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Australian Cattle Dog Did You Know?
- The Australian Cattle Dog has been a huge help to the beef industry of
Australia; when populations spread to huge farmlands, Australian Cattle
Dogs became indispensable and enabled farmers to maintain huge herds.
- The most popular working dog used by the early drovers was a breed brought
out from England known as the Smithfield, a breed that eventually became
one of the ancestors of the Australian Cattle Dog.
- The Smithfields were interbred with the Dingo, a native Australian breed,
to increase stamina and to encourage a silent working dog, but the breed
died out. Later, another pair of imports, a pair of Scottish blue merle
Highland Collies, were interbred with the Dingo to produce a breed known
as the Hall's Heeler. With the success of this breed, various other
crosses eventually produced the Australian Cattle Dog of today.
- The Australian Cattle Dog was accepted by the AKC in 1980 and was shown
in the Working Group after a brief period in the Miscellaneous class. When
the Herding Group was formed in 1983, the breed was moved.
- The standard for the Australian Cattle Dog was drawn up by Mr. Robert
Kaleski in 1902 and was based around the Dingo type.
- The Australian Cattle Dog was first known as the Australian Heeler, although
it is still called the Blue or Queensland Heeler today.
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