Collie FAQs


I saw a shorthaired collie the other day. Did the Lassie dog have a haircut?

No!  This is actually a smooth collie.  There are 2 main varieties of collie coats - the rough collie, which has the familiar long bushy “lassie” coat, and then the smooth collie which has very short hair like a Doberman or Dalmatian does. Featured below is a sable/white smooth collie.

How many Collie coat colors are there? Do all collies look like Lassie?

In the American Collie Standard, there are 4 recognized colors - only one of which looks like the typical “brownish” lassie color!  There’s the sable & white (the color Lassie was),  the blue merle (looks similar to the Australian Shepherd dog), the tricolor (black with markings of brown and white), and the white color (which [...]