Thank you for visiting Mistretta Aussies! Aussies are one of the smartest breeds in the world. Developed primarily as a herding breed, today, the Aussie excels in many other competitions as well. Aussies compete in conformation, obedience, tracking, search and rescue, agility, herding and even more events. They make wonderful companions and excellent family dogs. They are protective, territorial and extremely loyal. To retain the best characteristics in this great breed, breeders must strive for a myriad of qualities in their breeding program.
In our breeding program we believe strongly in the "versatile" Aussie, that is, one who has strong working instinct with great style, one who is built soundly and structured correctly with no exaggeration and one with an excellent temperament; our dogs must be trainable and very smart and last but not least beautiful! The Aussie can have a reserved temperament as the ASCA standard states, however, we try to breed for a more outgoing temperament, while still retaining their superb loyalty and valuable protectiveness to their owner. Putting this all together - working ability, temperament, intelligence, sound structure and movement, color and beauty is quite a challenge.
Our dogs must have a high degree of intelligence and trainability. They must show working instinct with natural fetch, gather and balance. We want a dog that has the endurance to work for many hours in a day. Our dogs are slow maturing and have long life spans. They are of moderate size, males being 21 inches and females 19, with some variation. We breed for a smooth effortless gait, sound balanced structure, with a functional but beautiful moderate coat. Coat color usually is clear and intense. Our dogs have moderate but well defined stops, almond shaped eyes, tight flews and solid lower jaws. We breed for full dentition with good strong teeth meeting in a scissors bite. Our females are naturally bred and normally whelp freely. Most of our dogs are natural bob tails (NBT), and all have natural ear sets. The dogs in our personal breeding program must be OFA Good or Excellent and their eyes must check clear. They must have no disqualifying faults based on the ASCA standard. Our puppies eyes are checked for genetical defects before they leave our place. Our dogs must have the characteristics that we so highly value in the Aussie. |
