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One can often hear that people call Rough Collie for Scottish sheepdog. But not many know that the forefathers of Rough Collie came most likely from Iceland more than 400 years ago. But the name «collie» came from Scotland where those dogs watched the heards of some local sheeps with black legs and noses; the name of that race was something like «colley». The sheep heards pastured in the mountains and wheather there could often be rainy with cold wind and the dog had to develope these long, rich and tight fur we can see with this race today.

Rough Collie is a real family dog who should be for service. Collie likes to work and if there are no sheeps to take care of, it will take care of children or other family members. During the long periode while the race was formed, collies had to work, often alone (without a man) in the mountains with heards, so they developed the skills to make decisions themselves. However, they had to be sosial as well, calm and friendly to be able to co-operate with other dogs and the man. And also because they often had to work closed to the man, they became strong bounded to people. In Scotland the collie became so beloved and respected that they were even allowed to follow their families to the chirch.

If we summarize, we can say that everything we wrote above can give us a good family dog. Collie is a race who is willing to adapt himself to the conditions they get, they can find out «the work» for them selves to take care of something or somebody in the family «heard». One can say that if you can not train your collie it will «train» itself; they find out themselves how to behave. Collie is one of the races which is very easy to learn house rules, it understands quickly what we want it to do because of its inner whish to be at your service. But because of their great love to their masters, they should never be punished physically. If so, they will become so disapointed that they become closed. It is enough to talk to your collie and show that way that you are not satisfied with its behavior.

Collie also can be called «family» dog because they don't belong to just one member of the family but they love equally whole the family.
All this is written about a typical race representant, but unfortunately for some decades ago people became to breed collies just for their elegance and beauty and there was lot of unhealthy breeding and inbreeding; as result we could see many stupid and aggressive dogs (but looking nice) and such agression is not typical for rough collie. But nowadays we have got back many good lines of collies all over the world and there are many kennnels where breeders really love and take care of this nice dog race.

Collies have a rich fur, but it is water and «dirt proof» and it is easy to take care of. It is enought to brush it once a week and your collie will always look nice. One does not need to cut the fur or do some trimming, they loose hairs once per year and those long hairs are easy to remove with a vacuum cleaner.

A typical Rough Collie is a strong, big/middle size dog, brave and withstanding. Collie is one of the healthy races, but should have all usual vaccinations. It is not aggressive but faces all challenges without fear. Collies are utilaising the food very well and need quite moderate amount of food compeared to size. It is ideally if a collie can live outside because of thick fur, but they can live inside as well but need physical activity.