Welcome to the Clan Duncan Breeder's Notebook. All of us wear many "hats" as we travel through life. Here in the Breeder's Notebook, I put on two of my professional "hats," those of biologist and scientific illustrator, to bring you thoughts and perspectives from my own personal vision of the Sheltie. These pages are offered in a spirit of inquiry and with a desire to share.

If you are new to Shelties, I hope that this page will serve two functions: 1. Better understanding of Sheltie excellences and faults, and 2. Some understanding of how much knowledge, care, and planning goes into breeding a litter of good Sheltie puppies!

On this page of the Breeder's Notebook, I offer a discussion of sensitivity, one of our breed's temperament traits that is mentioned in the AKC Shetland Sheepdog Standard.

This time the Breeder's Notebook would like to examine a part of the Sheltie temperament that is very "Sheltie," and is called for in our AKC breed standard. The Sheltie should be sensitive. Indeed, this sensitivity is what gives Shelties empathy, and is one of the attributes most endearing about our breed.

What is sensitivity in its most basic sense? Sensitivity simply means that if a stimulus happens, a reaction follows. If you prod an amoeba, it moves. If an organism is sensitive to light, it will either turn to the light or turn away from the light.

Conversely, an insensitive being will not react to that stimulus. For example, if your retina is not sensitive to a frequency in the light spectrum, it won't be able to see that frequency. Human eyes are insensitive to ultra violet; we don't see that color and cannot react to it.

So if Shelties are supposed to be sensitive, that means that they are alert and reactive to stimuli like sound, body language, touch, smell, and sights. They are sensitive.

Most dogs have similar sensitivity levels to different stimuli, that is, if a dog is hypersensitive to touch, he/she will likely be hypersensitive to sound, smell, etc. However, sometimes it varies, with a dog being very sensitive to sound, for example, but not to other stimuli.

However, there is a bell-shaped curve for every spread of reactions, and while we wish for our dogs to be sensitive, we certainly do not wish for them to be hypersensitive to stimuli, or perhaps what I mean is that we want them to be very sensitive but not hyper-reactive. This means that we don't want them to react to the sight of a familiar person with hysterical, prolonged barking. We don't want dogs that bark for fifteen minutes if a leaf falls in the back yard. We don't want a dog insensitive to our commands. We don't want a dog so excited to greet us at the end of each working day that she wets the carpet. We don't want a dog that cowers. We don't want a dog that sulks for hours if scolded. We absolutely do not want a dog that snaps at any quick movement. These hypersensitive reactions do not make for good companion dogs. We want Shelties to be the best possible pets, and dogs with hypersensitive reactions leave much to be desired.

On the other hand, insensitivity is equally undesirable. I have seen a dog that did not notice that he had a nail speared from the bottom of a foot clear through the top, and ran for hours on it while incurring serious damage to the foot, whereas a sensitive dog would have stopped at once to bite at the nail and perhaps pull it out, or wait for you to do so, so it could go on and do its job. I have seen dogs sideswipe a cactus and carry a cactus pad with many spines sticking into their flanks for a long time without noticing. I have seen dogs that were so intent on chasing something that they didn't notice that they had come to a curb, so bolted across a street without a pause, and were hit by a car. Most Shelties would at least hesitate at any difference in footing, to have a look. This may be part of the sheepdog mentality, since any new or different thing should be noticed by a good sheepdog. Otherwise, how could he figure out how to get his sheep across or around it? Or how good a sheepdog would he be if he ignored a possible threat to his flock? I think sensitivity is related to intelligence, because noticing things is the necessary prelude to understanding what they mean.

Let's look at differences in sensitivity. My England-raised husband has introduced me to the habit of carrying a walking stick, and often I will use the stick to stroke the backs of the dogs that are walking with us, to turn them aside from something I don't want them to pick up (like a dead bird), or even to hook into a collar to keep Merlin from racing over to meet a porcupine, as I did on our walk last night. Since the dogs have never been hit with a stick, they are unafraid of them. They usually react to being touched or stroked on the back with the stick by stopping and turning to look at me. One, Ebony, is more sensitive to touch than any of the others, and Ebbie will invariably slip quickly a couple of feet away from the stick while turning to look. I have tried this on several friends' dogs just to get more of a range for comparison, and some dogs don't even notice. I think that some of these dogs are not just ignoring the touch of the walking stick -- they really are unaware of its touch. Another dog I have "tested" whipped her head around and bit the stick hard! So here is a spectrum that runs from being insensitive to being hypersensitive to a common stimulus, touch.

However, there are some areas where we may wish our dogs to be very, very sensitive, and these are areas of noticing things and of reacting to the moods of their people.

Personally, I like the dogs to be very sensitive to stimuli, but to have non-extreme reactions. In other words, I like the dogs to notice the slightest things, but don't want them to go ape when they do! We have all found that when we are glum or ill, our Shelties notice this and press close, offering quiet support -- and when we feel bright and expansive, our Shelties seem energized and ready for anything. This is the kind of empathy that makes for a canine companion far above the normal range. Have you seen dogs that jump vigorously on people who are ill, infirm, or fearful? Insensitive.

Here's an example of Sheltie sensitivity. I occasionally buy unmounted gemstones. One day I opened a box with three little garnets, round-brilliant cut, 5 millimeters in diameter each. That's not very large! One garnet fell to the kitchen floor, and I couldn't locate it. We have a big kitchen floored with wood, which is naturally variegated, so that a tiny stone would not show up easily. After some time on my hands and knees, I got up and let Merlin into the kitchen. I didn't say anything to him or make any gestures. It took him less than ten seconds to find the garnet. Merlin isn't trained to find things. But he is sensitive and reacted at once to something different in the kitchen. He noticed. That is what sensitivity is all about: noticing.

I have always had at least one Sheltie in my "merry band" who is the doctor, another form sensitivity can take. Currently this is Merlin. His little black nose can find things that us people are not as good at locating. If someone has a cut, thorn, or (the most common thing with ours) a grass head imbedded in the skin, Merlin will find the area on any of the other dogs, lick it, and then come to us, going back and forth between the owie and the people until we get the idea and take care of the problem for the other dog. I sometimes wonder if he wets down the spot so his slow people can find it!

As Sheltie breeders, we take note of the differing sensitivity levels of our dogs when planning breedings, striving for just the right level of reactivity. We also look carefully at our puppies, and notice which ones have that excellent combination of sensitivity and calm reaction that makes for the best companions. Hopefully, we reject from our breeding programs both the insensitive dogs and the hypersensitive reactionaries.

Hopefully, too, the buyers of pet Shelties will gradually become better educated in puppy-choosing, rejecting the hyper-reactive (and just plain hyper) puppies to see the value in the puppies that are just as "noticing," but are calmer in their reactions. What is "cute" busy-busy-barky-barky fun in a puppy may become very irritating in an adult.

Perhaps the best rule of thumb is simply to ask: "What kind of sensitivity would I want in my best friend?"

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