HUGE sheepie
 Double her size. Lily is 23" at her withers and if you stacked anouther Lily on top of herself, that would be as tall as this other sheepie. Ive met 3-4 other sheepies that are 2-4 inches taller than Lily and one just a tiny bit smaller. He was very sweet and had a great personality but man was he big!! Is this boy a freak of nature or is he still within normal? (I realize Lily is a smaller sheepie but man this boy was close to the height of a mastiff! I really wish I would have gotten a picture of them together. I was just excited for her and I to meet anouther sheepie.) |
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| Interesting. Hopefully Kathy will provide a picture of their rescue dog, Murphy, who is by far the tallest OES I have ever seen. And I'm not sure what he measures at the withers, but 46" sounds a stretch, even for him.  To look at him Kathy and I agree you'd be pardoned for thinking an Irish Wolfhound slipped into the mix (head and height). But I have his pedigree in full at least five generations back (Thank you, Kathy), plus some. Pedigrees are a bit of a hobby of mine, so when I have some spare time I and come across some useful information I've been cross-referencing to see if I can figure out who the potent, frequently used sire was in "non-show" lines who may have been contributing both the excessive height and sighthound look (these dogs tend to be quite narrow) so common in non-show lines in the Midwest especially. Murphy's line-bred on a dog who does show up in pedigrees from this area as well -indictating that "non-show" breeders from different areas get dogs from each other and use each other's "stud dogs" and therefore end up sharing the same pedigrees, so that gene pool is much smaller than one might think - but since these dogs were never shown nobody much knows what they looked like, so in the end it will just be an educated guess, and also if some sighthound jumped a fence .I don't think I have any info on the "non-show" lines from the pacific northwest. Though in general every so often someone will get ahold of a dog from predominantly show lines. First generation offspring tend to look more like you would expect of an OES, but the effect is generally transient. And it doesn't always have much of an impact. There is a forum member who has a father and daughter from a midwestern non-show breeder, and though the male looks like he could have come from show-lines ( I don't have his pedigree - this is just from having met the dog), the daughter has few of his characteristics, indicating that he's probably not very pre-potent (doesn't stamp much of himself on his get). The non-show lines on this area at least are also often (but not always) taller than you normally see in showlines around here, but not necessarily excessively so. Anyway, bottom line, there is nothing in any breed standard any more to disqualify a dog that tall. Once upon a time in the US there was a maximum height allowed of 26" at the withers - this is not supposed to be an overly tall breed - but that was removed many decades ago, probably to the breed's detriment, but there's no going back now. So even though from what you describe he would stick out like a sore thumb in the breed ring, theoretically there is nothing to disallow it - overall quality should never be sacrificed for size alone, one way or another. Meaning regardless of height the dog must be proportioned as the breed standard describes, and have the other typically characteristics of the breed - the movement, topline, head, coat etc. The Midwestern dogs we see (especially in rescue, which is where I'm most likely to physically get my hands on them - called going over a dog), in addition to being somewhat taller often don't have much of a stop (think where the nose hits the forehead if you will) and are commonly roach backed. This is what collectively is referred to as "type" and the reason I got interested to begin with was that I was surprised to see the uniformity of the dogs - the same basic characteristics repeated so consistently, indicating either that they were quite possibly more closely related than one might think, or this is perhaps what the breed reverts to if you don't specifically select for breed characteristics. More than you wanted to know, I'm sure. Basically it comes down to owner loves their dog no matter how tall or not, I'm sure, and everthing else is irrelevant except to people who are students of the breed. Mind you, when you spay or neuter a dog before their growth plates close they do tend to grow a bit taller than nature intended. But not 1-2 feet taller <g> Did you happen to ask about his background? Kristine |
| Heart is on the 'petite' size too!! She is always the tiniest sheepie in the group, except for the puppies. Of course, I love her size~ everyone that meets her thinks she is a puppy!  |
| Zeke's a small boy. He's about 24" at the shoulders and about 58 lbs. |
| Yes I did ask where he came from, I don't exactly remember the town. It was either Snoqualmie, wa or Snohomish, wa. He is a week or two older than Lily but they asked more questions about Lily than I could their boy. They had never met anouther sheepie before and wanted to know if things that thier boy did was normal. (he had a typical lovable sheepie personality) It wasn't a boring explination at all. Its actually exactly what I was looking for. |
| I just looked up pictures of Murphy and its really hard to tell from pictures but they look to be almost the same height. I know if the sheepie I met yesterday put his front feet on my shoulders, he would have been as tall or taller than me and I'm 5'7. |
Well, I have HUGE boy too! From a very reputable breeder. He was one of only five if I remember rght. He was the big one who pushed out the other littermates before they were actually due But they all survived and I got my boy, Bowie, who I LOVE to death. Albeit, a bit BIG! His paws will knock you out if you're not looking  Our breeder came to visit last Feb as one of her boys was in westminister. She was amazed how big my baby was! And I might add...I also have another pup from the same breeder. A female. She will be three in August. She is about 75 pounds and what I would consider a normal size...Next to her brother,she looks teeny! Our breeder culdn';t belive the difference in size! Big or small, sheepies are sheepies...Love them! |
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