43 Fun Facts About Australian Shepherd

Despite its name, the Australian Shepherd was developed in which US state?

California is where the breed was developed in the 1800s. Some of its ancestors are said to have arrived there with sheep shipped from Australia, which would explain the name.

Despite its name, a 2017 genome study grouped the Australian Shepherd with the herding breeds of which country?

Britain: its DNA sits with the sheepdogs of the British countryside, whichever way its ancestors reached the American West, overland from the East or by ship from Australia.

The FCI breed standard ties the Australian Shepherd's name to which sheepherders, said to have arrived via Australia?

Basque sheepherders get the credit in the FCI's history, but breed historians dispute it: the Basques may simply have worked the dogs that were already in the West.

The Aussie's earliest roots are traced to herding dogs brought to North America in the 1500s to tend whose sheep?

Spanish conquistadors shipped over their hardy Churra sheep to feed soldiers and clergy at the missions, and brought herding dogs to mind the flocks.

Australian Shepherds can inherit an eye defect named after which related herding breed?

Collie eye anomaly turns up in Aussies too. Researchers found the same faulty stretch of DNA in every affected breed and concluded that they all inherited it from one shared ancestor.

Hyper Hank, an Aussie who performed at Super Bowl XII, was a 1970s star of which dog sport?

Frisbee took Hank and his owner Eldon McIntire from football stadiums to the White House lawn, where he played with President Carter's daughter Amy.

Jay Sisler's trick-performing Aussies, stars of the 1950s rodeo circuit, went on to appear in films for which studio?

Disney cast the dogs in Run, Appaloosa, Run in 1966. Until Sisler's act toured the rodeos, few people outside ranching had ever heard of the breed.

The FCI links the Aussie's rise to the post-war boom in what?

Western horseback riding boomed after World War II, and the rodeos, horse shows, films and TV that came with it put the ranchers' dog in front of the general public for the first time.

Which kennel club recognised the Australian Shepherd in 1979, long before the AKC did?

The United Kennel Club. Ranchers' own registries had been recording Aussies since the 1950s, long before any kennel club took notice.

What did an Australian Shepherd named Viking win at Crufts in 2024?

Best in Show was a home win: handler Melanie Raymond lives just a few miles from the Birmingham arena, and called it the prize everyone in the dog world dreams of.

Which herding breed outranked the Aussie on the AKC's 2024 list?

German Shepherd, in fourth place, was the only one. Twelfth is not bad for a ranch dog that few people outside the livestock business had heard of until the 1950s.

The tan trim on an Aussie's face and legs is known to breeders by the name of which metal?

Copper is the word the American breed standards use for it, yet a show dog needs none: every coat colour is allowed with or without the trim, 'with no order of preference'.

About what does a full-grown male Australian Shepherd weigh, by the AKC's figures?

About 60 pounds sits inside the AKC's 50-to-65-pound range for males. That makes a medium-sized dog, kept lean because the standard wants one with the stamina to work stock all day.

The Australian Shepherd standard allows four base colours: two merles, black and what?

Red completes the four. The early breed took its nickname from another colour: on Western sheep ranges these were the 'little blue dogs'.

A 'blue merle' Australian Shepherd's coat is really a marbling of which two colours?

Black and grey: dark patches scattered over a grey ground, in shades from pale silver to deep smoke, can give the whole dog a bluish cast, and that illusion is where the name comes from.

Blue merle and black Aussies must have black noses; what nose pigment does the standard require on the other two coat colours?

Liver (brown) is the rule there, and genetics leaves no choice: the gene that turns those dogs' black pigment brown acts on skin as well as hair, so their noses, lips and eye rims all match.

Which eye colours does the FCI standard permit in the Australian Shepherd?

Brown, blue, amber or any combination is allowed, flecks and marbling included. So an Aussie can have one blue eye and one brown, or two colours swirled together in a single eye.

How should an Aussie's ears sit at full attention?

Breaking forward and over, or as a rose ear, is the only correct carriage: ears that stand fully pricked or hang flat like a hound's are severe faults that count heavily against a dog in the show ring.

Many Australian Shepherds are born with which unusual trait?

A bobbed tail, there from birth, comes from a gene first found in Pembroke Corgis. Bobtails shouldn't be bred to each other, though: a puppy that inherits two copies is thought not to survive.

Which feature disqualifies an Australian Shepherd in the show ring?

White splashes on the body put a dog out of the ring, yet features that look far odder to newcomers, such as one blue eye in a solid black face, cost it nothing.

Under the FCI standard, a white collar's hairline may extend only as far as which point?

The withers, the highest point of the shoulders, mark the limit, and the rule is read at the skin: a ruff of long white hair may drape further back so long as its roots do not.

How does the standard describe the Australian Shepherd's proportions?

Slightly longer than tall, and judges have a set way to check: they compare the length from breastbone to rear of thigh with the height from the top of the shoulders to the ground.

The FCI standard calls the Australian Shepherd good natured, seldom quarrelsome, and possibly what at first meeting?

Somewhat reserved is as far as it may go: the same standard disqualifies a dog that is aggressive or overly shy. Bred to guard the homestead as well as herd, Aussies size strangers up before befriending them.

Australian Shepherds are among the breeds prone to inheriting which neurological disorder?

Epilepsy is inherited in the breed, which is why the AKC asks breeders to check their stock for it. An affected dog may need anti-seizure medication every day for the rest of its life.

Many Aussies carry a mutation in the MDR1 gene, which causes what?

Sensitivity to drugs such as ivermectin means a dose of flea, tick or heartworm medicine that other dogs shrug off can poison a carrier, so owners are urged to have their Aussie DNA-tested.

Which eye disease are Australian Shepherds notably prone to inheriting?

Cataracts cloud the lens and can end in blindness. The hereditary kind runs in Aussie families, so responsible breeders have a dog's eyes checked before breeding from it.

Which country's kennel club, the Société Centrale Canine, registered more Aussies than any other breed every year from 2018 to 2023?

France: the breed won full international recognition only in 2007, yet about a decade later it was the country's most-registered pedigree dog.

What typically results when an Aussie inherits merle from both parents?

Excessive white and possible deafness or blindness: researchers suspect the cells that make pigment also help the inner ear and eye to develop, so where colour is missing, hearing and sight can fail.

The label 'lethal white', sometimes given to double merle dogs, properly names a fatal genetic syndrome in which animal?

Horses: a foal born with lethal white syndrome has a gut that cannot work and dies within days. Double merle dogs carry no such death sentence, so on a dog the label misleads.

Merle, the Aussie's marbled coat pattern, goes by the name 'dapple' in which breed?

Dachshund breeders call the pattern dapple. Whatever the name, the Aussie rule applies: two patterned dogs are not bred together, because their 'double dapple' pups run serious risks.

A Texas Heeler is a cross between an Australian Shepherd and which other herding breed?

Australian Cattle Dog, known as the Heeler, supplies half the name. Unlike its Aussie partner in the cross, the Cattle Dog really was developed in Australia.

Aussie owners joke that their dogs shed only twice a year, each time for what length of time?

Six months is the punchline: in other words, all year round. Regular brushing comes with owning the breed, and more of it when the coat is coming out.

Why did the Miniature Australian Shepherd change its name before joining the AKC?

Its name was too close to another breed's: the Aussie's own club insisted the newcomer's title have no link to the Australian Shepherd. Members voted, and in 2011 the AKC accepted it as the Miniature American Shepherd.

What kind of coat does the Australian Shepherd have?

Moderately long and wavy, with a dense undercoat: a weather-resistant double coat for ranch work in all seasons. The undercoat itself grows thicker or thinner with the climate the dog lives in.

In which group does Britain's Kennel Club place the Australian Shepherd?

Pastoral is the Kennel Club's home for dogs bred to work cattle, sheep and even reindeer, which is why the Aussie sits there beside the Old English Sheepdog and the Samoyed.

Why may Aussies at shows in some countries keep full-length tails?

Tail docking is banned there, so dogs keep the tails they were born with. The FCI standard allows for it, and the American UKC says no dog at its events will be penalised for a full tail.

The FCI standard permits an Aussie's bite to be scissors or what?

Pincer, also called a level bite, means the front teeth meet edge to edge. The FCI and AKC standards tolerate it, but the rival UKC standard calls the same even bite a fault.

How should an Aussie's mane and frill differ between the sexes?

More pronounced in dogs than bitches: the standard wants the sexes told apart at a glance, asking for masculine males and feminine bitches, and a male's fuller ruff round the neck and chest is part of the picture.

The FCI standard notes that merle Aussies characteristically do what with age?

Become darker: a puppy that starts out a pale powder blue can be several shades deeper in later life, and some old dogs are hard to tell from solid-coloured ones in dim light. It is common, though not every merle does it.

What is the term for the mismatched eye colours often seen in Australian Shepherds?

Heterochromia goes with the merle gene, which dilutes dark pigment at random: the same roll of the dice that marbles the coat can leave one eye, or part of one, blue.

What did the Aussie's first breed club do when the AKC recognised the breed?

Stayed independent: the Australian Shepherd Club of America kept its own registry outside the AKC, and a separate club was formed for owners who wanted AKC shows.

Without enough exercise, what is the Australian Shepherd known to become?

Destructive is the usual warning: a dog bred to work stock all day needs an outlet, and a bored Aussie will find its own, digging up the garden or chewing whatever is in reach.

Legend has it that Native Americans called the Aussie 'ghost eye' and regarded the dogs as what?

Sacred, the story goes, on account of the pale blue, 'ghostly' eyes that are common in the breed, though by no means universal.