Rough Collie

Gentle and sensitive, and quick to bark at the unusual.
A Rough Collie
Photo: Yasu w
Adult male
20.5–29.5 kg
45–65 lb
Adult female
18–25 kg
40–55 lb
Lifespan
13.3 yrs
Class · Family
also Companion

What it's like

Rough Collies are gentle, affectionate and sensitive, attached to their household and often reserved with strangers. They are alert and readily bark at anything unusual. The dogs who played Lassie on screen, beginning with one called Pal, were males, chosen partly for their fuller coats.

Day to day
Activity
A good daily walk and play
Intelligence
Learns readily, likes games
Handler demand
Needs steady training
With people
Affection
Affectionate on its own terms
Loyalty
Sticks close to its people
Independence
Keen to work with you
Around the home
Sensitivity
Needs a calm, predictable home
Voice
Very vocal
Prey drive
Usually fine with small pets
Breed explains only about 9% of how individual dogs differ in behaviour1. Meet the dog. A good breeder breeds for temperament as well as health, and matches each puppy's personality to the right home2,3.
Is a Rough Collie right for you?
Take the breed matcher

Living with one

It has a double coat, an outer coat over an undercoat. Most of the shedding comes when the seasons change. Plan on a brush once a week, plus daily brushing through the seasonal moult. It needs plenty of exercise compared with other breeds.

Size and growth

A Rough Collie is a medium dog, heavier than a Border Collie and lighter than a Golden Retriever. Males end up clearly heavier than females.

It is a well-balanced dog with a long, smooth, wedge-shaped head, almond eyes and small ears carried semi-erect with the tips folding forward. A dense, harsh outer coat over a soft undercoat forms a mane and frill around the neck, while the face and hind legs below the hocks stay smooth. The usual colours are sable and white, tricolour and blue merle.

Two types

The growth curve, the weight table and the size class on this page use the UK / FCI type's weights.

UK / FCI type

FCI 156
Adult weight
Males
20.5–29.5 kg
Females
18–25 kg5
Height at the withers
Males
56–61 cm
Females
51–56 cm4
Its weights are the ones used on this page.

American type

AKC standard
Adult weight
Males
27–34 kg
Females
23–29 kg6
Height at the withers
Males
61–66 cm
Females
55.9–61 cm6
Its weights are not the ones this page uses.

Puppy growth

Reference curve · community data appears as owners log
By about 5 months, a male Rough Collie puppy is already as heavy as a grown Staffordshire Bull Terrier. They grow fastest between 3 and 4 months old.
Fully grown
11 mo
Both sexes, at 99% of adult weight8
Male
Female
Shaded: expected range
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01020302m3m4m6m9m12m18m
Age
Male
Female
2 months
4.5–6.4 kg 9.9–14.1 lb
4.3–6.0 kg 9.5–13.2 lb
3 months
6.6–9.5 kg 14.6–20.9 lb
6.1–8.5 kg 13.4–18.7 lb
4 months
9.5–13.7 kg 20.9–30.2 lb
8.8–12.2 kg 19.4–26.9 lb
5 months
12.3–17.6 kg 27.1–38.8 lb
11.1–15.4 kg 24.5–34.0 lb
6 months
14.6–21.1 kg 32.2–46.5 lb
13.0–18.1 kg 28.7–39.9 lb
7 months
16.4–23.6 kg 36.2–52.0 lb
14.4–20.0 kg 31.7–44.1 lb
8 months
17.7–25.5 kg 39.0–56.2 lb
15.4–21.4 kg 34.0–47.2 lb
9 months
18.6–26.7 kg 41.0–58.9 lb
16.1–22.4 kg 35.5–49.4 lb
10 months
19.1–27.6 kg 42.1–60.8 lb
16.6–23.1 kg 36.6–50.9 lb
11 months
19.6–28.2 kg 43.2–62.2 lb
17.0–23.6 kg 37.5–52.0 lb
12 months
19.9–28.6 kg 43.9–63.1 lb
17.2–23.9 kg 37.9–52.7 lb
15 months
20.4–29.3 kg 45.0–64.6 lb
17.8–24.7 kg 39.2–54.5 lb

Health and lifespan

In UK lab records, the conditions below turn up more often in Rough Collies than in crossbreeds. Blood-vessel cancer of the spleen and bone cancer stand out as much more likely. The most serious are blood-vessel cancer of the spleen (much more likely), bone cancer (much more likely) and mouth melanoma (more likely), and all can shorten a life. These are figures for the breed as a whole, not a prediction for your dog.
Listed by likelihood level, highest first, then by how serious it is, then by name.
  • Blood-vessel cancer of the spleen
    Lab-confirmed cases
    Much more likely
    Impact: life-limiting
  • Bone cancer
    Lab-confirmed cases
    Much more likely
    Impact: life-limiting
  • Mouth melanoma
    Lab-confirmed cases
    More likely
    Impact: life-limiting
  • Blood-vessel cancer of the skin
    Lab-confirmed cases
    More likely
    Impact: serious
Lab-confirmed: compares dogs whose tumour samples went to a lab with dogs seen in general practice, so the figures run higher than vet-record ones.

For your vet

Washington State University estimates that about three in four US collies have the MDR1 mutation, and dogs with it can react severely to some common drugs. Only a test shows whether your dog has it; share the result with your vet so they can avoid those drugs or adjust the dose10,11.

Lifespan

In UK vet records, the typical Rough Collie lived to about 13 and a half years, about average for a medium breed.

Where it comes from

The Rough Collie descends from the sheepdogs of Highland shepherds, and Queen Victoria made it fashionable in the 1860s, keeping a Collie Court in her kennels. From about 1870 a handful of British breeders selected for looks rather than work, and the dog grew larger, its coat perhaps its main draw. Albert Payson Terhune's Lad, a Dog made it widely known in 1919, decades before Lassie Come-Home and its film13,14,15.

The Rough Collie took its present shape in the show ring of late Victorian Britain. A dog named Old Cockie, born in the late eighteen-sixties, is widely credited with fixing the breed's type and spreading the sable colour through it. The Rough and Smooth Collie were long treated as varieties of a single breed, and the American Kennel Club still classes them that way. Its ancestors gathered and drove sheep across the Scottish hills, and the breed keeps a herder's quick, light movement, though today it is kept mainly as a companion and show dog.

Breed standard

Kennel clubs do not all register this breed the same way. The American standard asks for a heavier dog than the UK and international ones.

The Smooth Collie

The Smooth Collie: FCI 296 describes its coat as "short, flat, top coat of harsh texture"16.

Questions people ask

General guidance for dogs rather than a measured Rough Collie figure: most females have a first season somewhere between six and fifteen months, and cycles then settle to roughly every 180 days. Smaller breeds tend to start earlier and larger ones later, so a medium-sized breed is most likely somewhere in the middle.

Compare with related

Shetland Sheepdog
Sheepdogs & cattledogs · Small
Border Collie
Sheepdogs & cattledogs · Medium
Australian Shepherd
Sheepdogs & cattledogs · Medium
Bohemian Shepherd
Sheepdogs & cattledogs · Medium
Or compare the Rough Collie with any breed you choose
Track your own Rough Collie
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Sources

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Parts of this page were written by AI ·