theelitegoldfish wrote:
What a nice looking dog!

The shelters out here (doodle hell) lists many of their b/w pitties as lab/collie mixes. It's annoying. I love me some pitties, but goodness, name them what they are.

When you say collie though, I think of Lassie (or LucyCollie's smooths), not a border collie. Maybe it's a US thing? Maybe it's just the people I'm around?
No it's not just the people you hang with.  Over in the UK, "collie" is understood as shorthand for Border Collie but in the US, "collie" means a Rough/Smooth collie. It is confusing.

As for why I have collies as my breed . . . Well I personally prefer the herding dog personality traits:  easily trained, smart, attune to their owners, understand personal space, and have a strong interest in staying close (i.e. no drive to wander or take off).  Esthetically I like the sleek, aerodynamic look of the sighthounds.  I'm not overly neat but I'm not keen on dogs that have mops for feet or beards (I prefer clean faces & feet).  Since we hike/trail jog a lot, I didn't want a dog with a coat that holds tight to burrs, seeds, and twigs.  That leaves a number of breeds such as the Malinois, the Corgis, the GSD, the BC and the smooth collie.  I always felt a connection to the collie breed though - when I was a toddler, we had a big rough male (Laddie) who I adored and I also have a photo of my mother in 1947 with a collie by her side.  We sort of fell into our first smooth collie by luck (a newspaper ad) and once we got the first one, we got to know breeders and so it was easy to get the second, third and so on.