what breeds were Shelties crossed with?

[DebbieGilbert]

My Sheltie has some brown "freckles" on her white front paws. The breeder told me this is because at some point in the development of the breed, Shelties were crossed with spaniels.

That makes sense to me. What I can't figure out is why the back of my dog's tongue is blue. Were Shelties ever crossed with chows??

I should mention that Daisy has good conformation and comes from a show line. Other than these odd coloration issues, she looks the way a Sheltie is supposed to look.

 

[danisgoat]

If I remember correctly, they started with maybe a Nordic Sheepdog, norwegian buhund or an Icelandic Sheepdog.

 

[DebbieGilbert]

I just did some research on the Internet, and I found that at least 30 breeds are known to sometimes have blue or black spotted tongues. This trait doesn't mean the dog is part chow.

The breeds they listed did not include Shelties, but it did include collies and Australian shepherds, which are in the same general family.

 

[seashel]

The history of shelties is rather a hotch potch of breeds which is why there are such variations in type, colour and of course size. The original Shetland Island dog was rather a nondescript affair. The pictures I have seen look like small brown border collie crosses. It is pretty well accepted that an 'icelandic' dog(s) had some input in the early days which accounted for the shaded or 'yakki' muzzles which used to be quite commonly seen (in the UK at least). There is also most likely a (black and tan?) spaniel of cavalier type somewhere along the line, which is frequently blamed for the round skulls which sometimes crop up. Almost certainly there is some spitz (of which the chow is one) behined shelties, seen by tails which curl over and spitzy faces. Small foxy shelties are sometimes described as 'pom(eranian) type.
Then of course there is the much later and known (and suspected!) crosses with rough/show collies to produce the desired small glamorous dog for the show ring.

I have never heard of shelties being crossed with chows and if you have Daisy from lines which can be traced back, it's unlikely there was an unknown crossbreeding behined, so my guess is it just a pigmented area.

 

[Caro]

Shetlanders were poor farmers so the sheltie/tooney would have developed from the whatever smaller working dogs they had available to them - collies, spitz, spaniels, corgis. I greatly doubt they would have access to chows or anything so exotic, or have wanted to as dogs with no purpose would have just been a burden on a farm.

Pigmentation can occur on tongues without it beng a breed characteristics. You can get spots of colour (like a birthmark), and loss of pigmentation can also cause dark spots (say after an injury to the tongue or illness).

 

[lunatic face]

I think the "freckles" or so called "mottles" come from the old kind of sheepdog the sheltie comes from, which you can also find as an ancestor of the border collies.

HERE you can see how it looks like at border collies (for example).