There’s lots of good news on the Scottie Health front:  eyes, hips, ears, skin, lungs…the things that can be a problem in so many other breeds just aren’t a concern with the Scotties we’ve known and bred.

A little internet research will yield several sites that go into this stuff in more detail, but here are a few key points:

VonWillebrand’s Disease (vWD) is essentially a bleeding disease, and can be screened out with genetic testing, as can Craniomandibular Osteopathy (CMO), which results in jaw and skull bone swelling.

Scottie Cramp (SC) is a much more complicated (and less serious) affair than vWD: in layman’s terms, it means that when the dog is excited or exercising, messages from its brain to its back end can get garbled, resulting in anything from a little hop in the gait to a full-on “cramp” that stops the dog until it passes (in seconds or minutes).  There is no genetic test for SC, and it has been estimated that up to 90% of Scotties have it.  However, in the vast majority of cases it is so mild that it is unnoticeable, and even the few serious cases aren’t painful for the dog.  This is the only real downside to the breed: there is a very slight chance that your dog might have a serious case of SC.  In 20 years we’ve bred over 250 puppies, and had only one such dog, Clementine, born in 2005.  Oddly enough, she only cramped when on a leash and around other dogs at the same time.  In the garden, off leash, and in the house, her mobility was normal, and she was a lovely-tempered charmer who made an excellent companion.  In her case, we took her back from the people who bought her, as they were avid walkers, and gave them a puppy from our next litter, and placed Clementine in a home with a big backyard which offered an alternative to walks.  Even so, we didn’t breed Clementine’s mother again, and we stopped using the stud we’d purchased service from.

Drowning may not seem like a breed-specific health issue, but pools are a big risk to Scotties – especially Scottie pups.  They love the water and they love swimming, but they’re notoriously bad at it.  Scots in the water must be closely supervised, and Scots in a pool or other abruptly deep water should be avoided at all costs.  If you have a pool or pond, it must be securely fenced in before you get a Scottie, and your family must be committed to keeping things secure.  We speak from experience on this: we sold a puppy to a family with a pool and pond, both fenced in, but their 10 week old puppy found a way in and drowned – this is heartbreaking for both owner and breeder.  Scottie drownings in pools are such a problem that the American Kennel Club sends a warning about them to everyone who registers a Scot.  Now, this doesn’t mean you can’t take your Scottie with you on holiday! We’ve had our Scots at the lake, and they’ve been fine because the waterfront has been very gradual and shallow.  As long as they have the option to swim back when they (quickly) get tired, they can enjoy the water with you; pools don’t provide this option.  (Scottie-sized life jackets are more and more available these days – dogs who spend a lot of time around the water should no doubt have one.)

Some say that Cushing’s Syndrome is a Scottie health issue, but according to the American Kennel Club website: “It is, as yet, unknown whether there is an inherited predisposition to Cushing’s Syndrome in Scottish Terriers.”  We’ve had no experience with it.

Unfortunately, Scotties are more likely to get bladder cancer than other breeds; this poses the greatest problem for the breed.  Thankfully, it tends to surface quite a bit later in the dog’s life, and treatment with Piroxicam, a nonsteroidal anti inflammatory, can extend the dogs life’s by several months — even a year, depending on the dog.

As of June 2025, we ask £2000 for our puppies, which includes deworming, KC registration, a vet check, and microchipping.

Breeding Scotties is not really a money-making enterprise, and it’s certainly not how we make our income.  Many labouring females require C-sections which range in cost from £900 to £2500, depending on the circumstances, and limit a female’s number of possible litters.  (You can blame the late-Victorians for this:  fanciers decided that Scotties should look as though they could fight a badger in its warren, so when faced with the choice of breeding a dog that looked muscular from the front or the back, they picked the front. Over the years, this had a predictable effect on pelvis size.) And for all that, Scotties usually have very small litters (1-5 pups), and yet live long past their breeding years.  Compare this, for instance, to a Lab, which can breed for 6-7 of its 9 years, and have as many as 10 pups in a litter (and a roomy pelvis with which to deliver them!).  And of course there are the puppy expenses such as microchipping and registration, all of which can cost as much as £60.00 per puppy.  So it comes as little surprise that Scotties can be hard to find.  The big irony is that in Scotland, home of the Scottie, the breed is very rare.  This is why we started our kennel: we love Scottish terriers and want to see them continue despite the expenses and complications associated with their breeding.  We think they’re worth the extra cost and trouble.  We also try to provide the best possible life for our dogs – they have good food, lots of room to run and play, and they live in the house with us.  In order to give them this lifestyle, however, we incur greater costs and don’t get the monetary benefits of running a larger operation.  The good news on the cost front is that you’ll get a lot of life and love from a Scottie – they live an average 11 years, and we’ve heard of many who’ve lived beyond that, to 14 years old.  You can pay the same amount for an Irish Wolfhound, for example, and only get 7 years of companionship, so a Scottie looks a real bargain from this perspective.  From a purely economical standpoint, you’ll also save money on food for a Scottie versus a larger dog!

Due diligence is always the best route to finding a good breeder.  Visit the kennel, meet the dogs, check references, and make sure that the breeder is being just as selective about buyers as you’re being about breeders!

If you would like to register on our waiting list for a puppy, please click here.

Scotties that are pets, not showdogs, have a much easier life, coat-wise. You can keep it short or long, but always brush the furnishings (the skirt and beard) every few days to avoid matting and excess dirt. Again, start this early and do it regularly and your dog will accept it more readily. Right under the legs (the “armpits”) are the most prone to matting – if we can’t be bothered, we just cut off any mats that are resistant to brushing. You can hardly notice, and the dogs have never told us they care much about it.

How often they get a haircut or get “clipped” depends on your preference: some like their Scotties neat and tidy with the classic sharp silhouette and others like them shaggier.  The former requires more trips to the groomer than the latter.  If you’re game to try it, I started clipping Scotties myself when I was in my early twenties, with absolutely no training or previous experience (and back then there wasn’t aYouTube for tutorial videos…there was barely an internet at all…) and it worked out just fine.  It’s not a complicated cut, even if it might look like it.

Nearly all of our Scotties HATE getting their nails cut, but we ignore their drama and get it done – long nails are bad for a dog’s little arches (yes, they have foot arches too!) and once the quick descends to the end of a long nail, it’s very difficult to get those nails to the proper shorter length again. Your vet can help you figure out where the quick is to avoid nicking it, but even if you do, it’s not the end of the world.  The vet can also do it for you, of course!

We recommend a natural shampoo for washing your dog – something without “fragrance” or “parfum” or any of the other long list of chemicals that often plague these kinds of products.

It’s a hassle, and few owners really follow through on it, but brushing your dog’s teeth daily – even weekly – will give it a longer, healthier life. Dogs can and do die of complications from dental decay and gum disease, and less serious cases still can cost several hundred pounds to deal with. The more you do it, the more your dog will get used to it and accept it. Special toothpastes are available, but not necessary. A good brisk brushing works fine.  We recently discovered the joys of the electric toothbrush for our dogs: now that these brushes are so affordable, it makes sense to buy one for your pup and start getting it used to the process early. It really works and the dogs accept it readily.

Few things have inspired the kind of wide-ranging, never-ending, enthusiastic debate like what we should feed our dogs.  It’s exhausting trying to keep up with it all and make the “right” decision.

In a nutshell, these are the points we tend to stick with:  

• sweet potatoes are okay, but not white potatoes as they have a higher chemical load which poses a cancer risk;
• we avoid corn, wheat and soy but are okay with brown rice;
• food should have a minimum 20% protein content — higher is better;
• about three times a week we sprinkle frozen raw lamb mince on top of the dry food for added protein;
• about three times a week we add a cooked egg to the dry food for added protein;
• if we have any cooked veg (carrots, peas, beetroot, squash…) we add it to the dogs’ food, but no cruciferous veg;
• make sure to be familiar with the list of foods dogs should never get, including apple seeds, grapes, raisins, chocolate, tomatoes and onions;
• and we use two dry foods — one that is fish-based and one that is chicken-based — for protein variety.

Please make sure that any commercially produced treats you give your dog are simply dried meat.  Another thing that many consider important regarding a dog’s health is how much medication and pesticides dogs get. We have our dogs vaccinated at 6 weeks, 8 weeks, 12 weeks, and 1 year, and then not for another seven years. We do not automatically give our dogs flea and heartworm medication, despite the fact that our dogs spend a tremendous amount of time outdoors. We’ve never had any problems. Most vets will swear by the necessity of these things, but there are an awful lot of people now – naturopathic vets, for instance – who caution against pumping our pets full of pesticides and unnecessary medications. Skin issues are most frequently tied to diet and/or reactions to heat, moisture, and/or chemicals.

NEVER give Scotties bones or rawhide – it’s bad for their system, and the Scottie’s jaws are simply too powerful and chew up too much too fast of these types of “treats.”

The idea that dogs should only eat dog food is misleading, and largely propagated to keep unhealthy people from giving their dogs unhealthy food. Fruits and veggies are key to a dog’s health, and they make excellent treats that won’t cause weight problems. Our dogs come running to the kitchen as soon as they hear the carrot peeler working! 

Dogs fed by their owners live, on average, nearly two years longer than dogs whose food stays down all the time. It’s also valuable from a training standpoint if your dog sees you dispensing its food.