Australian Stumpy Tail Cattle Dog
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| Other names | Stumpy Tail Cattle Dog | ||||||||||||||||||||
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| Common nicknames | Stumpy, Stumpy[-]Tail, Heeler | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Origin | Australia | ||||||||||||||||||||
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| Notes | Being only provisionally accepted by FCI, the breed is not eligible for the CACIB. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris) | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Traits | |||
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| Height | 46–51 cm (18–20 in) | ||
| Coat | short | ||
| Color | red speckled or blue speckled | ||
| Life span | 10–13 years | ||
| Classification / standards | |||
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| FCI | Group 1, Section 2 Cattle Dogs #351 (provisional) | standard | |
| ANKC | Group 5 (Working Dogs) | standard | |
| CKC | Group VII: Herding Dogs | standard | |
| NZKC | Working | standard | |
| UKC | Herding Dog Group | standard | |
The Australian Stumpy Tail Cattle Dog is a naturally bobtailed or tailless, medium-sized breed of dog and a variation of the Australian Cattle Dog. The Australian Stumpy Tail Cattle Dog was developed in Australia to herd cattle, and descends from crosses between European herding dogs and the Australian dingo. The name is spelled both with hyphenation, as Australian Stumpy-Tail Cattle Dog, and without, and the shorter name Stump Tail Cattle Dog is also sometimes applied.
The Australian Stumpy Tail Cattle Dog descended from Smithfield herding dogs of England, which were brought to Australia in the early 19th century and cross-bred with the dingo. Records of working dogs are scarce from this time period, and there are differing accounts of the breed's development. One is that a drover named Timmins from Bathurst, New South Wales, crossed the Smithfield dogs with the dingo, producing a type of working dog called Timmins' Biters. In order to mute their dingo characteristics and make the dogs easier to handle, further crosses were made with Scottish Smooth Collies, producing speckled red and blue dogs that were often born tailless.
In the book A Dog Called Blue, author Noreen Clark makes the case that both the tailless Australian Stumpy Tail Cattle Dog and the Australian Cattle Dog descended from the same stock, called Halls Heelers, kept in the 1830s by a very large cattle operation run by Thomas Hall. The dogs which were also crosses of Smithfield and dingo, but the breeds diverged at some point in the late 20th century.Selective breeding of the tailless or short-tailed dogs has fixed the characteristic of today's breed.
The Australian Stumpy Tail Cattle Dog has been recognised as a standardised breed since 1988 in its native country by the Australian National Kennel Council, in its "Group 5 (Working Dogs)". It is also recognised by the nearby New Zealand Kennel Club in its "Working" group.
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Wikipedia