Papillons!

[SummerRiot]

yuppers, While they were generating the SHeltie, they decided to put in some Papillion for the size and other things. That is why you see some Shelties that have a "Papillion head" or "papillion ears"

I'll try and find a link for you guys to read up on it

[SummerRiot]

Alrighty the page I found isn't working 100%.. but.. when the Sheltie was formed they used ... the border collie, the rough collie, the Greenland dog, the Vastgotaspets, and the papillon.

This is the link
http://ansci.genetics.umn.edu/ansc32...rtin/index.htm

[Ashlea]

Wow! Thanks Summer. It is always great to know new things like that! Very interesting!!! I always wondered how they got the Sheltie small!

[SummerRiot]

hehe, its definately interesting eh! Some of the first Shelties actually looked a LOT like small Border Collies. I"ll try and find some pictures

[motherofmany]

Hmmm, link didn't work.

This is the first I have heard of Pap being in the early shelties. Most experts say the original "blend" was "Yakki dog"- Pomeranian-King Charles Spaniel and Border Collie (known as "working collie" back then as they were a mishmash and had little "type" to them but were judged on ability) with rough collie crosses (both declared and undeclared) added later to improve type.


Hope that link will work later, I am intrigued. Wonder what Charlotte McGowan has to say about this

edited to add. What I found was this. There is specualtion that the "dwarf continental spaniel" -a progenator of the Papillon- is somewhere in the sheltie mix. Others dispute this speculation because of the known KCS involvement. Anyway, it's not that shelties have Pap in them, but that they would carry a fairly close up common ancestry if the DCS inclusion in the sheltie is correct.

also edited for spelling, yegads!