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.