Differences between Standard, Mini and Toy Australian Shepherds |Life With Aspen|
all right so hi everyone um today she’s
gonna cross in front of the camera today
she’s gonna cross in front of the camera
all right today I wanted to talk about
the differences between mini Aussies TOI
Aziz and standard Auggie’s and she’s got
her ball you’re so distracting okay all
right yeah so I’ve gotten a lot of
questions about the differences between
many Australian Shepherds and TOI
Australian Shepherds versus the standard
and so I thought that I would touch on
that today a little disclaimer at the
very beginning this is not to you know
say that standard Aussies are better
than mini Aussies or mini Aussies are
better than standard I don’t have any
opinion on that matter it’s just kind of
to present the information to you guys
so this topic can actually be a bit
sensitive for some individuals I don’t
really know why but there is a big hype
between standard Australian Shepherd
owners and mini Aussie owners on kind of
what is considered to be an Australian
Shepherd basically in the United States
at least the registry has now become
more that many Aussies are considered to
be North American shepherds so you might
hear the term mini American and that’s
actually the same exact thing as a mini
Aussie it’s just kind of different terms
it’s the same exact animal just
different terms for it and I don’t
understand really what the big big hype
is I personally and not an individual
that is like full-on focused on just
having a purebred that’s not my main
focus Aspen is not CKC registered or AKC
registered at all she is a purebred
standard Australian Shepherd I don’t
have any papers for her though and I
careless about papers I think the most
important thing is a healthy animal and
I think that’s kind of what people have
had somewhat of an issue with when you
minimize the size of a breed you can run
into health complications if it’s not
done properly I’m not saying that it
can’t be done I definitely think that if
you have a veterinarian that is
monitoring that breeding and you’re
downsizing the animal but you’re being
respectful and responsible with your
breeding it can be done perfectly fine
without a lot of health complications
all right so the first thing that comes
to mind when you talk about different
types of Aussies is of course the size
so the main difference that you’re going
to see with mini ozzie versus a standard
Australian Shepherd is of course size of
the animal usually standard Ozzie’s
measure between 18 to 24 inches high a
Mini Aussie would be classified as less
than not they would be classified
between the 18 to about 14 inch range so
that’s kind of how you tell and then
anything that’s a toy would be 14 inches
and under so when it comes to the
differences between them that’s probably
the biggest thing is just size of the
animal when it comes to personality
every single animal is different so
every animal has what’s called
individual variation every animal will
present itself in a different way now a
lot of mini Aussies and toy Ozzie’s can
have the standard behavior that’s found
in standard Australian Shepherds you can
have a lot of herding behaviors a lot of
nipping a lot of yipping and barking it
really depends on the animal so you’re
really not going to be able to predict
as much the behavior that you’re going
to get it’s more just the size of the
animal
when it comes to many versus standard
versus toy I really don’t think
behaviorally speaking that many Aziz and
Twyla Z’s are going to be extremely
different from standard Australian
Shepherds I think that you should
probably expect the same energy level
and some of the same hurdles but you’re
going to have to deal with with a
standard Australian Shepherd but it is
possible to have different breed
behaviors introduced into some of the
smaller Aussies toy Ozzy’s especially
because there are going to be different
breeds that’s the way that an animal is
made smaller you have to introduce
smaller dogs to be able to get that and
so it’s perfectly reasonable to expect
that your toy Ozzy especially may
exhibit certain behavioral traits that
are somewhat like a Pomeranian or
somewhat like a Sheltie or whatever dogs
that were introduced into the line that
your breeder is using so basically the
difference in size that you see in a
mini Australian Shepherd in a toy
Australian Shepherd can be due to two
different things the one thing that it
can be due to is the use of smaller
standard Australian Shepherds in the
breeding line so you can use runts of
the litter that have a smaller height in
order to breed in a smaller height into
a line of Australian Shepherds now those
smaller dogs are technically 100%
purebred Australian Shepherds but the
problem is that a lot of other breeds
are being introduced to get the smaller
height that isn’t necessarily a big
problem health-wise if you have a
veterinarian that is monitoring the
breeding but there are a lot of bad
breeders out there that don’t do that
and so that results in animals
are not healthy at all so the main
breeds that are introduced to get a
teacup sized Australian Shepherds to a
very very small Australian Shepherd less
than 14 inches tall is basically breeds
like Pomeranians poppy young corgis
Shelties those kind of breeds that are
smaller and that is why when you look at
a lot of toy Ozzy’s a lot of them have
very different facial features then
regular Australian Shepherds a lot of
them have the coat color a lot of
breeders will select for different eye
colors as well as coat colors because
those are basically the two things that
Aussies are really well known for but
you do have different facial structures
based off of the breeds that are
introduced even though there are some
people that are you know proponents for
just standard Aussies as well as there
are very passionate proponents of mini
Aussies I think that the most important
thing is the health of the animal it
really doesn’t matter if your animal is
mixed with other things other dogs dog
breeds whatever it doesn’t really matter
as long as your animal is healthy and so
I do believe that mini Aussies and TOI
Ozzy’s can be made with health in mind
as long as the breeder is using a
veterinarian while they’re breeding as
long as they’re consulting with a
veterinarian to make sure that certain
genetic conditions aren’t introduced
into their lines but the big issue is
really bad breeding and you see that
with animals that are shrunken down to
these kind of smaller standards there’s
a lot of genetic issues and health
issues that can be associated
with making an animal smaller and the
reason for this is because of course by
doing that first of all you’re
introducing genetic conditions that are
predisposed to smaller animals so things
like luxating patellas so your the
kneecap there’s a lot of unstable
kneecaps in smaller breeds and you can
also introduce issues with birthing in
your animal so you guys know that I
worked at vet clinics and quite a quite
a lot of the time bad breeders would
bring in animals that they had bred to
animals that were too big for that
female dog to handle and therefore that
female dog had huge puppies inside of
her and was unable to give birth
naturally so a lot of cesarean sections
happen because of people that are
breeding two dogs that really don’t
anatomically fit together very well if
you breed a small Pomeranian to a
smaller standard Australian Shepherd and
the Pomeranian is the female that poor
doggy is trying to push out a baby that
is almost the same size as her right so
you can have a lot of complications
associated with that but like I said I
think the main thing is just to have a
healthy animal I don’t think that it’s
impossible to have a healthy mini Ozzy
or a healthy toy Ozzy you just have to
be very dedicated to finding the right
breeder for those of you that want to
make sure that you have a good breeder
you can do as much research as you want
you really the more research the better
but the two things that I would
recommend doing is number one contact
the breeder that your
about and ask them if they are
affiliated with a veterinarian and what
I mean by that is that they use a
veterinarian consistently as they’re
having puppies ask them if you can
contact that veterinarian for a
reference so if you do get permission to
contact that veterinarian I would
definitely do so I would contact that
veterinarian and just ask them whether
or not they’ve seen the animals that
this breeder is breeding as well as
sometimes veterinarians that are used by
the breeder will continue to be used by
the people that purchase those animals
and it’s quite realistic that that
veterinarian might actually have seen
some of the brothers and sisters that
your dog is going to be related to so
they’re going to have a really good
understanding of the health of that line
that that breeder is using and just ask
them if they would recommend that
breeder if the veterinarian says yes
then you probably have a good breeder
you’re more than welcome to do more
research on on that topic and you know
dive as deep as you want to into making
sure that you’ve got a healthy dog I
hope that this has been helpful um I
hope that it’s given I don’t know some
information about mini Aussies
I’ve never owned a mini Ozzie or a toy
Ozzie so I really basically had to do
research online so anyone that has a
mini Ozzie or a toy Ozzie please comment
down below let some of us know kind of
what the behavioral traits that you’ve
seen in your Ozzie is I’m sure that a
lot of people are going to be asking
this question over and over again so the
more information we can get down in the
comments the better and yeah let’s just
help each other out because I definitely
don’t know a lot about the topic I just
have what I could research so anyone
that can comment down below please do so
if you want to give this video a thumbs
up you can always do that as well I
always appreciate that and I will see
you guys in my next video take care bye
