I have a little sheltie who is 8 months old. She is a blue merle with tan points on legs face and under tail....I noticed today as she is getting her adult coat parts of it are turning sable. She has definite sable undercoat along her back and over her hips...and the outer hair over her hips is quite notciably sable....
It that unusual ..I've never seen a blue merle with sable coming through...

If anyone has links to any other info or photos I'd love to see it....I think,it's kinda neat she seems to be a bit different..

I son  know wether or not it's common it is certainly possible
Here's a site that explains shelti colour genetics. It talks about sable merle and has a photo.
http://homepage.usask.ca/~schmutz/SheltieColor.html

Does she have any sable ancestors?  It used to be frowned upon to mate sables with blues but I've noticed a few breeders doing it these days.

Her mother is sable and her father is blue merle...

That's where your muddy blue is coming from then.  :(

She would have registered as a sable merle a few years ago.  Did her breeder show her dogs?

I just clicked on the link on your profile hoping to see a picture of a merle Sheltie but just saw your merle ankle - ouch! :(

Oops didn't realise that was there...lol....will get a link to her photo...she looked merle but now the sable is coming in its I terrestrial g to find out why...

She is a rescue...her mum is sable and dad blue merle..it was accidental mating...the male had been neutered for a couple of weeks when the mum came into an apparently silent season...the lady found them tied and babies resulted...she was 9 and a rescue with unknown spay status...the lady didn't think the mating would take.......

Will post again when I get link up,from my Facebook...

Her photo is in my new link....don't have a photo of the sable colouring ...but could try later.

Aw just enjoy Gracie and don't worry about her colour - it's just cosmetic! :)

PS She's prettier than your ankle!  :)

Oh I'm not worried by her colour...just intrigued because I've never seen a blue merle with sable coming through...I think it's awesome that she is different...I was just wanting to find out the means of how it happens,,lol..

From that mating you'll find that the blues are muddy and not the clear silver that's required, and the sables, rather than being bright tan or rich mahogany, will be a muddy brown too.  :)

I have added 2 pictures one of her brother Tam (sable) and Pixie (tri)...if you scroll back you should be able to see them.. :-) ...there were also two other merle girls...and a black bi who died at birth..so a mixed bag of colours... :-)

I don't know anything about colours in Shelties but she is one very pretty little girl.

Thanks..:-)

you'll find that she's a sable merle and with her adult coat she may become - apparently - a sable sheltie as the merle doesn't affect sable so it's very difficult to tell, a shaded sheltie will of course show the merle on the black bits ...

the mating of sable to merle is now not permitted by the KC for the reason that it's almost impossible to spot when adults - I wish that they'd do this for other breeds as well, like border collies where sable dogs have the same problem (and true reds)

just to add that she'll be shaded (that's the effect of black - in the merle dog) on sable - sable being 'dominant' but adapted by the black gene into 'shaded' and it's the shaded (black) hairs which will be affected by the merle.  If the sable parent is shaded sable then pups could be tri merle, but it seems that this pup will be shaded sable merle.