Smooth Collies also enjoyed a surge in
popularity, with separate classes
scheduled on a regular bases, and several
Rough exhibitors adding Smooths to
their competing teams. With bitches
dominating the prize lists, Thomson’s
Ch Yarrow and Swinburne’s Lassie
continued their success throughout the decade’s early years, with Megson’s Melody overtaking them during the mid 1880s. By the end of the decade Mr Megson had introduced the tricolour Pickmere, the first Smooth male to exert a significant impression on show results with 17 Challenge Classes, often won against Rough Collies. Of even greater significance to Smooth enthusiasts was the recruitment of Mr Hastie whose famous HERDWICK kennel first appeared in 1889.
As the decade was drawing to its close confirmation of the collies’ popularity arrived in the guise of two breed pacific publications. The first, in 1888, Hugh Dalziel’s ‘The Collie – its History Points and Breeding’ published by L. Upcott Gill – London, and subsequently running to four editions, that latter two updated by J. Maxtee. Of even greater significance was Rawdon Lee’s ‘A History and Description of the Collie or Sheep Dog in His British Varieties’, beautifully illustrated by Arthur Wardle, and published by Horace Cox in 1890. Each of these two books, both now very scarce, widely quoted by all subsequent breed historians.
