Questions you should ask a breeder, and our answers!

How long have you been breeding Australian Shepherds?

How did you get interested in this breed? Have you also raised, or do you now raise other breeds?

How many litters of pups have you bred?

How do you describe the temperaments of your stud dogs and bitches? For example, are they good watch dogs? Are they good with children? How are they with strangers? Do they come when called?

How many stud dogs and bitches do you currently own?

How do you spend time each day with of your stud dogs and bitches? (Examples: play fetch, herd livestock, take for a walk in the neighborhood, training sessions, go for car ride.)

Do you take your dogs into public situations? (Examples: do obedience demonstrations, go to hospitals, play in the park.)

Have you done any conformation, obedience, herding competitions with your dogs?

What are the OFA (orthopedic foundation for animals) ratings on your dogs' hips?

Have the eyes for your stud dogs and bitches been checked by a veterinary Ophthalmologist? Were any defects found?

What congenital or hereditary defects have shown up in dogs related to your breeding stock? (Examples: epilepsy, deformities, deaf/blind puppies from merle to merle breedings, thyroid disease.)

Were the puppies eyes checked?

How many litters do you produce each year?

How many puppies were born in the litters?

Where are the puppies raised?

How long does the bitch remain with her puppies?

How do you socialize the puppies? Do you spend time with each puppy individually, and when old enough away from the rest of the litter? Does anyone else spend time handling the puppies?

Can you give me three names for reference?

Who is your veterinarian, and can I call him or her for reference?

What dog organizations are you a member of? If you're a member of the Australian Shepherd Club of America, are you familiar with its code of ethics, and do you follow it?

an I call you for advice if I purchase one of your puppies?

Do you offer a guarantee?

Our Answers to the questions

Name: Foss & Jeni Gallichan

Kennel Name: Mikatura Australian Shepherds

Address: P. O. Box 9, Site 2, RR #1, Eckville, Alberta, Canada T0M 0X0

How long have you been breeding Australian Shepherds? Since 1983

How did you get interested in this breed? Have you also raised, or do you now raise other breeds? We were given our first Aussie in 1983 and came, very quickly, to love their intelligence, herding ability, loyalty and immense charm. We do not raise other breeds although we both have owned dogs of various other breeds including GSDs, Australian Cattle Dogs, Border Collies, Labrador Retrievers (Black and Yellow), Beagles, and a variety of "pound hounds" and rescues of unknown parentage!

How many litters of pups have you bred? From 1983 to 2008 a total of 9 litters.

How do you describe the temperaments of your stud dogs and bitches? For example, are they good watch dogs? Are they good with children? How are they with strangers? Do they come when called? The temperament of our dogs is excellent and our answer is yes to all of the above questions…if they did not possess excellent temperaments we would not consider using them for breeding. Our dogs are all exposed to a variety of situations ranging from visitors to our home (including children of all ages), dog shows, herding trials, rodeos, mountain riding/camping trips. The dogs also spend a great deal of time traveling in the trucks with both of us, sometimes just one dog at a time and sometimes all of them. They love children and warm up to strangers quickly after they are "introduced". At home we always get "warning" barks that someone has arrived, if it's someone new the barking continues until we give a "no bark" command or arrive to see who the stranger is…if it is one of our friends arriving we always know, the excitement is extremely evident in the tone of the dogs "warning" barks!

How many stud dogs and bitches do you currently own? Five bitches (Chyne, SallyRose. Sadi, EmmaJean & Ginny) and five males (Tuffy, Griff, Hank, Jim & Banjo).  We also have Molly & Dani, both spayed girls.

How do you spend time each day with of your stud dogs and bitches? (Examples: play fetch, herd livestock, take for a walk in the neighborhood, training sessions, go for car ride.) All of the above, all of the time! Our dogs are with one of us 24/7!

Do you take your dogs into public situations? (Examples: do obedience demonstrations, go to hospitals, play in the park.) Not only do our dogs regularly "go to town" with us we also attend dog shows, herding trials, mountain riding/camping trips, rodeos, visits to friends homes, our dogs go everywhere we go, if they aren’t welcome we won’t be able to come!

Have you done any conformation, obedience, herding competitions with your dogs? I have shown our dogs occasionally but our true love is herding.

What are the OFA (Orthopedic Foundation For Animals) ratings on your dogs' hips? All of our dogs have been at least prelim'd good.

Have the eyes for your stud dogs and bitches been checked by a veterinary Ophthalmologist? Were any defects found? Our dogs are all CERF checked on a regular basis every year and all have normal CERF ratings or they are not used for breeding.  If a dog has any abnormalities we seriously consider that before using any dog from those lines for breeding.

What congenital or hereditary defects have shown up in dogs related to your breeding stock? (Examples: epilepsy, deformities, deaf/blind puppies from merle to merle breedings, thyroid disease.) None that we are aware of.  We have carefully checked with the breeders that we purchased our dogs from and are in constant contact with them.  We have been very careful selecting our breeding stock.

Were the puppies eyes checked? Yes, they all checked out clear of any defects or deformities.

How many litters do you produce each year? 9 litters between 1983 and 2008.

How many puppies were born in the litters? If any died, do you know why they died? With our old bitch 1st litter - 10 pups, 2nd litter - 11 pups, 3rd litter - 10 pups, our 2001 litter, 5 pups. SallyRose always has 7, Sadi had 7 and Chyne had 9.  How many survived? We lost 5 pups from the second litter when they, at 5 weeks old, got into some lawn fertilizer that was on the floor of a garden shed…..a very hard and extremely sad lesson was learned…keep everything that could be potentially dangerous locked up!  We also lost one young fella, Tooke, from our 2002 litter when he got Parvovirus.

Where are the puppies raised? In the house with the family and all the Uncle and Auntie dogs! When the weather is good the pups have regular "out doors" play time with one of us in attendance at all times or they are in large kennel/runs.

How long does the bitch remain with her puppies? As long as she likes, we start feeding at about 3 weeks but most often we’ve found the bitch will still supplement feed until five or six weeks.

How do you socialize the puppies? Do you spend time with each puppy individually, and when old enough away from the rest of the litter? Does anyone else spend time handling the puppies? The pups as a group are generally right in the middle of things with everyone handling them both individually and playing with the whole litter. All of our friends are encouraged to handle our pups once they are past the three or four week stage and we especially like children to play with the pups. We also spend time individually with each pup to ensure that they learn to enjoy being alone as well as with their litter mates.

Can you give me three names for reference?

  ~ The Hartnagle family, Las Rocosa Australian Shepherds - Kiowa, Colorado
  ~ Tanya Wheeler, Tucker Creek Australian Shepherds, Thunder Bay, Ontario
  ~ depending on where you live we will provide information for one of our puppy owners for you to speak with (phone numbers, addresses and/or e-mail will be supplied upon request)

Who is your veterinarian, and can I call him or her for reference? Lynn Tait DVM, Bentley, Alberta. The dogs are all currently up-to-date on vaccinations and very healthy. Please call or e-mail me for more information.

What dog organizations are you a member of? If you're a member of the Australian Shepherd Club of America, are you familiar with its code of ethics, and do you follow it? We are members of the Australian Shepherd Club of America, and yes we are familiar with the Code of Ethics and the breed standard of the ASCA and we follow and agree with both. We are also members of the Canadian Kennel Club, Canadian National Australian Shepherd Association, Feather River ASC & the Working Australian Shepherd Club of Alberta. Our dogs are registered with ASCA, CKC (and AKC if possible).

Do you offer a guarantee? We do.