. This might look like a walk to the park or a visit to a friend’s home. These seemingly innocuous outings are actually fun, low-pressure training sessions where Sheltie puppies can learn how to adapt to and interact with new people, animals, and situations. Socialization doesn’t end in puppyhood, and owners should remember that it is a lifelong process.
Shetland Sheepdog Puppies Exercise
Shelters should receive at least one to two hours per day of exercise. Long walks, jogging, hiking, and active games of fetch are all ideal ways to help them burn energy. Puzzle toys can challenge their intelligent minds. Shelties also excel in dog sports, including agility and herding. And they take well to training as therapy and service dogs.
Just be aware that their herding instinct can cause them to chase moving objects, including cars if you let them off-leash outside. It’s best to keep them on a leash or in a securely fenced area.
Shelters need at least a walk every day but should be kept on a leash. Their intelligence makes them need mental stimulation, so take some time to play with them as well. If they are bored they may start barking constantly and irritate everyone around them. Some good activities to enrol them in include agility competitions, obedience, tracking and herding.
Shetland Sheepdog Puppies Grooming
Brush your Sheltie’s long, thick coat at least a few times a week to remove loose fur and prevent mats. Pay special attention to the fur around the legs and tail, as well as behind the ears, as it can easily get matted. Expect periods of higher shedding seasonally, often in the spring and fall. Increase how often you brush to keep up with the loose fur. Avoid shaving a Sheltie’s coat, as it insulates the dog from both hot and cold weather and protects it from sunburn.
Plan on a bath roughly once every one to two months, depending on how dirty your dog gets. Check your dog’s nails every month or so to see whether they need a trim. And look in its ears at least weekly for wax buildup, debris, and irritation. Also, try to brush your dog’s teeth every day.
Shetland Sheepdogs shed a lot because of their double coat, especially during Spring and Autumn. They should be brushed weekly, and it is good practice to wet the hair with a spray bottle before brushing so that the hair doesn’t get damaged. During shedding season, they will need daily brushing. Baths can be given as needed. Ears should be checked and cleaned regularly, and their nails trimmed once a month unless they wear them down through exercise. Shaving is not good for the skin, and their hair will often not grow back afterwards.
Shetland Sheepdog Puppies Training
Start training and socializing your Sheltie, ideally when it’s a puppy. Shelties generally are very smart and eager to please, making them adept at obedience training. Always use positive training methods. Shelties can be sensitive to your tone, and harsh corrections can cause them to shut down.
Aim to provide your Sheltie with positive experiences around different people and other dogs. This can help to diffuse the breed’s natural wariness of strangers. Also, work on teaching this vocal breed to stop barking on command. Shelties not only tend to bark at perceived threats but also to express their emotions and even out of boredom. So, teaching them a “quiet” command is a must.
Shelties love obedience training sessions as well as all other “dog sports.” They are enthusiastic and intelligent students who respond brilliantly to non-violent, reward-based training methods. Shelties can be on the sensitive side at times, so there is absolutely no place (or no need) for harsh “old school” training techniques that rely on force, corrections and punishment.
Obedience training is the ideal outlet for your Sheltie’s abundant energy and vast intelligence. Plus it is time you will spend together which is a bonus for all concerned.
Shelties are one of the very best breeds to work within the training arena – here are a few points that are particularly relevant to this great breed:
Points:
- All of the basic obedience training commands, such as sit, down, stay and walking on a loose leash, are easily grasped by Shelties. Remember to keep your training sessions short and use plenty of encouragement, repetition and treats to get the job done.
- Shelties are a herding breed who tend to be easily distracted or sidetracked when off lead. For this reason it is essential that you teach and reinforce a good strong come or recall. The command may save your Sheltie’s life one day.
- You’ll find that house training your Sheltie will be an urgent priority when your puppy first arrives home. The good news is that Shetland Sheepdogs are a relatively straightforward breed to potty train. You need to pick out a good Sheltie housetraining schedule and stick to it to achieve the desired result.
- A very important skill for you and your Sheltie to master is how to behave when on a leash. Hopefully, you and your Sheltie will spend a great deal of time out and about on walks, so it makes sense to teach your dog how to walk nicely on a loose leash.
- Shelties are experts at jumping – they do it often, and they do it well. By jumping I mean jumping up on yourself and visitors to your home, and also jumping fences. Once again, obedience training your Sheltie is the key to stopping or redirecting this jumping behaviour.
- The most evident and annoying trait of the Shetland Sheepdog is their excessive barking. It’s important to control this behaviour as early as possible so that a bad habit isn’t formed and ingrained. Some Sheltie owners have some success controlling the barking by putting the behaviour (barking) on cue. Read more about this within this article – Stop Excessive Barking.
- Obedience training offers many benefits, including the safety of your Sheltie. Still, the biggest benefit I’ve found is the close bond you and your dog will build and strengthen throughout the training process.
Shetland Sheepdogs are a wonderful breed; if you are considering buying a Sheltie puppy, my advice would be to do plenty of research and go for it.
Shetland Sheepdog Puppies Diet and Nutrition
Always provide your shelter with fresh water. And feed a quality, nutritionally balanced canine diet. It’s common to feed two measured meals per day. But be sure to discuss both the type of food and the amount with your vet. For instance, your vet might recommend different diets based on age and/or activity level. Also, be mindful of treats and other extra food to prevent overeating.
What’s The Best Dog Food for Shelties?
Feeding your Sheltie can be as simple as grabbing the cheapest bag of kibble from the supermarket. However, cheap kibbles rely too heavily on grains—and not the high-protein meat that dogs thrive on. There are also toxicity concerns with the chemicals and the source of meat used in many popular brands.
So, what is the best food brand for your Sheltie? This article explores the best and worst ingredients in dog kibble. We’ll also look at a fresh food diet and which human foods are dangerous to dogs.
The Scale Dry Dog Food
Dry kibble may look and smell the same to us humans, but looks can be deceiving. In fact, the scale of dog food is broad, and price is a valuable indicator of what you’re actually feeding your Sheltie.
Despite the glossy branding, many cheap and mid-range kibble brands use corn, soy, and meat by-products as the bulk ingredients, which leaves your Sheltie undernourished. This can lead to all kinds of skin, bone, joint, and heart problems as she ages. As a rule of thumb, if the first item in the ingredients list is corn or meat and bone meal, this is a red flag.
In contrast, premium kibble brands contain good quality meat, which allows the manufacturer to specify beef, lamb, or poultry meal as the primary ingredient. This is supplemented with essential vitamins and minerals like Omega-3 fatty acids, which have many beneficial roles in the body, from the immune system to heart function.
Let’s dive into the details with a breakdown of the best and worst ingredients in dog food. We want to consider two aspects:
- The Source of Meat. It’s no secret that cheap kibble contains some dubious sources of meat. Sickeningly, these sources include diseased farm animals, euthanized pets, and road kill. Dog food manufacturers can also legally use any kind of slaughterhouse by-product, including animals treated with hormones and other drugs not destroyed by the cooking process.
- The Meat vs Grain Ratio. In recent decades, some major dog food manufacturers have turned to using grain as the main ingredient, leaving high-protein meat as an afterthought. Your Sheltie’s ancestors evolved eating raw meat and bones, with a little vegetation from the belly of their prey, and we should try to replicate this diet where possible. A high-grain diet is woefully inadequate.
6 Bad Dog Food Ingredients
Here are six specific ingredients to avoid, especially when they appear near the top of the ingredients list, which signifies the highest proportion.
This applies to dog kibble as well as dental chews and treats. So avoid these:
- Meat and Bone Meal: This is a generic term for ground-up meat and bones from a number of animal species, including diseased livestock, euthanized pets, and road kill. Where animals were treated with antibiotics or steroids before they died, those become part of the dog food, too.
- Meat By-Products: This refers to slaughterhouse material not deemed fit for human consumption: intestines, heads, feet, hides, and bones. As this includes diseased and contaminated meat, all meat by-products go through an intensive cooking process, which destroys the nutrients and proteins.
- Poultry By-Product Meal: This is the same deal, except with poultry. Poultry by-products—such as bills, feathers, necks, feet, eggs, and intestines—contain little meat and, once again, can include diseased and contaminated materials as well as harmful chemical additives.
- Propylene Glycol: This is a synthetic preservative that is proven to cause red blood cell damage in cats. There is insufficient data to determine if it’s also toxic to dogs, but I err on the side of caution, especially when it’s a component of their daily diet.
- Ethoxyquin: This is another chemical additive listed as a pesticide by the Department of Agriculture. It’s an illegal additive in human food because of proven links to cancer of the kidneys, bladder, and stomach. Any kibble containing fish meal contains some ethoxyquin that’s present in the food chain.
- BHA & BHT: While banned in most European countries, these artificial additives are still legal in the US. BHA and BHT are known to cause liver and kidney dysfunction, as well as bladder and stomach cancers. The cumulative toxicity from daily consumption is a real concern.
Shetland Sheepdog Puppies 4 Good Dog Food Ingredients
What do we want to see at the top of the ingredients list? Here are four ingredients to look for. So seek these:
- Beef, Lamb, or Poultry Meal: When the type of animal meat is specified, you know it’s coming from a reliable source. Don’t be afraid of the term meal having seen it in the last list: meal means ground-up. Quality dog food contains at least one type of meat or poultry meal as the main ingredient.
- Omega-3, Taurine, and Flaxseed Oil: Taurine helps prevent blindness and heart disease, while flaxseed oil improves the skin and coat and protects against degenerative diseases and illness. Omega-3 is an essential fatty acid that reduces inflammation and promotes healthy skin.
- Vitamin E, Vitamin C and Tocopherols: These are natural preservatives that help retain the fat in dry dog food. They’re the preferred alternatives to ethoxyquin mentioned earlier.
- Trace Minerals in Chelated Form: Chelation is a process that converts trace minerals into a form that’s more effectively absorbed in the intestinal tract and bloodstream. Chelated minerals are the ideal form to properly nourish your dog.
It’s never too late to improve the quality of your Sheltie’s diet. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, we feed our Shelties Hill’s Science Diet which is designed for dogs with sensitive stomachs while targeting optimal nutrient absorption. It’s also the number one dog food recommended by vets.
Living With
Because they are active, working dogs by nature, Shelties like to be kept busy and want the company of their guardians. They are not dogs content to lie around alone all day. Many Shelties bark excessively.
Shelties can, however, do well in small homes or apartments as long as they are exercised in a fenced-in yard or walked on a leash. Their ample coat requires a good brushing at least twice weekly; the coat sheds heavily in the fall and spring.
Shelties are easygoing and adaptable dogs. “They can be indoor or outdoor, but they prefer to be with their owners,” Mahaffey explains. Again, this goes back to their DNA—Shetland sheepdogs were bred to be working companions and don’t thrive in situations where they have to be left alone with nothing to do for long stretches. If you must leave your Sheltie by himself, make sure he has puzzles or other interactive toys to keep him busy until you come home.
Though a small yard will do just fine, Mahaffey says a larger fenced-in space is better because Shelties need moderate daily exercise—particularly when they’re young. However, urban residents needn’t rule out the breed as a potential pet. In fact, owning a Shetland sheepdog can be a boon to their health.
“Apartment dwellers can do well with Shelties as long as the owners walk them regularly,” Mahaffey explains. “This is good for both owners and dogs!” Because Shetland sheepdogs are born herders (and are thus prone to chasing anything that moves, including neighbourhood squirrels and even cars), it’s recommended to keep them in a fenced yard and on leashes when walking.
Note: You can read this –German Shepherd
