Colors and personality correlations?

Oh Boy I am in trouble Paladin is merle/tricolor and Maverick is try. Paladin is way more nuts, all the time!
 
For me, my sable Dusty is calm most of the time but can get excited. Pepper, cryptic merle is very laid back and mellow with an occasional burst of energy. Skyler bi-blue is kind of nuerotic bites at you when leave and barks. otherwise he is pretty lazy. Belle, bi-black, is my energizer bunny. She will relax, but is ready to go on a moments notice.
 
Wow!

Thanks for all the replies and input. It seems like the sanest way to go is just to judge solely by the personality of the pup and then later see if it fits the stereotype of its color!

Since we aren't looking to do competitive agility or anything and we have youngish girls (6 and 9) we will look for mellow, laid back, forgiving, adoring children, and brave (not skittish anyway). We shall see what color and sex that package comes in! Both the girls and I love teaching tricks and doing training but I think most Shelties would be fine for the level of training and tricks that we would be doing. :smile2:
 
tofu pup said:
:lol: Sad but true. We love our Daisy (I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a more affectionate, human-loving dog - and she was an awesome 4-H dog for me) but she's not easy. She's very much the beta-bitch: Annie is the boss, and everyone knows it, but Daisy has to make a lot of sound-and-fury to make sure nobody forgets that she's (sort of) in charge. She won't cross Annie, but she'll make nasty faces at all the other dogs.

I will say this, though - she is the healthiest, heartiest dog imaginable. 13 years old and barely gray, would jump into a 2nd-level crate if you'd let her, and shows little sign of slowing down. She had no trouble at all as a brood bitch and was a fantastic mother. She's been sick only one day in her life - at 8 years old when she woke up with pyo (a very serious uterine infection). Most bitches who are that sick won't touch their food, but Daisy forced herself to eat her whole breakfast before she came out of the crate looking unwell and was rushed to the vet for an emergency spay. She's not easy, but she is a heck of an individual.
Click to expand...

You just described Molly to a T :) She is the exact same way, Shes a tough girl, who while not alpha she makes no mistake of putting the younger kids in line and with what we call Molly Smile:lol: (Noah see it atleast 20 times a day it just hasnt sunk in yet!:lol:)...She also while sick with pyo managed to eat her food as well she just appeared that slight bit off that was the tip off.
Shes a sable, but I swear though she has to somewhere picked up the AOAC attitude!
 
Another thought/question

There is a Sheltie breeder a couple kilometers up the street (one reason we are thinking about them, nice to have the breeder so close!) and she is saying in the future she is going to be going for sable merles. The personalities of her Shelties are really lovely - all friendly and outgoing and just a pleasure to hang out with. (I was expecting a non-stop bark-fest before our first visit but after about a minute you'd never know there were lots of dogs there. Very quiet! :eek2:)

I'm new to all of this but from what you guys are saying Shelties are divided into Sables and All Other Allowable Colors, AOAC's (the bi-blacks, blue merles, and bi-blues, right?) So where are sable merles in this continuum? Are they with the sables or AOAC's? And what are the reasons for this division? Is it a red flag that this breeder wants to breed between the color groups? She also breeds Kuvasz and throughout the two breeds she has always bred for function, temperament and health (I've been "following" her for a few years) and I really like that. But is there something else I should be considering here? (She has said that two merles should NEVER be bred together so she isn't putting aesthetics in front of health as far as I know).

Thanks in advance for your input! :smile2:
 
Karina said:
There is a Sheltie breeder a couple kilometers up the street (one reason we are thinking about them, nice to have the breeder so close!) and she is saying in the future she is going to be going for sable merles. The personalities of her Shelties are really lovely - all friendly and outgoing and just a pleasure to hang out with. (I was expecting a non-stop bark-fest before our first visit but after about a minute you'd never know there were lots of dogs there. Very quiet! :eek2:)

I'm new to all of this but from what you guys are saying Shelties are divided into Sables and All Other Allowable Colors, AOAC's (the bi-blacks, blue merles, and bi-blues, right?) So where are sable merles in this continuum? Are they with the sables or AOAC's? And what are the reasons for this division? Is it a red flag that this breeder wants to breed between the color groups? She also breeds Kuvasz and throughout the two breeds she has always bred for function, temperament and health (I've been "following" her for a few years) and I really like that. But is there something else I should be considering here? (She has said that two merles should NEVER be bred together so she isn't putting aesthetics in front of health as far as I know).

Thanks in advance for your input! :smile2:
Click to expand...

Sable merles are shown as sables. I know this because my friend had a sable merle that she showed for a short time and a couple weeks ago I was asked to be an extra handler and handled a sable merle bitch who was entered in the Open Sable class.

I am sure others with have an opinion and I have nothing against sable merles but unless the dogs match in some other meaning way to better meet the standard I would not purposely breed for only a color. Sable merles can not be shown if they have blue eyes and the color can be hard to pick up sometimes as adults and if you are not 100% sure you can risk breeding 2 merles down the line. Not something I would want to deal with in my breeding program. But that's me. I have known others who have done it but not with the purpose of producing sable merles. My Ember came from a sable x blue merle breeding.
 
Karina said:
I hope this is a good place for this thread. A friend with Shelties told me that some people believe that there are correlations that some people make between Sheltie colors and personality traits. I have searched but cannot find a thread that addresses this.
Click to expand...

We did have a thread on this quite some time ago. I have had trouble finding older threads so didn't look for it. But it's interesting because from what I remember, the consensus was that color and personality were not connected at all.

Justicemom said:
Sometimes it makes you shake your head and think its the merle gene effecting their brain. :lol:

That all being said I love the AOACs.
Click to expand...

oh no- Cranberry isn't right in the head then :winkgrin:

HopeShelties said:
They have certainly done their fair share of changing the opinions of a lot of Border Collie people when it comes to shelties.... enough so that several have had to go out and get their own.
Click to expand...

Good for you- way to show those BC people
 
I think I didn't explain it well when I said she "is going to be going for sable merles". I think it is more along the lines of she will not direct her breeding program to avoid them because she thinks they are very lovely.

Just wanted to clarify because she is really very conscientious and her family programs their lives around their dogs. They have been very generous with their time and I didn't want to misrepresent them. Health and temperament are paramount to them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top