Jinx is a little smaler than Cooper, but in my signature picture she is just 7,5 weeks old. A friend of mine, who ownes Jinx's half sister took that picture and I just love it. I have been trying to make a picture like this, now she is fully grown, but I haven't been able to. They walk side by side very often, but as soon as I take out the camera, they split up
They are both Australian Shepherds, but Cooper is really very big. He has grown out of proportion and is often mistaken for a Bernese mountain dog or a bernese mix. Or a big border collie.
Cooper is 63 cm, which is 24,8 inch and weighs 38 kg, that is about 84 lbs. He is 5 years old.
Jinx is 52 cm, which is 20,5 inch and weighs 20 kg, which is about 44 lbs ( hope I got that right. I'm not too familiar with your metric system
) Jinx is 16 months.
Cooper is just a little overweight. I would like to see him at 35 kg, but somehow he just doesn't loose the weight.
Yes they both have tails. Docking was banned overhere some 10 years ago. It takes a little getting used to with some breeds, like the rottweiler, because it changes their looks completely.
A friend of mine had an aussie, that came from america. She was docked and I just loved the way she wiggled her butt! My dogs do that too, but it looks different because of the tail.
Before I got Cooper, I wanted to get a border collie, but the owner of the dogschool I go to, is an australian shepherd breeder. That's when I fell in love with the breed.
I found that Aussies have just about the same temperament as Borders, but are not as hyper as borders can be.
We see a lot of borders here that tend to be manic, due to overbreeding. And since the aussie is not as common, they are still a fairly healthy breed.
And of course I fell for the coatcollours. The first aussie I ever saw, was Mr. Jones. A blue merle with blue eyes.
I had no choise when I got Cooper. When I went to see the breeder he only had this black-tri left. If could have, I would have gotten his brother , who is a red merle.
Then when I went to see Jinx her breeder, I told her I would like a red-tri or merle. I had to wait for the litter to be born and unfortunately there were no reds. But she gave me first choice in this litter, or I could wait for the next.
Impatient as I am, I decided to go for this litter. I have known Jinx since she was a week old.
And when the eyes started to change color, I was really besides myself with joy when she got two blue eyes.
I didn't make the final choice untill she was 6 weeks old, because I wanted to see her character and not just pick her for her looks. She has one sister who has a white head, and a black-tri sister, and I wanted to choose between the three of them.
But Jinx was the one who came running to me as soon as I entered the room. So we choose eachother, so to speak.
I was very lucky to be able to choose myself, because most aussie breeders don't do that. They test the puppies and you can give them an indication of which dogs you like, but they decide which one you get.
This weekend I will be going camping, with Jinx her breeder and some people who have aussies bred by her. We went last year too and it was so much fun! We are going to one of the isands and be about 600 feet away from the sea. So there will be a lot of beachfun! Aussies will rule the beach, because we will have a group of about 10 aussies with us.
I hope the weather gods like us, because it is getting pretty cold here at night. Fall is coming
