The Bearded Collie, or Beardie, is a herding breed of dog once used primarily by Scottish shepherds,[1] but now mostly a popular family companion.
Bearded Collies have an average weight of 18–27 kilograms (40–60 lb). Males are around 51–56 centimetres (20–22 in) tall at the withers while females are around 51–53 centimetres (20–21 in) tall.[2]
The legend of the Bearded Collie's origin is that the ancestors of what is today the Polish Lowland Sheepdog were abandoned on the shores of Scotland, and these dogs then bred with native herding dogs.[3] A variant on this story is that Kazimierz Grabski, a Polish merchant, reportedly traded a shipment of grain for sheep in Scotland in 1514 and brought six Polish Lowland Sheepdogs to move them. A Scottish shepherd was so impressed with the herding ability of the dogs that he traded several sheep for several dogs.[4] The Polish sheepdogs were bred with local Scottish dogs to produce the Bearded Collie.[5]
The first written reference to the Bearded Collie occurs in 1891,[6] when D.J. Thomson Gray describes them in his book The Dogs of Scotland as
A big, rough, ‘tousy’ looking tyke, with a coat not unlike a doormat, the texture of the hair hard and fibry, and the ears hanging close to the head.
It is generally agreed that Mrs. G. Olive Willison founded the modern show Bearded Collie in 1944 with her brown bitch, Jeannie of Bothkennar.[7] Jeannie was supposedly a Shetland Sheepdog, but Mrs. Willison received a Bearded Collie by accident. She was so fascinated by the dog that she wanted to begin breeding, so she began searching for a dog for Jeannie. While walking along the beach, Mrs. Willison met a man who was emigrating from Scotland; she became the owner of his grey dog, David, who became Bailie of Bothkennar.[6]