I got a call from someone who wants to give someone a custom collar for Christmas, but doesn’t know the right size and has no way to surreptitiously find out.
She knows the dog weighs sixty pounds and is a shepherd- or husky-mix.
I have a good guess in mind, but I thought maybe I could rustle up a few data points for an average. Anyone out there willing to help? Pooches within, say, 55-65 or a few more pounds either way are fair game. Muttley-types are more helpful than, say, greyhounds or fat bulldogs. I need a snug neck measurement on the neck where you’d expect a collar to sit.
Thanks most sincerely to anyone willing to grab a measuring tape and a mid-sized dog.
My dog is a 66 pound mut. I just measured his neck 14.5 inches. But most collars come in small, medium and large and are adjustable.
Mine is a terrier mix so I would expect a Shepherd or Husky to have a thicker neck.
Hey, thanks! It will be adjustable in a range of three inches, maybe further if I end up with a lot of measurements around 14". So far you’re skewing my average. 
I have two 60lb dogs. Queenie is a dalmation mix. Her neck is 18". She has a beefy neck. Think more like a small chunky lab.
I have a collie/shephard mix and I just measured her collar and from tip to tip it is 19" and she has it hooked on the second hole from the end.
I think you would be safe with a 20" collar with several adjustment holes. A husky/shephard might have quite a bit of fur around the neck as my collie mix does.
You want to make sure that when hooked it is not on the last hole on the end. If there are six adjutment holes then having it fit right on the third hole is probably the best.
I have two 60~ pound dogs and they both have 18" collars, as do the 40 and 50 pound dogs. Can’t go wrong with that.
I just measured my 65-lb. greyhound for a collar - just behind the ears, she’s 13 inches and the base of her neck is 15.5. For a husky, I’d take the base of the neck measurement and add a coupla-three inches for the extra fur. 
A quickie Google search turns up 17-21 inches as a good collar size for a husky.
We have a Shar Pei-German Shepherd mix who weighs about 65 lbs. She’s rather cute, and her neck measurement is about 18 inches. Note: she has some extra skin folds and such on her neck, but I would say that she’s right in between Shar Pei and German Shepherd size.
Hey thanks guys!
Looks like 17"-20" is a good guess. I appreciate it!
Just to add another data point: My 62-lb shepherd/lab mix measures 19" at her collar (with a few fingers’ worth of room). She’s on the skinny side.
Anyone else who wants to add in their dogs’ measurements please do–the collar is slated for early next week, so I’ve got a little time to keep data mining!
My two 60 pound mutts both have 18" necks with collars a little looser than that. One of them is an American Eskimo mix, and the other’s a chow-lab mix.
I’ve got two year-old Shepherd/Appenzeller mixes that weigh-in at 65 and 60 pounds.
Jaeger’s neck is 18.5" at the collar, and Willow’s is 18".
And…just cuz I think they’re so goshdarn cute - puppy pics!
Jaeger
Willow
My 60# American Pit Bull Terrier has a 20" neck, which skews the average up, but is still within the 17-21" range.
I just ordered 2 collars from the HSUS store, for Christmas, for 2 dogs.
The 40# dog got the 12-16" collar, and the 80# dog got the 20-24" collar (I measured for both).
So I’d guess that a 60# dog would get a 17-19" collar, which is exactly what everyone else here is saying.