The English Shepherd Breed

When we decided to get a puppy for the girls I started looking for a  breed like a collie, but that wouldn't need so much brushing, with a temperament like my smooth collie, but without the extreme nose, and a little like my Australian shepherd, but with a tail, and not as intense as a Border Collie or as noisy as a Sheltie. What I found was a breed I had never heard of before: an English Shepherd. They've been around for a long time, but they almost died out when many of the small farms they were bred to help on were sold off.

It was 1935 when the number of farms started to go down. By about 1975 three fourths of the small farms that existed in 1935 were gone.  Since 1975 there has been a slow increase, but the newer small farm usually depends on outside income.

In our part of South Carolina the country people remember English Shepherds. Down in Ora someone told me of a farmer's wife who could tell her English Shepherd which chicken she wanted to cook. The dog would pick up the bird and bring it right to her hand.

Here in Fountain Inn, in the 1930s, Mayor Armstrong raised black and white English Shepherds on Main Street.

For more information on the breed see englishshepherd.org, which is the English Shepherd Club website.