Rough Collie

The Rough Collie is a graceful, long-coated herding dog from Scotland, known around the world through the fictional Lassie. It is gentle, sensitive and attached to its family.

Origin

Collies were the working sheepdogs of the Scottish Highlands. Queen Victoria took a liking to them at Balmoral in the 1860s and made them fashionable, and breeders refined the working dog into a taller, more elegant animal with a longer head and a fuller coat. The novel Lassie Come-Home of 1940 and the films that followed made the breed famous.

Appearance

Dogs stand 56 to 61 cm at the shoulder and bitches 51 to 56 cm. The head is a long, smooth wedge with almond-shaped eyes and ears that are carried semi-erect with the tips folded forwards. The outer coat is long, straight and harsh, over a soft, dense undercoat, with a heavy mane and frill. There are three colours: sable and white, tricolour, and blue merle, each with white on the collar, chest, legs and tail tip.

The Smooth Collie is the same dog with a short, flat coat. The Kennel Club registers the two as separate breeds.

Temperament and exercise

Rough Collies are affectionate, loyal and gentle with children. They are sensitive to tone of voice, respond well to kind, reward-based training and can be reserved with strangers. They are less driven than the Border Collie but still need at least an hour of exercise a day. Many bark readily.

Care and health

The coat needs thorough brushing once or twice a week and sheds heavily in spring and autumn.

• Drug sensitivity: many collies carry a gene defect known as MDR1 that makes certain common medicines, including some worming and anti-diarrhoea drugs, dangerously toxic to them. A DNA test identifies affected dogs, and the vet needs to know the result.
• Collie eye anomaly: an inherited defect of the back of the eye, very widespread in the breed and ranging from harmless to blinding. Puppies are examined at six to seven weeks, and a DNA test exists.
• Other conditions: progressive retinal atrophy, hip dysplasia, and an inherited inflammation of skin and muscle.

Two blue merle dogs are never mated together, since a proportion of the puppies would be born deaf, blind or both; the Kennel Club will not register such litters.

In Britain

The Rough Collie is in the Kennel Club's Pastoral group. It was among the most popular breeds in the mid-twentieth century and has since become much less common.