Bred for herding sheep, there is a mention of a breed resembling the Bearded Collie in Scottish records dating back to around the sixteenth century. The modern Bearded Collie owes much to G. Olive Willison who in the 1940s had a Beardie puppy called Jeannie. After much searching, she found a mate for Jeannie in a dog called Bailey and they became the foundation for her Bothkennar kennels.
The Beardie Nature
He is intelligent, self-confident, boisterous and agile and will get bored easily. He is a dog that is anxious to please you, but he’ll argue every inch of the way. He is vociferous and loves to have the last word!
The Bearded Collie is a kindly, adaptable dog, generally good with the whole family. He’ll probably round you all up when out for a walk! Although he is not a guard dog, he will bark when someone comes down his path, but as soon as they are over the threshold he will leap up and welcome them like long lost friends.
In autumn he’ll come home with a forest of leaves and twigs stuck to his coat and in summer he’ll have found a pond or the muddiest of puddles to cool off in!
The mature Bearded Collie may be a glamorous dog but they are not low maintenance and that beautiful double coat needs lots of care and attention.
The Bearded Collie is a working dog and as such needs to be extended both mentally and physically.
The ideal characteristics, temperament and appearance, including coat colour, are set out in the Kennel Club’s Breed Standard.
There are 4 main coat colours in Beardies – slate, fawn, black & blue, with or without white markings (white markings will be on the face, tip of the tail, chest, legs & feet) and the colour is evident at birth. However when puppies are about 8 weeks old their coats start to pale and this paling lasts until the richness of colour develops as they grow their adult coats and at this stage the original colours can be quite different – a black dog can end up with a light grey coat and blue coat can turn a medium shade of grey (although the true colour will always be evident in the pigment around the nose, eye rims and lips).
