Click here to see Annie’s picture in the first ever AKC Canine Partners Newsletter.  Hers is the first picture.  I’m so proud of my little Aussie with a twist.  She’s a brilliant dog, who’s also beautiful.

I drove 3 hours one way to adopt Annie from a shelter in central Florida five years ago.  I had been watching her picture on the pet finder for a while, and I wanted an Aussie something big.  There are rarely full bred Aussies or Border Collies in the shelters in south Florida, so I was excited to find Annie.  She was a self blue merle, too; a rare find.

So when I sent in her pictures to the AKC to get her ILP as an Aussie, imagine my surprise when they denied it.  I was so surprised, I tried again.  And they denied her again!  A few years passed, and when the AKC finally admitted mixed breeds, they gave me her mixed breed listing for free.  Or they didn’t ask me to apply a fourth time.  OK, yes, I tried one other time.  Someone suggested I try to ILP her as a Border Collie.  I did that even though she didn’t look like a Border Collie to me.  She is and always will be an Aussie to me, an Aussie with a twist of maybe a little something extra.