The Heeler is a naturally bobtailed or tailless, medium-sized cattle dog similar and/or related to 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, Blue Heeler, and without, and the shorter name Heeler is also sometimes applied.
History
The Heeler 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 dingoes, 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 Heeler and the Australian Cattle Dog descended at one point from the same stock, called Halls Heelers, kept in the 1830s by a very large cattle operation run by Thomas Hall. The dogs were also crosses of Smithfield dogs and dingoes, 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 Heeler is a normally proportioned, rugged dog with pricked ears and long legs. The breed's most distinctive feature, for which the breed is named, is the frequent lack of a tail. When there is a tail, it is quite short, no longer than 10 cm, and undocked. The coat is medium length to short, straight, dense and harsh. The coat color is a speckled red or speckled blue. Heelers do not show brown points or markings as seen on the ACD. Height is at the withers for dogs, with females slightly smaller. Blue Heelers is similar in appearance to the Heeler, but the Australian Cattle Dog is proportionally heavier, less leggy and has brown points and markings.
Temperament
The ideal temperament of the Heeler is described in the breed standard as alert and watchful, as well as responsive to its owner and reserved around strangers, but also notes that "it must be amenable to handling" at shows. All working dogs need early socialisation with people, and consistent training and activity throughout their lives.
Activities
Heelers can compete in dog agility trials, obedience, showmanship, flyball, tracking, frisbee and herding events. Herding instincts and trainability can be measured at noncompetitive herding tests. "Stumpies" exhibiting basic herding instincts can be trained to compete in herding trials.
