The Australian Shepherd
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We provide in-depth information about the breed, breeding and activities with Aussies at our info-site "Aussie-World". Additionally, Uschi writes about ongoing developments on her blog at "Quo vadis, Aussie?" (only in German).
Description of the breed:
The Australian Shepherd is a well balanced dog of medium size (preferred height for males: 51 - 58 cm and 46 - 54 cm for females), sightly longer than tall. He is attentive and animated showing strength and stamina, combined with unusual agility. The Australian Shepherd is an intelligent working dog of strong herding and guarding instincts.
His colouring offers variety and individuality. The recognized colors are blue merle, red merle, solid black and solid red. All varieties may be with or without white and/or copper trim. He has a coat of moderate length and corseness.
His gait is smooth, free and easy, showing agility and efficiency of movement in a balanced ground-covering stride. He is versatile and easily trained, performing his assigned tasks with great style and enthusiasm. He is reserved with strangers but does not exibit shyness. He makes an exceptional companion. The color of eyes is brown, blue, amber or any variation or combination, including flecks and marbling. You will find lots of photos in our gallery.
Originally, the Aussies (shortcut for Australian Shepherd) were bred in the USA as herding dogs. They show great herding abilities and even nowadays they are used for working sheep and even cattle in the United States. The Australian Shepherds have a strong desire to please their owners and to be with them all the time, their loyalty and devotion is really remarkable.
Breeders very early aimed for as less hunting drive as possible. Therefore the Aussie is a very pleasant companion for walks or hikes - usually he stays with his "pack" without any effort.
It's only during the last years that the Aussie made his way to Europe. It started with friends of Western Horse Riding, who got to know this breed in the United States. Because of his nature, he is the ideal companion for horse riding.
Just a few years ago, the European FCI recognized the Australian Shepherd as "Breed in Observation".
Since the Australian Shepherd is an highly active breed, he is only lucky when he is busy. He needs some "work" to do. He gets easily bored and a life as couch potatoe is not the right thing for an Aussie. The Aussie is getting popular with people doing sports and other activities with their dogs. It was very important for former breeders to "develop" the versatile Aussie. They focused on herding, but as ranch-dogs, they had to be very versatile. Now, this is a very promising feature for people looking for a companion for dog-sports and other activities (go to our info-site "Aussie-World" for mor information about this).
History:
The early history of the Australian Shepherd is not exactly known. It started, when in the last half of the 1800's and the early 1900's thousands of wool sheep from Spain, France, England, New Zealand and Australia were imported to the Western United States and the dogs working these sheep came into the States as well. Some breed historians think that the herding dogs of the early settlers from Europe are the origin of the Australian Shepherd, so old European herding breeds are assumed to be the ancestors of the Australian Shepherd. Other breed historians assume that the Australian Shepherd goes back to the basque herdings dogs. During this time the Basque shepherds and their "little blue dogs" (ancestors of today's Pyrenean Shepherds) were famous for their herding performance. The basque herding dogs certainly had a great influence in our breed. Today the shorter haired (face rasé) type of the Pyrenean Shepherd looks very much like an Australian Shepherd, only smaller. Natural bobs are also common in Pyrenean Shepherds. It is supposed that these basque herding dogs were bred to other larger herding breeds to get dogs that are also capable of defending lifestock. The Basques and their dogs went to Australia and from there brought sheep herds into the States. Identifying the dogs with the sheep from Australia the dogs were soon called "Australian Shepherds". At that time good herding dogs were very much sought after. The farmers started to breed dogs that are very much alike to preserve their working abilities and the breed started to develop. Stockmen were impressed of these very capable working dogs and their ability to handle any type of livestock, including cattle.