Aussies were originally general-purpose farm and ranch dogs, which, despite their name, were developed in the American West, probably mostly from the British Farm Collie. This variable breed was also the progenitor of the Border Collie, Shetland Sheepdog, show Collie, and English Shepherd.

Possibly the much-repeated story about the Aussie's name deriving from Basque shepherd dogs coming to the New World via Australia, with the Basque sheepherders tending the imported flocks, has a piece of the truth as well. In favor of this latter argument, the Pyrenean Shepherd, an ancient Basque breed, and the Koolie, an Australian herding breed,are both reminiscent of the Aussie. But you can think of the Aussie as a basic collie dog selected for tough-mindedness,versatility, cattle-savvy, and endurance.

Whatever their provenance, Aussies were passed from ranch to ranch, from stockman to stockman, until they were at long last discovered by the beautydog people. The process of creating a show dog accelerated through the 1980’s; they were inducted into the American Kennel Club in 1992, and by the time I came around to shopping for one in 2003, they had developed a reputation among ranchers as no longer worth the feed they ate, since this never-say-die versatile herding dog now “couldn’t move stock with a trailer”, as the saying went. Aussies were big, bouncy, fluffy dogs now, with pretty markings and melting expressions. They had been made, as so many breeds before them, into beautiful lifelong puppies, for the suburban pet market.Ranchers gave these worthless-to-them dogs away (if they didn’t just shoot them), and bought Border Collies, Kelpies, or Cur Dogs, those being the most popular breeds still bred as “using dogs” in North America.

However, in pockets here and there, some people stubbornly kept on breeding the old time ranch dogs. I heard vague rumours of them. But in my town I only now saw the new Aussies, thickset dogs with coats almost as heavy as AKC Collies, with sleepy-eyed massive heads. So, I started trolling the web and emailing. I ran a lot of hares to earth which vanished. I started reading pedigrees on websites and crossing off my list all the breeders whose lines were full of beauty contest champions, which eliminated about ninety-eight percent of the Aussie breeders in my state. I wondered if I would ever find my pup.