Mattie was impounded by the Merced animal control authorities who found her wandering without collar or ID. The one word description on their form was "bites." She was subsequently rescued by the Milo Foundation, based in Marin County where we adopted her. She had a damaged patella and had just been spayed, so we had no idea the level of energy she'd have after recovery.

An on line research surprised me; she most closely fit the description of an Australian Koolie both in physical characteristics and personality.

An obvious herding breed, she is mostly "black merle" with a medium length, silky coat and weighs just under 30 lbs. Her personality and shape is different than Australian Shepherds or Border Collies. Mattie has large, high perk ears, a long back and lower slung body. She has an independent nature, is very playful, incredibly mouthy, persistently jumps up, but is very alert to my whereabouts and loves to be near me and will "pine" for me, according to her dog sitters. She learns tricks quickly, looks me straight in the eye, but will only perform when she knows I have a treat, otherwise she will look away and boycott. She grazes for berries and cherry tomatoes in the garden, loves apples, but she is a very picky eater otherwise. She has ADHD characteristics. People describe her as a juvenile delinquent, and they say things like, "If she weren't so darned cute, she'd be in trouble."

The Koolie Club of Australia has a lot of information about the Koolie. Bred for decades for certain working characteristics (not appearance) in the rural farming country of Australia, the Australian Koolie has been officially recognized as a true breed only since around the year 2000 and is still coming into its own. Koolies are family oriented and also work well in sheep paddocks.

It's unlikely that Mattie came to California all the way from Australia. A more likely scenario is that her traits evolved in a similar fashion in the Sierra foothills; Merced is a rural ranching community that likely breeds dogs for their characteristics and personality for ranching and farming.

Mattie has incredible drive and energy. If she were human, she'd likely be diagnosed with ADHD. At the dog park she heels and nips at the other dogs' haunches (not always popular with the terriers.) She is mighty fast and wants only to chase and round them up. Koolies are said to love water, but I haven't tried her out in water yet; she doesn't respond to "come" primarily due to distractibility and her love for freedom to run, so I can't let her off lead. At home with me, she follows me closely in the house, and in the yard goes wild for squirrels and barks at all sorts of sounds. Our daily 1/2 hour fast walk is rarely enough for her, so my husband and I play ball with her in the evening and I engage her with training exercises for short durations during the day. At night before she sleeps, she has "the zoomies" meaning she spins around the yard at full speed, taking laps until she wears off the adrenalin.

Indeed, you are absolutely spot on regarding this breed.

I would just like to point out that the Australian cattle dog has been bred to be fearless and persistent, because they have to deal with wild animals: Australian cattle. The dogs are also very "vocal", a must when they have to impress a reluctant young stier.
The cattle roam huge territories in search of food, without seeing a human being for months on end. Calves are born in the field and may see a human for the first time when they are 3 or even 5 months old, when the herd has to be mustered.

I was surprised to read that cattle dogs are difficult to train for agility training. Maybe you meant that they don't like to repeat the exercises. The main problem is that they are easily bored: "I did the exercise right, I don't need to repeat it", they think.

Working cattle dogs must also be rather independent, i.e. be able to muster the cattle with minimal input from their masters (even on horseback, it's hard to see the dog among the cows).
They think for themselves. They still do this when they are just pets...

I really loved your book "Cesar's Way". Thank you for all your great insights, it is really inspirational.
For instance I hadn't realised the utter importance of the daily walk(s). I had not realised how "wolfish" are all dogs, and not only australian cattle dogs, who have dingo in their ancestry.
It is really silly of me because I do feed my pet female blue cattle dog according to the B.A.R.F. diet (biologically adapted raw food).

By the way, there are no problems with my dog (everybody thinks she's great), no doubt because I brought her up as if we were a pack of wolves (well, almost, we didn't go and kill the neighbours' sheep!). This is because by pure luck that I saw a documentary on wolves when she was 4 months old, and from that moment I behaved accordingly. As a result, all the difficulties I had raising her (in spite of all the books I read on how to train puppies) evaporated.

I do hope your TV shows will be screened on Australian TV, I would really love to see them.

I wish you all the best for your good work!
Sylvia