Dog of The Week – Shetland Sheepdog

Ok, so this post is two weeks late and a little misleading.   The lateness stems from a big pottery project I’m working on and a recent vacation.  The misleading part is that my title suggests that I am adding Shetland Sheepdogs to my list of dog breeds, but really I completed an update to my current design.  For years I have had Shelties in my line-up and have been making Sheltie Gifts.  I love this breed as it was the dog of my childhood – there were three in my parents home over the years.  The artwork I did of this breed years ago has been popular, and I get many orders for it.  But a request came in to capture the breed standard a little bit better.  This brings up a point that comes up over an over again.  There are dogs within a breed that are just lovely, but that aren’t the breed standard.  Our Shelties were a little too large compared with the standard but they were awesome.  My art tries to reflect the breed standard, especially my more current additions.  In the past,  I would find a reference picture that looked good to me and go from there, and this was the case with my original Sheltie design.  I saw a picture that looked like the dogs I grew up with and drew my design based on it.  My new design has less height in the body and the legs and a slightly larger head.  I also added a bi-black version and bi-blue (no tan).   I will be changing the options on my website to include the new design and will remove the old design, though I will keep it in my files for customers who request it.