Shetland Sheepdogs

In Shetland through the ages, livestock has evolved on a diminutive scale in proportion to the landscape. Similarly the type of dogs that herded the livestock also evolved as a diminutive working dog, and this became known as the Sheltie. The Sheltie was probably a generic collie, and it was almost certainly the local shepherd's dog.

There was no breed standard, the shepherd just needed a tough, courageous, intelligent little dog. An engraving of 1840 in Lerwick shows a Sheltie in the foreground. Then in Lerwick, 1908, the 'Shetland Collie Club' was formed in an attempt to preserve the breed.