Also known as the North American Shepherd and, to its friends, as the Mini Aussie, this recent breed was created as a companion dog by producing a smaller version of a working sheepdog.
This recent addition to the companion dogs of America was created by breeding down in size from the Australian Shepherd Dog, an active working breed employed to control large flocks of sheep. Despite its name, the Australian Shepherd Dog (see separate entry) is a Californian herder extremely popular on local ranches.
In the 1960s a Californian woman obtained a few rather small examples of this breed, dogs that she found working on the rodeo circuit, and began selective breeding to reduce their size even further. The body height was taken down from 18-23 in (46-58 cm) to 13-18 in (33-46 cm), and the weight from 35-70 lb (16-32 kg) down to 15-30 lb (7-14 kg). She called them Miniature Australian Shepherds, and the new breed type was fixed by 1980. Then, in 1993, this name was changed to North American Shepherd to give the new dog the illusion of being more distinct from its immediate ancestor.
It was then pointed out that, since back-crosses were still being made to the ancestral breed to improve the gene pool, this new name was unsuitable, so there was a move to revert to the original al title. A specialist breed club was formed, called the Miniature Australian Shepherd Club of America (MASCA). This upset the members of the North American Shepherd Club, who solved the problem by creating a compromise name that will almost certainly be ignored, a name that only a committee could invent: the North American Miniature Australian Shepherd. Fortunately everyone concerned with the breed calls it the Mini Aussie, so no harm is done.
Blissfully ignorant of all this name-calling, the dog itself continues to delight its owners as an ideal household companion and show dog. Because of its recent ancestry, it retains a very high level of intelligence, loyalty and confidence. Traditionally it has either a naturally bobbed or an artificially docked tail. Its coat colour is always mixed, never solid, and there are many accepted colour combinations.
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