I get this question a lot when I’m out walking the collies. People who are familiar with the breed know right away that Lassie is a collie, however not everyone realizes that Petal is too. They always seem surprised to hear it and they almost always ask “Is she a short haired collie?”
Uhhh. No.
First of all, her hair is already much longer than a “short haired” AKA smooth coated collie.
(image found on Google)
Smooth Collie.
Petal the Rough Collie.
Second of all, collies can take up to two years to grow out their full coat. Petal is a year and a half and you’d be surprised at how much a young dog can change in just six months!
Third, female collies tend to have thinner coats than the males. So it’s not likely that she’ll ever have a coat as full as Lassie’s.
Fourth, she actually did have have longer hair on her belly area, but when I had her spayed, she obviously had to be shaved.
Fifth, her mom’s hair is quite a bit shorter than my Lassie’s and her dad’s hair looks to be about the same as Lassie’s. This will have a lot to do with how long Petal’s will get.
Someone asked me this a couple days ago when I was out with Violet. She’s 6 1/2 months old and a bit less hairy than Petal, but about the same… (As evidenced here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp-94E4GWmY ) Drives me nuts. It’s like, if you know enough about Collies to identify her as one and know that they come in two coat types, how do you not know how SMOOTH a smooth Collie is? Ahh!
Sympathetically,
Brianne (from Indiana)
It cracks me up that some people think they just pop out with loads of hair, lol. At first the question never really bothered me, I could tell the only thing the person really knew about Collies was what they learned from watching Lassie movies and TV Shows. But after a while of being asked the same thing, I started to worry and wonder if there was something wrong with Petal, hahaha. But then I looked through Lassie’s puppy pictures and was reminded that it takes quite some time to grow out that gorgeous coat!
By the way, Violet is beautiful! Such a gorgeous girl!
Thank you! I just started blogging, are there any other Collie blogs out there that you know of?
I actually knew of none when I read this earlier, so I went out and found a few, haha.
Here’s a blog about a Smooth Collie, Tatum: http://tatumtot.com/
Here’s one about two Rough Collies living in Florida: http://keywestcollies.blogspot.com/
Another Rough Collie: http://mypuppytosca.blogspot.com/ This one hasn’t been updated in a year, but there are lots of archives and, from what I’ve read so far, it’s a fun blog!
Wow, thanks! Add mine to the list of at least partial Collie blogs.
I haven’t really figured out how to search blogspot by topic yet.
Found another!
http://onecollie.blogspot.com/
Okay, that’s all.
Good find! Thank you! :]