Australian Shepherd

Australian Shepherd Temperament

Temperaments can be extremely variable, even within lines and litters. It is important to meet a breeder’s adult dogs and accept that they have experience with the breed and will be the best ones to advise you on choosing a puppy from the litter with the right temperament for your family. In the wrong family, Australian Shepherds can become anxious and hyperactive. Like many working breeds, Australian Shepherds need mental stimulation and enjoy a challenge. They love to have a job, even in a family situation. It might be simply supervising the family as they go about daily activities and household tasks like gardening and house cleaning. Without stimulation, the breed can become destructive, so Australian Shepherds should be left with plenty of enrichment and activity toys if they will be left alone for any length of time. With nothing to do, they will often find more inconvenient ways to amuse themselves.

For the most part, Australian Shepherds adapt well to the different activity levels of the family. If the family is highly active and busy, the dog will be as well, but if the family is relaxed or the owner is lazy, their dog will often behave in the same way. The ability to switch off at the end of the day can make an Australian Shepherd easy to live with, but it is not necessarily an automatic trait in the breed. Part of their training must include being encouraged to be calm. An over-stimulated, non-stop Australian Shepherd is not an easy dog to live with. They can be boisterous when they are young and not particularly body aware, so their physical size and exuberance can lead to inadvertently harming small children. You should consider this if you are contemplating bringing an Aussie into your family.

The Ideal Owner

Before deciding on an Australian Shepherd, your personal situation should influence the decision to bring an Australian Shepherd into your family. Aussie’s make a great family companion provided you choose the right time to add a dog to your life. Families with very young children are unlikely to have the time and dedication needed to raise and train an Australian Shepherd puppy successfully. A juvenile Aussie’s physical strength and activity level can be too much for small children and parents who may already be time poor and sleep-deprived.

On the other hand, if children are not yet a part of your family, getting a puppy at least a couple of years before the first child arrives can work very well. An Australian Shepherd that has reached maturity and is calm, well-mannered, and trained can be a wonderful protective companion for the baby, willing to play games and be tolerant of the newest family members. Alternatively, waiting until your children are school age can also work well as you can devote more time to training while the children are at school.

Children also need to be taught appropriate behaviour around the dog. Be mindful that Australian Shepherds were bred to work cattle. They can be very gentle when working stock but can also be very firm when required to bring animals into line. If your Aussie decides that poorly behaved children require the same correction, it won’t end well for the children! Children should be encouraged to be calm and steady around the dog and avoid over-stimulating and exciting behaviour.

Correct training and socialisation are required to instil high owner value, desire to be with, and please their owner above all other distractions. Dogs whose desire to be with other dogs outweighs their desire to be with their owner end up dragging on the lead, playing poorly with others, and being annoying in social situations. 

Training neutralises all other distractions, ensures that your dog will play well with others when given permission and returns when asked. For novice dog owners, this may all seem too much but making the correct choice avoids future problems and difficult re-homing decisions. Fewer dogs would require rescue if people assessed their personal situation and made better choices when choosing a dog.

Keeping Your Aussie Busy

In the right home, with the right owner, Australian Shepherds can be outstanding companions. They excel at obedience and dog sports like agility, flyball, doggy dancing, tracking, dock dogs, and of course, herding, but they can also be a little unpredictable. Someone expecting or desiring a dog with consistent robot responses may be disappointed. Depending on how they feel on the day, they can excel in competition or decide to play the class clown. Organised activities like this are not a requirement of Australian Shepherd ownership but doing things with your dog is. They are best suited to active people prepared to spend time out of the home with their dog. As an intuitive, sensitive breed, a well-trained adult dog can be a great dog for a household with someone suffering from mental health issues, but a young dog would not be ideal.

Australian Shepherds have a double coat of moderate length that produces a substantial amount of fluff, particularly when moulting. If you are a neatness fanatic, then the breed is probably not for you. They love their toys, so you can expect these to be scattered throughout the house as well and yes, inside the house with their family is where they are happiest.

Australian Shepherd Health

Although they are a relatively sound working breed, the incidence of hereditary health conditions is not absent from the breed and must be considered when sourcing a puppy. Responsible Australian Shepherd breeders are reducing the incidence of hereditary disorders through genetic and other forms of health testing of their breeding dogs and puppies. This testing is expensive, and it is unlikely that someone with a couple of Aussies of unknown pedigree will go to the trouble and expense of testing their dogs before having a litter. Buying a puppy from a backyard breeder who has bred for financial return or so their children can experience having a litter leaves the buyer at risk of obtaining a puppy with a genetic health condition.

Getting an Australian Shepherd cross does not eliminate the risk either, as different breeds are still dogs. The genes for hip dysplasia, for instance, are the same in all dogs, so getting a crossbred dog can still result in a dog with hip dysplasia. If the puppy comes from a pet shop, it may have been bred in a puppy mill where many dogs are kept in poor conditions. Being a selective purchaser is the best way to discourage the breeding activities of unethical breeders. There are many breeders of Australian Shepherds that do extensive testing, so with some research, you should be able to locate a good breeder that can provide a healthy puppy from tested parents.

Australian Shepherd puppies are so cute, it is best if you do your research before looking at puppies.

Known health conditions in Australian Shepherds include hip and elbow dysplasia, so it is important to view the parents’ hip and elbow scores. While there is a genetic component to both these disorders, they can be developmental as well. Allowing puppies to gain weight too quickly and letting adult dogs get too fat combined with excessive exercise can result in hip and elbow problems regardless of the parents’ scores. It is important to follow the diet and developmental guidelines of the breeder and your vet, not just the feeding guidelines on commercial foods.

The breed suffers from several eye conditions, including Collie eye anomaly (CEA), hereditary cataracts (HSF4), progressive rod-cone degeneration (PRCD), and progressive retinal atrophy (PRA). Although DNA tests are available for these conditions, all breeding dogs and puppies should also be screened by a registered canine ophthalmologist without exception. Reputable breeders will not breed with affected dogs. These disorders are present in other breeds and crosses, but a DNA test to identify the carrier genes is available for Australian Shepherds. Merle to merle breeding should also be avoided as the colour gene is associated with blindness and deafness. Merle to merle mating produces a 25% chance of puppies being deaf and/ or blind.

One critical genetic health condition in Australian Shepherds is the Multi-Drug Resistance 1 (MDR1) mutation. The gene is estimated to be present in up to 44% of Australian Shepherds worldwide. Dogs that carry this gene have a sensitivity to Ivermectin and several other drugs. Dogs require only one gene to potentially have an adverse reaction to certain medications. Dogs with two copies of the gene are at much greater risk of adverse neurological reactions to medications, including tremors, excessive salivation, anorexia, blindness, coma, and even death. The incidence of Australian Shepherds carrying two copies of the gene worldwide is between 10% and 25%. Dogs are unaffected by this mutation until drugs are administered, but it is both important and helpful if your vet is aware that your dog is at risk.

The extent to which good breeders test may vary depending on the country they reside in, as some health conditions may be less prevalent in that country’s breed lines. A breeder who does not discuss potential health issues is either ignorant of the problems or avoids the discussion. Both are reasons to avoid the breeder and continue looking. Puppies are hard to resist, so it is better to ask these questions before viewing a litter of adorable Australian Shepherd puppies.

Locating a Reputable Australian Shepherd Breeder

The importance of sourcing a puppy from a reputable breeder can’t be overstated, but how do you recognise a good breeder? Good breeders want the best for their puppies, so most will offer, or even require, a puppy to be returned to them if it isn’t a good fit for your family. In light of this, they will do their best to make sure this situation doesn’t eventuate by making sure that their puppy buyers are ready for an Australian Shepherd, have researched the breed, and understand the commitment required to have an Aussie in their life. They will often require a questionnaire to be completed to help them assess your suitability. You should view this as a service rather than a burden and answer the questions as honestly as you can. It will help you avoid making a mistake that results in the painful choice to re-home a puppy. Beware of breeders that allocate a puppy based on colour or when the puppies are too small to assess their potential temperament. As the best breeders tend to breed rarely, they may have a waiting list for their puppies. For them, it is more about improving the breed and finding good homes for their pups than breeding large numbers of puppies. It is worth the wait for a puppy from this type of breeder.

If a breeder has agreed to sell you a puppy, most will be happy to involve you in the litter’s ongoing development in terms of progress updates and photos.  Some breeders use social media to connect with puppy buyers, allowing them to share their thoughts on the breed, training, and ongoing care of your puppy. It helps them provide support to their puppy buyers, and the breeder gets the pleasure of seeing their puppies grow in their new home. You may be invited to visit the puppies in which allows the breeders to assess your personality and match the temperament of the puppy to your family, but this may be inappropriate if there has been an outbreak of Parvovirus in the area as disease transmission is always a concern before the puppies have had their vaccinations.

On collection, you should receive a puppy pack that includes their microchip and registration details, health testing results, vaccination certificates, and information on the schedule for their vaccination booster shots and worming regime. It will often include information on diet and training, and the breeder will usually send you home with some of the puppy’s food to avoid diarrhoea from a sudden change in diet. Many breeders require puppy buyers to sign a contract, agreeing to return the puppy to them if it proves unsuitable in any way. Most good breeders would prefer to refund a buyer and take the puppy back rather than see the puppy go on to another potentially unsuitable home. It may include a sterilisation clause, though for puppies, particularly males; there is increasing evidence that sterilisation is best left until 12 to 18 months for health and developmental reasons.

Puppy packs often include a toy and a blanket with the mother’s scent to reduce stress, but the most beneficial thing that you will go home with is the support that a good breeder will provide. Reputable Australian Shepherd breeders want the best for their puppies and the lifetime support you receive from a good breeder is invaluable. It can make the difference between having to re-home a dog that has become part of the family or experiencing devastating health or behavioural problems that cause you to regret your decision to bring this wonderful, intelligent and beautiful breed into your home.

For those that want the statistics…

Colours: Black, red, blue merle and red merle in self (solid), with tan (eg black and tan), bi-colour (white with no tan), and tri-colour (with white and tan)

Weight: Male: 18–32 kg (40–70 lb), Female: 16–29 kg (35–65 lb)

Height: Male: 48–58 cm (19–23 in), Female: 46–56 cm (18–22 in)

Life Expectancy: 12-14years