I grew up in rural illinois, wisconsin & vermont. We had two shelties in the 70's. One was a farm style from local farm that was tricolor but did not look anything like the lassie sheltie we also had. The tri was smart and a real personality. The lassie was like a hollywood model dog. not too bright, fearful, and hard to train. When the tri "goldberry" passed I looked around the country for one like her. no luck. several people knew what I was looking for but those lines seemed to have gone.
In 1984 I found a mahogany tri in south carolina that was definetly nouveau sheltie but some farm style in him.
His name was "Hux" and he was great with tennis balls. He produced a litter that I got a female from called "little girl" she was very athletic and intelligent. I found a sire in southern california called "easy" who was the number one AKC herding animal at the time. He was a sable sheltie. I kept track of one of the males from that litter named "Nimoy" who produced this current litter with "Teeglay". He lives in Chicago and does not see much stock there, but he is bright fast and hardy. I am overjoyed with this litter that is likely to be the only one from "Nimoy" as he is 11 years old. I hope to test "Teeglay" with stock asap.
My idea is to preserve or maintain a medium sized collie/shetland line of about 40lb, 20in to the shoulder, that is both farm usefull and home friendly. It would be nice to keep the tri mohagony and sable markings around, but thats just for looks. I appreciate the sheltie winter coat quite a bit. Out in the deep 10 degree snow that coat comes in very usefull. It really changes the dogs ability to stay out all day. I knew a working shetland in illinois that never came in even below zero. what a coat he had. Even though we are now in Santa Cruz beach town California I hope to live in the great white north again. I am so happy that the web allows all these people who value the old British sheparding collie varieties of dogs to keep them alive. For the last 20 years of searching I meet AKC types who really hate that i would want something else, and then i also meet many people who remember the older styles with very fond memories. I meet lots of people who scour the sheltie breeders looking for oversize and odd shelties they do not want. They (akc breeder) of course want to "fix" them so they can't make more weird oversize and/or smart offspring. I wish to keep the memories of large and smart sheltie/collies alive and barking. I hope to find more people out there who have the larger older styles of sheties.
Teeglay from Tina Hoffman is loads of fun. She runs 150ft fast as lightening and gets there before the frisbee which never touches dirt. She is very gentle with our 2 year old and 4 year old. Shes a great watchdog for anything that approaches our 2 acres in the woods. She has lots of kisses she saves for her friends. She is our wonder dog. And then wonder mom dog.
The cutest puppies in the whole world will be the greatest dogs. The the big farm sheltie markings shining through in 6 of the 9. Sable and tricolor. They all play and tussle without being too rough. They are inquisitive and getting their legs very quickly at 5 weeks