06/20/2025
If you are lonely, we can help you find your new best friend. These little guys would love to fill that niche. :) More info in the comments.
Faithwalk Small Aussies and Miniature American Shepherds
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- Faithwalk Small Aussies and Miniature American Shepherds
Quality AKC Mini American and small Australian Shepherds are bred for sound minds and bodies
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234 Awesome Aussie Lane
Hillsdale, MI
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Faithwalk Aussie and Miniature American Shepherds
To understand how Faithwalk Aussies/MAS is run, you have to go back to my childhood and life long passion which is to learn all I could about animal behavior, canines especially. The more we understand how dogs think, the better we can understand them. And the better we understand them, the better and deeper our communication and relationships will be with them. Since I was a small child I was drawn to animals, not so much just to have pets but to really observe them, with no other goal than to understand. In my twenties was blessed to have the opportunity to live and work with wolves at Wolf Park, alongside some of the greatest minds in the field of canine behavior. I spent about 10 years there and learned more than some do in a life time. I also learned how important quality of life is for all animals, captive wildlife as well as our domestic animals. Even when I got married and moved, my passion to understand behavior did not wane and even today, it’s the driving force in all I do.
Along with that passion to understand, I have a passion to teach. Dogs (and wolves) are great teachers if we step outside ourselves and stop trying to understand them through our human filters, but try to walk in their world and see things as they do. I never set out to be a dog breeder, but along with my passion for behavior, I also had a keen interest in how it was inherited. I knew it was not “just how you raise them” as I followed generations of canines, sometimes most or all of a litter, and saw they were who they were from birth and how we raised them did not change that. Yes, we could influence behavior but not profoundly change the temperament. This makes sense, if you could by how you raise a dog, profoundly change things, we would not even need breeds, but could take any generic dog and make it the best herding dog, bird dog, sled dog and so on. We all know it doesn’t work that way. I also was quite familiar with how selecting breeding could change things in just a few generations, after having studied Dr Dmitry Belyaev’s fox breeding experiment. In that he evaluated thousands of foxes and picked a few hundred of the most “tractable” ones (meaning naturally easy going, not too aggressive, not too shy.) He began to breed them and kept selecting for those temperament traits, but also noticed that physical changes happened along with it, traits we associate with domestication like floppy ears, spotted coat colors and curly tails. It showed how behavioral and physical traits are linked so we can’t select for one without changing the other. I also realized just how quickly we can increase the occurrence of the temperament traits we wanted by REALLY selecting for them, and that’s where my breeding program was born. Now this does not mean my dogs or any dogs are carbon copies of each other or any is “perfect”. But it means selecting for the temperament traits I really value, which include biddability, resilience, strong social attraction, drive with an off button, intelligence (especially in problem solving), and overall stable, sound minded dogs. It means actively selecting against the traits I don’t want which include shyness, reactivity, aggression, anxiety, fear, hyper activity, aloofness, too much softness, or any other trait that makes a dog less functional in it’s role as a companion much less any other goal we may have for it. This also does not mean none of the dogs I will produce won’t have some of those, but I actively work to diminish it by selecting breed, carefully evaluating what I produce and making necessary changes. And I actively select for the traits I DO want to see more of.
I also must have good health so do all due diligence there, by doing x-rays for OFA rating for hips and elbows, annual CAER eye exams, and DNA testing for MDR1, HSF4, CEA, prcd-PRA and more. I study pedigrees for all things including the risk of things we can’t test for like epilepsy, but also temperament traits. Temperament is not just a gene, but is so complex so knowing what is there in the parents and relatives is key to making the best breeding decisions. And lastly, but still very important, I want good structure, movement and breed type. Even dogs sold as pets should have this so they can stay sound through an active life with their humans.
