
About
Our Toy Aussies are, first and foremost, our pets and companions. They sleep in our bed (how can such little dogs take up so much space?!) and go on hikes, adventures, and car rides. They play with our kids and our cat, and trample the flowers in our garden.
Although our Toy Australian Shepherds enjoy an easy suburban lifestyle, we recognize and respect that they are working dogs at heart. We are passionate about providing training and enrichment opportunities to satisfy our dogs’ needs to exercise their brains and their bodies. Depending on their interests and aptitudes, our dogs have participated in agility, canine good citizenship, scent work, barn hunt, trick training, and therapy work. Sometimes our dogs decide they prefer chasing bunnies in the backyard to structured dog sports, and that’s OK too. Their health and happiness come first.
So our dogs can live their longest and best lives with us, they receive regular veterinary care, health testing, and grooming, including brushing their teeth and clipping or filing their claws.
Why Toy Aussies?
We have owned and loved other mixed-breed and purebred dogs, but fell in love with the Toy Aussie for a number of reasons. There’s no denying that a well-bred Australian Shepherd is a strikingly beautiful animal, and the toys are just so darn cute. But aesthetics aside, Toy Aussies stole our hearts with their intelligence, character, and loyalty. Watching them think and learn is nothing short of incredible, and they always find ways to make us laugh with their antics.
What makes us different?
Our breeding program prioritizes health, temperament, and continuous learning. We conduct rigorous DNA and health testing on our breeding dogs and study ideal Toy Australian Shepherd biomechanics so we can produce puppies with sound bodies and structure. Equally important is soundness of mind. In their first eight weeks with us, our puppies receive nearly round-the-clock supervision and care, and are provided with structured science-based socialization opportunities to give them a developmental head start on life. This means that when your puppy comes home with you for the first time, it has already experienced a number of sights, smells, and sensations, learned valuable manners and social skills, and been desensitized to loud noises and other potentially frightening situations. It has been said that puppies learn best what they learn first, so we seize every opportunity to help our puppies become resilient, well-rounded, go-anywhere family pets.
Why “Tater Tails?”
When Russet, our little man of the house, was a puppy, he looked like a tiny round potato with a tail! “Tater Tails” is a nod to him and all the fluffy little potato puppies we raise.