Wednesday, October 7, 2009

the debate rests (maybe)

since we got harvey (almost a year ago!) we have speculated about his "other half". we knew mom was australian shepherd, but dad, he could have been anything. so we have googled various mixes of australian shepherd and not really been sure of anything. at first we all thought blue heeler, but then his legs got too long. lots of people have suggested lab, but i haven't thought that could be because he is the WORST (i mean this in terms of all the dogs of history kind of worst) swimmer. he just claws at the water hoping for it to harden and mimicks drowning. this makes me think no lab blood possible.

anyhow, the other night through a random internet bunny trail i came across the wikipedia site about australian kelpies. i let out a little gasp, because i felt like i finally cracked the code! the pictures showed the exact same body type, tail, head shape, and coat. the coloring didn't match up perfectly, but we know he got the blue merle color from his shepherd blood so we could account for that.

then i went on a quest for photos of australian shepherd-kelpie mixes. and tonight i uncovered the golden photo:
no more harvey, the ambiguous breed! we have got him pegged!

this one totally looks like him in action:
and lastly, if only we could teach him to do this! i am sure if there were enough sheep around, he would do it just to be a nuisance.

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