Shelties are too smart for you

Shelties are too smart for you.

They're too smart for me, and they're too smart for you.

Commentators during dog shows and websites all say the same thing: Shelites will own you if you don't constantly keep them busy. Like, you can't work. You can't sit on the couch. They must perform agility and be trained at all moments of the day. If you don't give them jobs, they will create their own. If you have small children, your Sheltie will herd them.

The websites make it sound so dire: If you can't give up your life for a Sheltie, then maybe yours is not the best home for one.

I wanted to punch all the Sheltie websites in the throat.

Because I live with two Shelties, and sure they can be high energy at times, but I'm not going to take the small crazy one to agility class when she's afraid of the IKEA children's tunnel we bought.

Just for fun. Like, "Maybe she'll run through it!"

Aaannd...no. She barks at her ball that sits in the middle of the tunnel, instead.

I'm not paying a few hundred dollars

What the websites should've said is how Shelties are too smart for you and me.

Now, I've only lived with two of them, and they're ten years apart, but if these two are an inkling of what other Shelties are like, well, Lord help us all.

It's not like having dogs at all.

They are four-legged toddlers.

And sometimes these four-legged toddlers can be more difficult than children. Children learn to speak and can go everywhere with their parents, and while Shelties may understand an obscene amount of English, then cannot speak it, nor can they go everywhere with us.

And just because they have four legs, Shelties are not typical dogs.

Your Lab may eat everything and anything, and not care about its diet, while your Golden Retriever can just go lay in the corner for the rest of the night and not worry about "going to bed."

Not Nigra, our oldest. She can't just go to bed. We have to put her to bed, but we before we do that, we first need to put Maeve, the youngest, to bed. And Nigra wants to help.

That's just the tip of the iceberg.

Some days, having two Shelties is the best thing in the world. Having intelligent dogs with huge personalities can be so funny that we just laugh hysterically at the nonsense of it all. Shelties bring an effervescent joy to life.

Then, on other days, having two Shelties is insanity because they don't leave us alone. Apparently, in their Bullet Journals, they have these long lists, and if we're not catering to their every whim, so they can check those lists off, they are apt to whine at us or sit right in front of our faces until we make ourselves available to work for them.

There are times when you have to wonder, "Are we working for them?"

I leave one job and come home to another.

So, before you pick up that adorable fluffy Sheltie out of the box and snuggle it, make sure you're ready for the journey that is Sheltiehood.

It's a wonderful journey, but you need to be careful because your Sheltie may be too smart for you.