Well after considerable time and effort I now have my USA sheltie up and running and ready for the girls!

I do agility with my dogs and the USA shelties have proven to be good agility dogs, although there are also many excellent UK dogs and I planned to have the best of both worlds by bringing in a sheltie and breeding with British dogs. It has been a long and rocky road, beset with problems but Jive is a gorgeous dog and soon to start agility training with some better weather now he's settled in.

Firstly of course was getting him here, a drive to Paris and two flights got me there, we got back as far as Calais before discovering the vet hadn't done as requested and simply ignored the major requirement of a titre test so poor Jive spent another 6 months in France and I had another 1,000 mile drive to collect him.



Firstly I had him DNA tested for Collie Eye anomoly - which involved a sample of blood being sent off to Optigen in USA, blood taken at one of my local agility shows so we got a discount . This came back genetically clear which was great. Then he was hip scored - this has come back 2:5 which is fine. I had him measured for agility - he's medium. Finally last week end thanks to the northern Labrador club I had him eye tested - in shelties this is for CEA (which he's clear so should just be confirmation) and central progressive retinal atrophy which may not show up just yet anyway, plus anything else which may happen but it's those two things which are the main issues for shelties. I also had Lexie (border collie aged 5) eye tested and she was also clear with perfect eyes I felt a bit out of place amongst the green tweed and black and yellow labs, but they were lovely and I hope to join them next year if they're at the same place, just down the road from me.

So now I'm waiting for Molly to come into season and we should have our first pups.... they'll be all tricolour, but hopefully future litters will give us black and white as Jive's dam is that colour. Tricolour being dominant in shelties with black and white recessive.

__________________
Penny
Funfastquick Agility Dogs

Good luck. I know how much hard work you have put into your handsome boy.

__________________

best of luck, we can hopefully see some fluffy bundles of loveliness in some months time

What a handsome face! Well done, you must be so proud

He is beautiful and you are making me broody for a sheltie again. My last one died when my daughter was a baby - so 23 years ago. Where does the time go. Mine did obedience - I did a bit of agility with my collies but there was no mini agility when it started so the shelties never got a chance.

yes agility has come on a long way, some say too far but it's still fun! Shelties love it - Dizzy is in 'small' and having a great time, Molly is too 'independent' for me to risk letting her lose in a ring! Jive is 'medium' and hoping he'll enjoy himself. He's too tall to show in UK (16" approx) but would have done well in US, coming reserve dog in his one and only show... reserve possibly because as a youngster he was a bit spooky so didn't show to his full potential... here he's going to concentrate on agility.

__________________
Penny
Funfastquick Agility Dogs