Last Updated August 24, 2009
WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF THE
NORTH AMERICAN SHEPHERD!
The North American Shepherd Association proudly announces that the North American Shepherd (formerly known as the Miniature Australian Shepherd) has been accepted into the Canine Developmental Health and Performance Registry, which partners with the United Kennel Club and represents the first step toward official breed recognition with the UKC. The UKC is the second largest all breed registry in the United States, and we celebrate this opportunity to have our breed finally recognized outside the rare breed show circuit.
HISTORY OF THE BREED: In the early 1900s Basque sheepherders traveled from their homelands to the Western United States, bringing with them flocks of sheep and herding dogs. Naturally, once here, the little blue dogs bred with other breeds, developing quite a hodge podge of looks. Cattle ranchers admired their working ability but needed a larger dog than the sheepherders required, so collie-types were infused in some lines to bring size up to better meet the ranchers needs. The horse community preferred a different style, often referring to theirs as "Little Saddle Dogs" because they were sometimes so small that a rider could pull one up onto a horse. The two sizes retained two traits in common, thanks to their shared ancestry of Basque working dogs, which no amount of breed mixing could destroy. Both were often blue merle in color and both possessed an inborn desire to herd everything they saw to include the family children.
By the 1960s fanciers of the "Bobtailed Shepherds" had produced two distinct types, based on the needs of the ranchers and owners who bred them. As a result of the expanding awareness of these remarkable dogs, fanciers formed breed clubs and actively began serious breeding programs to advance the preservation of the breeds . The Australian Shepherd Club of America (ASCA) began developing a breed standard focusing on the larger dogs, while the Miniature Australian Shepherd breeders of the 1960s developed their breed using smaller dogs in the 13 to 15 inch range. The Miniature Australian Shepherd fanciers obviously did not consider their dogs to be one and the same as the Australian Shepherd because they never registered their dogs in the Australian Shepherd Club of America (ASCA ) registry.
By 1980 a dog named Cordova's Spike was registered as the first Miniature Australian Shepherd after a nearly two-decade long breeding program. As you can see in the picture, Cordova's Spike looked very little like the Australian Shepherd of that day. Spike was the result of breeding a different genetic selection from among what was generally referred to as "little blue dogs". In 1982, Doris Cordova, owner of Cordova's Spike, published a letter to fellow breeders in the National Stock Dog Magazine. In her letter, Mrs. Cordova stated that the Miniature Australian Shepherd was to be its own breed. To emphasize that the Miniature Aussie was not a size variety, she compared her breed to that of the Miniature Schnauzer, which is not a size variety of the Standard or Giant Schnauzer. In the same way the Miniature Schnauzer is similar to the larger Schnauzer breeds, the Miniature Australian Shepherd looked "similar" to its cousin the Australian Shepherd. Unfortunately, Mrs. Cordova passed away before either the Australian Shepherd or the Miniature Australian Shepherd breeds were recognized outside of the rare breed circuit.
In 1991 the Australian Shepherd gained recognition with the American Kennel Club (AKC). At that time, as tiny minority of no more than 1% of the Miniature Australian Shepherd breeders considered their Miniatures enough like Australian Shepherds to take advantage of the opportunity to register their dogs with AKC as that breed. NSDR registry already had approximately 6000 Miniature Australian Shepherds registered in their registry when the Australian Shepherd went to AKC. The other 99% of the Miniature Australian Shepherd breeders chose to continue on course, advancing the interests of their breed, separate and apart from the Australian Shepherd, just as Mrs. Cordova's published writings in the NSDR magazine in 1982 had encouraged breeders to do.
In order to maintain the Miniature Aussie's eligibility to compete as a rare breed, fanciers could no longer use a name that implied miniaturization of an AKC recognized breed. So in the early 1990s they renamed the breed the North American Shepherd. By the mid-1990s, officers of the club for the North American Shepherd sent out a letter stating their breed's numbers had increased enough to consider moving on to breed recognition for the North American Shepherd. Unfortunately for the breed, a new club organized with a goal totally opposite the desires of the founders of the breed forty years earlier; they advocated pursuing recognition as a "variety" of the AKC Australian Shepherd. Apparently they based their new premise on those 1% of Miniature Aussie breeders' registering their dogs as Australian Shepherds when the AKC stud books were still open. The new group of Miniature Australian Shepherd fanciers pushed for the other 99% to give up the idea of breed recognition, and embrace the notion of "variety" status.
Over the past twelve years, the North American Shepherd breed has grown to approx 20,000 dogs, and has flourished in a number of breed clubs and registries. However not until the late Doris Cordova's dream of official breed status is attained can DNA breed profiling begin, proving parentage of each breeding and ultimately the purity of the breed itself. Our club organized with one purpose as its objective: to gain breed recognition with at least one of the two major registries (AKC or UKC) whereupon DNA profiling may begin, eventually allowing the closure of the stud books, with all future breedings being verified. This will prevent unscrupulous breeders' intentionally crossing other breeds into our lines and identify incorrect parentage when an accidental cross of breeds has occurred in facilities housing more than one breed.
Those of us who love the North American Shepherd have many to thank, most especially the Miniature Australian Shepherd Club of the late 1960s whose members refused to let their "Little Saddle Dogs" become lost to the future. Our breed can now stand on its own merit and warm the hearts of many as we start the process of closing the stud books in preservation of the healthiest, most versatile and one of the largest in dog numbers to ever enter a major dog registry in the United States as a newly recognized breed.
REFERENCES
Dog World Magazine May 2005
Dog Fancy Magazine July 2004
Australian Shepherd , Dog World Magazine, Volume 15 by Audrey Pavia
All About Aussies by Jeanne Joy Hartnagle Taylor
Family Shopper, August 24th, 1961 by Mrs. Ely
http://www.roughcolliesofdistinction.com/breed_ancestry.htm
http://www.hrdndog.com/pedigrees/
History of the Miniature Australian Shepherd AKA the North American Shepherd
copyright 2008 Lynn Fremuth
The Miniature Australian Shepherd (aka North American Shepherd) was developed as a different breed from the Australian Shepherd. Most Australian Shepherd fanciers are not familiar with the founding Miniature Austalian Shepherds because they weren't included in ASCA's registry as "A" (foundation) dogs, and their lines were purposely developed separately from the ASCA Australian Shepherd, using NSDR registry.I'll be referring to the Miniature Australian Shepherd/North American Shepherd/North American Miniature Australian Shepherd/Toy Australian Shepherd interchangably. The breed's various names and changes to those names over the years, and the more recent development and promotion of the Toy (and even "Teacup") by Mini/NAS breeders, makes referring to them by their individual names rather cumbersome.
Now, let's start at the beginning of the Miniature Australian Shepherd breed. Who was Cordova's Spike ? Well, he's sort of like Harper's Old Smokey is to Australian Shepherds. If you go back far enough in an Australian Shepherd pedigree, you'll probably find Smokey. And if you go back far enough in a Miniature Australian Shepherd pedigree, you'll probably find Spike.
How significant are Spike and his breeder/owner(s) to the development of the Miniature Australian Shepherd?
From the NAMASCUSA webpage:
http://www.namascusa.com/about.htm
"In 1968 a horse woman in Norco, California, began a breeding program specifically to produce very small Australian Shepherds. Her name was Doris Cordova, and the most well known dog from her kennel is Cordova's Spike. Spike was placed with Bill and Sally Kennedy, also of Norco, California, to continue to develop a line of miniature Aussies under the B/S kennel name. Another horseman, Chas Lasater of Valhalla Kennels soon joined the ranks of mini breeders.
"Cordova, Lasater and the Kennedy's together attempted to form the first parent club for the miniatures. Although the club never quite got off the ground, their stated purpose for developing the miniatures was to produce an Australian Shepherd under 17" who had the heart, intelligence and drive to work stock, and yet be small enough to travel easily to stock shows and be a 'house' dog."
Charles Lasater is still breeding Miniature Australian Shepherds. On his website he refers to the Miniature as a *breed* unto itself, not as a "variety" of Australian Shepherd. He notes, "The Miniature Australian Shepherd is recognized as a breed and is registered by the Nation al Stock Dog Registry, located in Butler Indiana." On his "History" page, he writes, "The Miniature Australian Shepherd was started as a breed in 1968 from a group of small select Australian Shepherds."
http://www.valhalla-aussies.com
http://www.valhalla-aussies.com/history.html
Compare that to the MASCA version:
http://www.mascaonline.org/History.htm
"During the 1960's, a Californian Australian Shepherd enthusiast acquired several small working Aussies from the rodeo circuit. Intrigued by their compact size, she worked with a veterinarian to develop a breeding program in order to preserve the trait, which quickly resulted in litters producing both dogs only 13 to 14 inches tall as well as larger Australian Shepherds. The smaller dogs eventually became known as 'miniature' Australian Shepherds."
From NAMASCUSA: "The North American Miniature Australian Shepherd Club of the USA(NAMASCUSA) was originally formed in 1990 as the Miniature Australian Shepherd Club of the USA (MASCUSA). NAMASCUSA/MASCUSA is the first parent club devoted solely to the registration, development and promotion of the Miniature Australian Shepherd (a.k.a. North American Shepherd)."
http://www.namascusa.com/clubinfo.htm
MASCUSA was founded as a *breed club* for the Miniature Aussie, as demonstrated by the advertisement it placed in the National Stock Dog Magazine in 1990, referring to the Miniature Australian Shepherd breed.
It must be noted at this point that the AKC's recognition of the Australian Shepherd in 1993 forever sealed the division between Australian Shepherds and Miniature Australian Shepherds. From the NAMASCUSA website "History" page, circa 2002:
"In 1993, AKC officially recognized the Australian Shepherd, but did not include the miniatures in that recognition."
See full archived page, which presents the history of the Miniature Australian
Shepherd breed, here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20010405132202/www.namascusa.com/about.htm
The Miniature Australian Shepherd Club of America is a "breakaway" parent club, formed by people who objected to MASCUSA's continued pursuit of separate breed identity for Miniature Australian Shepherd and to the necessary name change that allowed the Mini/NAS to continue showing as a rare breed. It should come as no surprise that MASCA has "expunged" any reference to being a separate breed from their "official history". It does not serve their purposes.
http://www.mascaonline.org/clubinfo.htm
"The parent club for the Miniature Australian Shepherd, the Miniature Australian Shepherd Club of America (MASCA) was formed in 1996 by a dedicated group of enthusiasts in response to the need for a central organization running a straightforward registry and providing fair and consistent management of the Miniature Australian Shepherd."
MASCA also identifies itself as "the oldest and largest extant parent club for the Australian Shepherd of the miniature variety (miniature Australian Shepherd)."
How can MASCA claim to be older than NAMASCUSA when NAMASCUSA was formed six years *before* MASCA? The answer is in the single word, "variety." MASCA was founded to promote the Miniature as a "variety" of the Australian Shepherd. NAMASCUSA, the original parent club and the longer-established of the two, had a history of identifying the Miniature/North American Shepherd as a *separate breed* from the Australian Shepherd. NAMASCUSA was once NASCUSA was once MASCUSA, and the club's name change in itself tells a tale.
The most significant point is that neither MASCA nor MASCUSA/NASCUSA/NAMASCUSA was in existence at the dawn of the Miniature Australian Shepherd breed, which can be traced to no later than 1982. The founders of the Miniature Austra lian Shepherd breed did not register their dogs with
ASCA. They used NSDR alone at the beginning, eventually registering them as *Miniature* Australian Shepherds, not as Australian Shepherds. The distinction was purposeful. The founders intended to distinguish their dogs as a separate breed from the Australian Shepherd. There is no truth to the commonly believed assertion that Miniature Aussie breeders "broke away" from ASCA so they could more "fairly" show their "variety" in conformation shows.
Which brings us back to Cordova's Spike.
Both clubs point to Mrs. Doris Cordova as the driving founder of the Miniature Australian Shepherd breed. MASCA's "official history" prefers to downplay her significant contribution, focusing the spotlight instead on ASCA and the Australian Shepherd. NAMASCUSA *almost* gets it right. But politics being what they are, even they can't quite admit that Doris Cordova's stated goal was to create an entirely new breed, which she did. She called the breed "Miniature Australian Shepherd."
Spike's descendants are virtually 100% NON-ASCA registered. His offspring weren't. Their offspring weren't. On down through the generations to this very day. There was no "breaking away from ASCA" by breeders of Miniatures. Miniatures were never were *part* of ASCA's registry. And if AKC hadn't opened their studbooks to all comers back in 1991, and again twice after that, Spike's descendants wouldn't be AKC-registered, either.
Mrs. Cordova founded a new breed with Spike. When she was satisfied that the new breed was well enough along in its development, she promoted the creation of a single-breed registry for Miniature Australian Shepherds. That ideal seems to have met with little success, until MASCUSA came along about nine years later. By then, of course, it *was* all about showing this "new rare breed" in Rare Breed conformation shows, separately from the Australian Shepherd.
Here is what Mrs. Doris Cordova is documented to have said over twenty-five years ago:
"Based on a selective breeding program and measured successes, we feel these dogs merit their own registry. The inbred qualities of intelligence, fearless ness, agility and endurance, as well as stature, are no less by design than is the development of the miniature Schnauzer or Morgan horse."
I'll pause here to direct a question to the folks who claim the Miniature was developed to be a “true variety” of Australian Shepherd. Did Mrs. Cordova compare the Miniature Australian Shepherd to the Poodle, with its three "varieties"? No. She compared it to the miniature Schnauzer, a separate *BREED* from the Standard Schnauzer.
Mrs. Cordova then went on:
"Quite honestly, this program is still developing and represents a new breed."
There it is. The Miniature Australian Shepherd was, from the very start, developed as a NEW BREED. Not a "variety". A different breed. That's why anyone doing a pedigree search back to Cordova's Spike's will find nine (or more) generations of Miniature Australian Shepherds.
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