Australian Shepherd and What?

**Zeke's Mom** · 08-08-2006, 05:40 PM

We just rescued Zeke this weekend. He is 32 lbs., and 7-8 months old. I'm going to guess he is 2' tall. He's pretty sick, but started on antibiotics yesterday. Any idea what he might be mixed with? The vet said he probably won't get much bigger, if at all.

**SemaviLady** · 08-08-2006, 08:24 PM

He is very cute. He is probably a mixture of two mixed breeds. I do a lot of breed ID for rescues related to my breed. It's generally more helpful to see the dog grown up, LOL

but also a photo taken from a birdseye view doesn't much help. Something taken from the side at the dog's shoulder level, so it isn't a toupee shot can be helpful but at this age even owners of some purebreds keep their puppies hidden till they figure out what breed they are going to look like (Ha!! raising hand)

Puppies of mixed breeds and some purebreds can look pretty generic when in the gangly stage between 5 months and 18 months (if a large breed) so this can be a tough age to evaluate.

So if I had to name a breed, I'd suggest at least one parent may have been quite solid in color (meaning any color with minimal white), and the other may have carried some spotting trait so you end up with a somewhat flashy dog, but not as flashy as many boxers or Bernese. (Solid dogs don't have white markings. Pinto ones do but solid is incompletely dominant to pinto, so tends to limit the white marks.) Aussies do have the tanpoint coloration as do some BCs and both are relatively common breeds. A longer coat is a recessive so both parents carried at least one gene for rough coat to pass on although one may have been a short coat (heterozygous).

So the probability of at least one parent being related to some sort of working collie is likely to be good.

One reason for wanting to know the mixtures of a mixed breed can be to try to work out and predict size and behavior. However this is not always very useful since some behavior genes when crossed into a very different type of working dog will introduce genetics that are not compatible and result in some very odd behaviors indeed.

**Danegirl2208** · 08-08-2006, 09:12 PM

Its so hard to tell untill they are full grown, im guessing maybe some border collie? I am not positve but he is very handsome!

**Tollers-n-Dobes** · 08-08-2006, 09:16 PM

I have abslutely no idea, but my best guess at the moment is Border Collie (Border/Aussie mixes are quite popular). Whatever he is, he's a beautiful dog!