There is nothing as beautiful as Sheltie dogs and any Sheltie lover will attest to this. 
The beautiful Sheltie that wears his heart in his eyes and lives to please his owner can be the companion of a lifetime if you take the time to raise him properly. As with all dog breeds there are some faults that come with this wonderful dog, although they are minor and can be corrected very easily if caught at an early age.
One of the faults, as with all puppies, is that Sheltie dogs love to chew, even though you will find that some enjoy this more than others. This can be corrected very easily with this type of dog when he is in the puppy stage. When he starts biting something he is not supposed to, just replace it with a safe chew toy. Shelties are very intelligent dogs and will soon get to know what they are supposed to chew and what is off limits. They also love to bark. This fault can become very annoying. When you bring your puppy home for the first, few days do not let him make sounds of any kind. This will take some persistence and patience on your part. If you correct him every time he makes a noise, you have a good chance of succeeding. A trick you can try is putting pennies in a tin can and taping the end. Every time your puppy attempts to bark, you can throw the can directly at him though not with the intention of hitting him. It is the noise that will bring his barking to an end. With persistence, you will come out the winner.
You will find that the temperament of Sheltie dogs have endeared them to many owners. They are loyal and affectionate with their owners, but can be standoffish with strangers. They choose their friends wisely and will take their time in doing so. They are easy to train and this is mostly due to their eagerness to please. Sometimes they give the appearance of training themselves. 
They are very sensitive and this is good reason for not using a harsh hand to train them. There is no need for it. With Shelties, you can get the stay at home dogs or the out-going. They differ depending on the parents they were bred from.
Some Sheltie dogs carry a heavy coat and although they are a fairly low maintenance dogs, you will need to brush their coat on a weekly basis. They also shed about twice a year, and during these times, you will probably need to do a daily brushing, so that you don't get most of it on your floor. The two basic colors of this coat are black and sable with some of them sporting some great variations of these two colors. Shelties also have some white on them, which is usually in the collar area. There is also another variation of sable, which is called a merle. This blue merle is where the black color is diluted out unevenly across the dog, causing the coat to have a blueish grey color. Whatever color Sheltie dogs are, they do make wonderful assets to any home.
