COLLIE HISTORY

The first recorded collie classes were in Great Britain in 1859. Soon thereafter, Queen Victoria became infatuated with the breed and began to breed them. Charlemagne was a dog of this time, and is credited with the widespread sable color in the breed. Another son of Old Cockie was Cocksie..

About the mid eighties there began to be a discernable difference in the show dogs and the working dogs, which still resembled Bewick's Shepherd very closely.

The next picture we have is of a show champion, Christopher, who was born in 1887. He still has the longer body and shorter leg of the older type. This is the epitome of the show dog type of the "old Scotch collie".

Here are more pictures of the pre- 1893 Scotch collie, from Watson's book, published 1906.

Here are some pictures of farm collies from the twenties to the forties.

The next event in this saga was one to have a sweeping effect on the evolution of the collie as a modern breed. In 1893, when Christopher was in his prime, 18 borzois were sent by the Czar to Great Britain and several more were brought along as gifts. These dogs were crossed with the royal collies, puppies distributed, and soon the collie had to carry this blood to be competitive in the ring.

Here are some pictures of post- 1893 type show collies in England.

Everyone was not happy with this turn of events as recorded by articles from 1911-1912 Country Life in America, and Albert Payson Terhune in his famous books made disparaging remarks about the "borzoi headed" show collies.