I have always been an animal fanatic, in fact I can still remember telling my mother that I wanted to be a veterinarian - when I was only 3 years old!

I spent my life reading books about animals of all kinds, primarily about wolves, giraffes, horses and especially dogs.

Unfortunately for my college goals Danny came along and spoiled all my plans :-) We married when I turned 18. From the time Danny and I met he told me about his Aussies, Nikki and Chipper. I never had the privilege of meeting them, but the stories of their intelligence and unique personalities, as well as their beauty, always piqued my interest.

Danny's Aussie Nikki (left) . He knew if he sat out in the rain where the family could see him (despite having a nice dog house) that they would feel sorry for him and let him come in and lie in front of the fireplace. :-)

I was thrilled when we finally moved to a house where we could have dogs and cats, and it didn't take me long to start a menagerie. We had a series of strays that I took in, but was frustrated by not knowing what temperament to expect from them. I found it was like getting a 'grab bag', never knowing what I was going to get, and the surprise may be good, but may be not!

When Dashiell was a baby I took the time to go back through my dog book collection, and was reminded that there is a right way and a wrong way to go about choosing a dog. It shouldn't be done impulsively.

I gave the matter a lot of thought, taking our family's lifestyle in to consideration, and decided what our needs were:

Now my educated search began. I have always been the type that would read 5 books to write a 2 page report, so my research was extensive. I spent nearly a year hauling stacks of books home from the library, as well as combing through magazines. I had decided that it was time to fulfill my lifelong dream of becoming a breeder. It wasn't that I figured if I'm going to buy a purebred dog I might as well get my money back by breeding it (an attitude I have found many people have when acquiring a purebred dog.) It was that I had always wanted to breed dogs, and now the time had come. I had always wanted to 'make a difference' in a breed, like breeding out a health problem, or creating a new breed. I could fulfill the family's wish for a pet and my goal of breeding at the same time.

Because of this, my research wasn't just in to what breeds are small, smart and healthy. I already knew that some dogs had difficulty whelping for various reasons such as the shape of the breed's head, or diabetes. Some breed's standards require ear cropping (which I won't do). Showing some breeds is more involved than others, due to grooming requirements. Some breeds have become so popular that competing in the ring is extremely difficult, and finding good homes for puppies is equally difficult. Selling puppies was not my goal, but a breeder can't keep every puppy, so finding quality homes for puppies is a necessity. The average person on the street may feel, "Why pay a few hundred dollars for a dog from you, when I can get a purebred around the corner for $25?" Because of this attitude I didn't want a breed that had been 'over bred'.

These are some of the reasons for looking into rare or uncommon breeds. (There are breeds that are rare even though they have AKC recognition, and breeds that are fairly common despite having rare breed status.)

I was looking at a dog magazine one day and saw an ad for Miniature Australian Shepherds. I called the breeder, who happened to live nearby, and learned something about the mini's history. I was told there was a show coming up not far from me in just a few weeks. When Danny got home that evening he said, "Lynn, Australian Shepherds are great dogs, but they are just too big and too hyper." (His Aussies had been 1/4 Border Collie.) I reminded him that these were miniatures and he agreed to go take at look.

We got to the show and fell in love! In fact, Danny was ready to take one of them home then and there! We were put on a waiting list and I went home to do yet more research. Thankfully there was a very thorough book available, Jeanne Joy Hartnagle's "All About Aussies", published by Alpine. I went to the library and checked it out and read it from cover to cover. Then I went out and bought a copy so that I could read it again, underlining and annotating. (I can't read a book unless I have a pen in my hand!)

The Aussie was everything I wanted, eager to please, good with family, good watch dog but not aggressive, easy to groom, uncommon enough to not be found on every corner (especially the minis), and to top it off, beautiful! Each dog is totally unique, which makes the breed even more fun.

After a 9 month wait I finally brought home my first mini Aussie, Destiny's Rhapsody in Blue, pictured at the top of the page. We proudly went to our first show together when she was 3 1/2 months old, where she took Best of Opposite Sex in her puppy class! I was bitten by the show bug! Sadly, Opal contracted Parvo Virus and died 10 days later. We were totally devastated, but Danny was determined that this was not the end, and we soon acquired another mini.

After several years in the mini world, I decided that the best way to promote the mini Aussie was to prove to people that the minis weren't a 'separate breed', but merely small dogs that have always existed in the Aussie gene pool. So now I am focusing on producing small AKC Aussies. While my dogs will never be as small as most 'minis', my goal is to maintain the 17"-19" size range that has always occurred in the Australian Shepherd,