What To Expect From An Echolight Aussie

Every dog is an individual, and none are perfect; however, there are some traits that we strongly select for in our breeding program. You’ll find most Echolight dogs possess these traits:

Stable and Confident

Confidence in a dog is one of the traits we consider to be among the most important. It lends itself to mental stability, a successful career in any sport, and helps make for an exceptionally enjoyable companion. A confident and stable dog will be able to navigate anything in life and bounce back from negative experiences without lasting mental trauma.

Biddable and Eager to Please

We treasure our partnership with our dogs and enjoy sharing that privilege with others by sharing part of them with you. Our dogs are utterly devoted to “their people” and jump at the chance to make us happy. By selecting for dogs that value a relationship with us above all else, we are able to preserve this special characteristic that we feel is so paramount to the breed’s character.

Drive to Work

All of our dogs have an impressive desire to do the job, whatever the task may be. Most of them will require some type of job to do, whether that is training and competing for performance sports, or teaching them fun pet tricks and having them keep you company on your daily run. There is some variation in herding styles among our dogs, but they have a solid aptitude for it and we have quite a few dogs we’ve bred now training for and trialing on stock. The breed’s ultimate purpose has always been that of a versatile stockdog, and preserving that trait is something we prioritize - it is the foundation of what makes Aussies who they are. We train and compete in Agility, Rally, Obedience, Herding, etc, so we understand the level of drive it takes to be competitive at high levels in dog sports! That all said, we also strongly value an off-switch in our dogs - they need to be able to chill during down time.

Food and Toy Drive

Most have pretty high toy/tug drive, or are easy to build that in if it occasionally doesn’t come “pre-programmed”. All of our dogs are HIGHLY food motivated - I cannot stress this enough. They will do anything for a bite to eat, and you’d think we starve them the way they bend over backwards for it. Care should be taken that they don’t train you to become a treat dispenser - they love to please you, but are smart enough to manipulate you to get more frequent payouts. Which leads into the next Echolight trait…

Highly Intelligent

Aussies are known to be smart dogs, but we have also discovered that it isn’t a universal trait in the breed either. Some of our dogs are bordering on “creepy-smart” with their level of problem-solving capabilities. I joke I am “the world’s laziest trainer” - I don’t want to have to work hard to teach my dogs something. Consequently, this makes for dogs that learn INCREDIBLY FAST. Note that this can be both a tremendous blessing AND a curse! If you teach it wrong that first time, it can be difficult to undo the behavior you just reinforced. Our dogs also tend to resent repetition and find it boring - if they do a task correctly, move on to something else or end the session. If you ask them to repeat it, they seem to assume they did it wrong the first time and will throw some new twist into it the second time to see if that pleases you.

Athletic and Sound

Many seem to forget that our breed is more than a “clean down and back” with a pretty sidegait (dog show jargon meaning “good movement”, for the laypersons reading this). Our breed standard also calls for “unusual agility” in addition to sound movement, and this is EXTREMELY important for long-term safety and success in high-impact sports. An Aussie should be able to turn on a dime, change gaits effortlessly, turn on the speed when its called for, or dodge a kick from an angry cow at a moment’s notice! And then be able to do those things for many years…We spend a lot of time studying the way each of our dogs use their bodies, as well as tracking longevity and long-term soundness in pedigrees. We get a lot of compliments that our dogs are great natural jumpers in Agility, and this is not something we really need to teach them - they are built in a way that lends to that ability.

Moderate

Moderate is one of those things that is in the eye of the beholder. However, the ASCA breed standard uses the word "moderate" or a variation of it (moderation, medium, etc) FIFTEEN times. We have heard some brag that their dogs have "huge coat" "tons of bone" or "big, blocky heads"; none of which is correct for this breed. At Echolight, we strive to breed true to the breed standard - dogs of MODERATE size, coat, bone and structure. One could say that moderate means “without extremes” and that would be a good way to describe our dogs. At the end of the day, we want their physical traits to lend themselves to function more than form.