A question for sheltie owners or those who know about them.

My friend has puppies that are about 4 weeks old, cute as buttons and quite friendly. After losing my two beagles last year, I was going to look for another one or adopt after the holidays, but our friend has offered us our picks of her sheltie pups before she confirms them to other homes, and the opportunity is very tempting. We'd like to get a male and female.

We currently have a dog and a cat. Our dog Giovanni is a couch potato right now and would benefit from having a couple of playmates again. The cat, however, I worry about. He's rather curmudgeonly and doesn't have much tolerance for dogs, though the worst he'll do is swat at Gio if he gets too annoyed with the poor sap's attempts to play.


I've been told that herding breeds can sometimes be a bit aggressive with cats - do you think this will be a problem with shelties if we introduce them when they're puppies?