Rethinking the origins of the Shetland sheepdog

The Shetland sheepdog may be a miniature collie after all.

What I am about to write is quite controversial, but it is not designed to denigrate the Shetland sheepdog at all. The Sheltie has proven itself as an intelligent breed that is of great use as a herding and competition dog.

However, I think the evidence of the traditional accounts of its origins are largely false.

The traditional account claims that the small collie-type dog is derived Scandinavian and Icelandic herding spitzes that were brought to the islands in the eighth and ninth centuries during the period of Norse settlement.  Later contact with the Scottish mainland brought an influx of collie-type dogs, which created a small herding breed that was well-adapted to herding the small Shetland sheep that were native to islands. When the islands were  eventually ceded to Scotland in the fifteenth century, more collie blood came to the islands, and the dogs became sort of small spitz-collies.

In late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, these little collies intrigued the growing dog fancy, which had suddenly enamored by rough collies. The small collies from Shetland were bred to the larger rough collies, and the breed became established. It was initially recognized as the Shetland collie, though rough collie breeders didn’t accept this designation.  In the vernacular, the dogs were often referred to as “miniature collies,” but if rough collie breeders didn’t like the term Shetland collie, then they certainly wouldn’t like this name.  So in 1909, the breed’s name was changed the Shetland sheepdog.

The problem with this theory of the Shetland sheepdog’s origins is that there is very little evidence for any of this.

It is often said that the sheltie is derived from a small dog called a toonie, but if you look closely, that name makes very little sense. Toonie dogs were named because they were kept by people in villages or towns, which in the Scots language is “toun.”  A toonie dog would be a dog that a person would keep in a town or village, not as working farm dog. The dogs might be derived from toonie dogs, but if they are toonie dogs, they aren’t working collies.

And the truth is the Shetlands did have working collies, but every mention of a working collie from the Shetlands never refers to it being small.

The first accounts I encountered of a collie from the Shetlands mentioned one that was a superior seal retriever. The story of this dog comes from Chambers’s Journal ( 9 August 1884).

A good dog is a useful auxiliary to a sealhunter ; but he requires a good deal of training to learn his work. Very soon he acquires the art of stalking; but most dogs at first are apparently afraid to lay hold of a dead seal floating in the water, and very commonly, when sent off to fetch him ashore, simply attempt to mount on him, and in consequence do harm rather than good by helping to sink him. But generally—not always, for some dogs we never could train to do the right thing—we succeeded in teaching them to retrieve. When we had brought a seal home, we used to throw it over the jetty or out of a boat with a stout cord attached, and encourage the dog to fetch him. Great praise was bestowed when he learned to lay hold of a flipper and tow the selkie shoreward ; in this way, with a little patience and perseverance, the dog soon came to learn what was required ; and many a seal was secured by his help, which without it might inevitably have been lost, for a seal shot in the water from the shore, which they often were, was very generally on the opposite side of an island or long promontory, where a landing had been effected ; and it took many minutes before the boat could be got round ; and by that time, but for the dog, the seal might have sunk.

We tried many breeds of dogs—Newfoundland, Retriever, St Bernard, Rough water-dog, and Collie; but after all, the best seal retriever of the lot was a Collie. When he comprehended what was wanted and how to do it, he did it neatly and thoroughly. I well remember the first seal I shot I had landed on the weather-side of a small island. A cautious reconnoitring discovered a good-sized seal ‘lying up’ on a detached rock. Then I commenced the stalking, closely followed by my dog. But ere I could approach within range, one of those seal-sentinels and provoking tormentors of the seal-hunter, a herring gull, set up his wild warning scream.

The seal perfectly understood what it meant, at once took the alarm, plunged into the water, and disappeared. I sprang to my feet, rushed down along a little promontory, and then crouched behind a big boulder, in hopes that selkie would show his head above water and give me a chance at him. And he did. Raising his head and neck, he took a good look shoreward ; but seeing nothing to account for the gull’s persistent screaming, he turned round, and raised his head preparatory to a dive. I had him well and steadily covered ; now was my chance. I pulled the trigger; no splash followed, which would have meant a miss; but the lioom—that is, the smoothing of the water by the flow of the oil—told that my bullet had taken effect ‘ Fetch him, old dog ! fetch him !’ I cried. In an instant he plunged into the sea and swam to the seal, which I could see was floating. Neatly he dipped his head under water, seized a hind flipper, turned it over his neck, and towed him towards the shore. Passing the rock on which I stood in his way I to the beach, he turned his eyes upwards for the praise and encouragement I was not, it may well be believed, backward to lavish on him. Such a look it was! I shall never forget it, instinct with the brightest intelligence, joy, pride, triumph. Indeed, I don’t know whether he or his master was proudest and happiest that day. Alas, that our noble ‘humble friends’ should be so short-lived! (pg. 508).

The original size for a Shetland sheepdog in those days was 10-12 inches at the shoulder, and their ideal weight was around 10 pounds.

To think that such a little dog would have been of any use in retrieving a large seal is quite laughable, but things get even more dubious when we consider that such a dog would have ever been of much use in managing sheep in the Shetlands.

Both border collies and rough and smooth collies have a long history as herding dogs. Every breed book that features these breeds has a photo of some Auld Jock figure standing next to his sheep herding dogs, but you won’t find that with Shetland sheepdogs.

The thing is that collies on the Shetlands really weren’t used to herd sheep.

No.

Yes, there are sheep on the islands, and yes, there are collies.

But if you actually looked at how the Shetland islanders actually managed their flocks, you can easily see why such a small dog would have been of very little use.

Shetland sheep are short-tailed wool sheep that lived almost as feral animals on the islands. Although smaller than other short-tailed sheep, they were quite wild.  One of the earliest accounts of Shetland sheep comes from a Dr. S. Hibbertin 1822:

The sheep are allowed to run wild among the hills, herding and housing being almost wholly unknown in Shetland. There is an old law, that was probably introduced by the Scotch settlers, ordering that every scathold have a sufficient herd, and that builling, punding, and herding, be used in a lawful way, before, or a little after, sun-setting; and that none scare, hound, or break up their neighbours’ punds and buills, under the penalty of ten pounds Scots, besides damages; but the regulation has not, for a long time, been enforced. On the contrary, the sheep are almost to be regarded as in a state of nature, since they range at large over the scatholds during the whole of the year. No food is provided for the poor animals during deep falls of snow, nor is there any friendly shepherd to drive them to some buill, or dry place of shelter, where the lives of numbers of them might be preserved. Upon the approach of a storm, a sense of common danger causes them to congregate for self-defence beneath the shelter of some rock on the sea-shore, where they protect themselves from the cold, by the warmth which arises from their bodies in a crowded state; or, if they are covered with snow, hunger impels them to tear portions of wool from each other’s backs.

Whenever it is requisite to catch any sheep, they are hunted down with dogs, trained for the purpose, which Wallace, the historian of Orkney, describes as a sport both “strange and delectable.” When a flock is in sight, the Shetlander seizes hold of his had-dog, (the ancient Scandinavian name for a sheep-dog,) and points out to him a particular sheep. The dog then bounds after his prey: the flock are immediately alarmed, but soon perceiving the particular individual that is the intended victim, they restrain their flight, and allow the pursuit to be uninterruptedly confined to one object of selection. The poor animal is then chaced from hill to hill, until he falls into the power of his pursuer, who is taught to seize him by the foot, the nose, or the ear; or perhaps he perishes by tumbling over some precipice, where he is either dashed to pieces upon the stones, or falls into the sea.

As the sheep of one scathold, island, or parish, constitute a promiscuous flock, which may belong to more than a hundred individuals, it is remarkable that more frequent disputes should not arise respecting the rights of possession. No property of this kind was ever secured without the means of had-dogs; it was therefore a proper regulation that none of these animals should be kept in secret. An ancient act of Shetland declares, “that none keep sheep-dogs but such as are appointed or allowed by the Bailiff, with the advice of the honest men of the parish, whose names are to be recorded in the Court-books; and each of them to be accountable for their actings.” It was also ordered, that all dogs should be tried yearly by the Bailiff, the ranselmen, or other honest men belonging to the parish in which they are kept; and if any individuals should be found to possess a had-dog, who had no property in a sheep stock to entitle him to keep such an animal, he should be fined and the dog hanged. The next object of the ancient legislators of the country, was to see that each dog which might be kept to take sheep, was under proper controul, and that he was not what was named a running dog, whom the old acts of Orkney characterise as “a dog that runs frae house to house, or through the country, the neighbours’ sheep;” such a dog would be not only prompt to seize a sheep for his master, but would have little hesitation in providing mutton for himself. Whenever, therefore, the ranselmen in their annual examination of dogs, found out any of these freebooters, they put in force the act, “That all running dogs be discharged, under the pain of forty shillings, to be paid by the owner of the dog, Mies quoties, and the dog to be hanged. But since this act was framed, a sort of demoralization has taken place in the character of the canine race of Shetland,—and it would he difficult to say, at the present day, what dog was not a running dog. Mr Shirreff, in his agricultural survey of the country, has complained, with great justice, of a rapacious ranger, of this kind, which he observed, who, without any order from his master, would break off at the first unfortunate sheep that he saw, throw him down, give him a good biting, and then return, unchided for his cruelty, to his owner, who seemed to consider the treatment as a matter of course. “The fact is,” adds the narrator, “that there is so little profit arising from sheep stock, in the present state of landed property, compared with fishing, that the landowners and tacksmen do not put as much value on a sheep, as in Great Britain on a hare” (pg. 184-185).

Exactly how would a small collie have been of any use for this endeavor?  Shetland sheep may be a small sheep, but they weigh  75-125 pounds. They were also unused to being handled, and if a dog were to be of any use catching them, they would have to have some size to them. A little 10-pound collie would likely be killed trying to grip a sheep in its jaws– if it could run it down in the first place.

I have seen footage of a collie catching sheep in exactly this same manner, but I cannot remember if it was in the Shetlands or on the St. Kilda Archipelago, where the notoriously wild Soay sheep live. The collie used to catch the sheep was a black and white border collie of the normal size.

The people of the Shetlands kept their sheep in much the same way Southerners kept their hogs. In South, it was a common custom to turn the pigs loose in the forest and then use a catch dog to manage them. This dog was invariably a bulldog or pit bull of some sort, but in some areas, different types of curs were used to actually herd the pigs. But catching was the more common way of management.

You don’t want a little dog for these purposes.

I have found no accounts of Shetland collies being significantly smaller than those of the mainland until the appearance of small collies in the show ring.

Until someone provides me with a real description of a small collie working in Shetland at any time, I’m going to have to say that this breed’s traditional origin story is most likely not true.

The two earliest photos of show Shelties look to me like crosses with collies and either papillons or pomeranians.

Here is one from 1910. This dog was a show champion:

This dog is from Mason's Dogs of All Nations (1915 edition). The weight is listed as 7 to 10 pounds. Can you see a dog of that size catching even a small Shetland sheep?

I think this dog was entirely created by the fancy, and for whatever reason, it  was given this story about them coming from the Shetlands.

That doesn’t mean they can’t herd. Both papillons and pomeranians will herd. Pomeranians are derived larger German farm spitz, which herded and ratted, and papillons, although traditionally thought of as spaniels, have some toy spitz in them as well. These dogs do yap, and shelties are notorious barkers. In fact they kind of remind me of a collie trying to be a Pomeranian or papillon.

The notion that the Shetlanders would have kept small collies to herd small sheep and cattle does certainly capture the imagination. Shetland’s little ponies also add to the mystique, for they suggest that everything on Shetland was smaller.

But if one looks at how the Shetlanders actually kept their sheep, the idea that their sheepdogs would have been so small is a very laughable assertion.

In the end, I think breed politics gave this breed its name, even though it has very little accuracy to its exact origin. The main collie club in the UK objected to the  dogs being registered as “miniature collies,” so they registered them as something else. The Shetlands have all these little domestic animals, so why not stick these little collies with that name?

I don’t know why people have refused to look a little deeper into the evidence behind this breed’s history, but it just doesn’t add up at all.