History of the Breed
There are two main theories with regards to the origin of
the Australian Shepherd, and as yet no one theory can be proved or disproved.
Although the Australian Shepherd is called Australian it is in fact a bred that
has been mainly developed in America, the origin of this breed goes back to the
Basque/Spanish sheepdogs. It was in the late 1800's when the Basques emigrated
to Australia to find work taking their sheepdogs with them, undoubtedly during
the time in Australia some interbreeding took place. In the early 1900's the
Basque's then moved on to America taking their sheep and dogs with them, whilst
in America it is believed that further interbreeding took place, so that the
dogs became more versatile and were able to work different stock, therefore
becoming more useful to their owners.
Another theory as to the existence of the Australian shepherd is that as the new
world (America) was opened up to trade it was also open to immigrants, and many
nationalities from all over Europe travelled to find a different life and took
with the a wide variety of dogs some for herding, some for guarding and of
course some which were just pets, and through interbreeding of some of these
selected dogs the Australian Shepherd was born, to work a variety of stock as
they do today.
The Australian Shepherd was first imported in to this country 1985/86 by Mr. and
Mrs. Jueckstock, since then many more dogs have been imported and they are
growing in popularity all the time with now approximately 1200 presently in the UK with
many breed lines that go back to the original breeding stock from America, and
the gene pool is growing all the time.
For more information about the
history of Australian Shepherds, please look at the links below
Aussie History – Photos
Aussie
History