Well, after writing about Lassie yesterday, I decided to do some in-depth research on the rough collie breed, and now I'm going to tell you what I found out. First of all, I will say that rough collies have LOTS of hair! In fact, when people say that a collie is "rough," what they mean is that it has long hair. This is the opposite of a "smooth" collie, which has short hair. I think it would make more sense to just say "long" and "short" instead of "rough" and "smooth," but nobody asked for my opinion.
Anyway, collies got their start in Scotland, where they were used to herd sheep and guard flocks and drive cattle to market and do useful stuff like that. And since it is often cold and rainy in Scotland, a dog with long hair would not get overheated while doing all this hard work. There's a kind of sheep in Scotland that has a black face, and this sheep is called a
colley. So this is probably where the collie dog got its name.
Later on, the English and Welsh people started breeding their own types of collies with the Scottish collie, and then some Borzoi might have got thrown in to make a longer head, plus some Irish setter to make the collie taller. In the 1860s, Queen Victoria started keeping rough collies at Balmoral Castle, and that made the breed very popular because everybody wanted the same kind of dog that the queen had.
The first time a rough collie was in a dog show was in 1860. The AKC recognized the breed in 1885. The Collie Club of America, which started in 1886, is one of the very oldest breed clubs in the U.S.
Rough collies come in four different colors:
(1) Sable
(2) Tri-colored
(3) Blue merle
(4) White
Lassie was a fine example of what kind of temperament rough collies are supposed to have. They really like to be with people and they love children, and this makes them very good dogs for families to have. Also they are friendly and smart and playful and easy to train. But collie puppies need to be socialized early, so they don't start being scared of strangers. Also, collies will sometimes try to herd children, so unless you need to have your children herded, you should teach your collie not to do this.
You can keep a collie in an apartment, but you still need to take it for walks or else take it somewhere to run and get plenty of exercise. Collies are not used much for herding nowadays. Mostly people use border collies for that. But rough collies can do lots of other good stuff, such as search and rescue, therapy work, agility, and competitive obedience.
Mom knows a rough collie named Cabernet, whose mom is on the Humane Society board. Cabernet is a tri-colored collie. She and her mom like to go to Children's Mercy Hospital to try to make the sick kids feel better. I think they must be very good at this. Cabernet is very calm and friendly and not spooked by all the scary stuff in a hospital, like I would be. And this is why she is a therapy dog and I am not!
