Shelties have a double coat, which means that they have two layers of fur that make up their coat. The long, rough guard hairs lie on top of a thick, soft undercoat. It is hard to tell, without actually breeding, whether a dog is white-factored or not, though dogs with white going up the stifle (the front of the hind leg) are usually assumed to be white-factored. Breeding two white-factored dogs can result in color-headed whites — Shelties with colored heads (sable, tricolor, bi-black, or blue or sable merle) and white bodies. For show dogs, dogs more than 50 percent white are heavily penalized and thus are not shown in the breed ring; they are normal in every other way. Variation can be found within litters, and height (in the range of 40–50 cm or 16–20 in) is above the breed standard in some lines.
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