Australian ShepherdToy Miniature

When we were first looking at getting a family dog I wanted a full size Australian Shepard as I had when I was growing up on the farm. I really hadn't thought of a miniature. But as we began our search we ran across a breeder who raised these mid-size herding dogs and decided to take a look.

We were surprised to learn just how eager these smaller brothers to the full size Shepard are to work. I guess I expected them to be more of a house dog, kind of a clone of the "real" dog. The kids fell in love with Tipper at first sight. He got his name from tipping over when he first tried to sit up. Anyway, the kids loved him and from what the breeder told us I thought he might be okay working with the few sheep that we had.

As Tipper matured and went through obedience training he proved that he was every bit up to the challenge as a working herder. In fact, he will almost always outlast the amount of work there is to do. He has plenty of energy and desire and may need a little less physical exercise than a larger dog would have needed but he still needed a lot of mental stimulation. This required developing new tasks and new approaches to old ones.

Tipper would often demonstrate his herding skills even when he wasn't working with the sheep. I remember one particular time when all the kids were out in the pasture playing and their mom had repeatedly called them in for dinner. It was Tipper that finally went out and nipped at their heels to get them to come up for dinner.