Our Program
Coast Ranch Company Dog Program
I have been breeding Australian Shepherds since I was a teenager. 17 years later still in the business.
Today all of our Australian Shepherds are Standard Size Australian Shepherds. In the past I bred some of the "smaller Aussies", however "breeding down" didn't hold up to my standards, and even the "minis" that met criteria for my breeding program were "larger minis". I do have friends who breed minis and toys and I am more than happy to refer you, but Australian Shepherds is the breed I fell in love with and the breed I am choosing to hone my breeding program around.
Our Australian Shepherds keep all their body parts. We sell the whole dog, tail and all. When I first started breeding Aussies I docked tails and removed dew claws just like everybody else. I actually did the procedures myself to avoid taking them to the vet where they could contract a virus from other dogs at such a young age. I also hated the way the procedure was done at the vet office.
My dogs became popular in Europe around 2011 and Europeans began requesting I keep tails on their puppies (docking is illegal in most of Europe). I fell in love with their tails. Head over heal, absolutely, obsessed over the puppies with tails. This is when the research began.
I started keeping 50% of my puppies tails on 2012 and docked and removed dews of the other 50%. Surprisingly people began calling me to get on waiting lists strictly for tailed Aussies.
One day a very good friend of mine (from Germany) asked me, "Why do you dock any of the tails?"
I had no good answer. I had plenty of "answers", but none efficient enough to actually say out loud and keep true to myself. Inadequate answers that came to mind: "Because everyone else does", "because it's breed standards", "for herding", "because everyone wants them docked"- just thinking about these answers could have made me sick. I realized right then that there was absolutely no reason that I was docking tails. In 2014, I stopped docking all together. You can no even request a docked tail from my litters, I will not do it.
I have since had other breeding call me just to ridicule me for keeping tails, I have seen blogs about my program on social media platforms of breeders talking about "the little breeder in California who is taking foundation blood lines and "ruining" the breed by going against breed standards." I have been thrown every excuse you can imagine (and some that you would never imagine) , my way. These are my dogs. This is my program. My dogs keep their tails. There are plenty of breeders happily amputating tails and I do not look down on them for there choices.
In 2014 I announced on my social media platforms and website that I was no longer docking and here was what I wrote.
This still holds true today. The day I originally posted this- I was told I would never sell a puppy again.
I look forward to connecting you with your future family member.