Male Australian Shepards are 21-23 inches tall. Female Australian Shepards are 81-21 inches tall. Australian Shepards or Aussies for short live to be 12-15 years old.  Aussies come in colors of blue merle, red merle, black tri, and red tri.  Aussies love to play with toys such as frisbee and fly ball.  Aussies also love to run. They need a large yard and lots of attention. They say Aussies will never run away from their owner.  A hallmark of the breed is a short bobed or docked tail in countries where docking is permitted. Aussies are normally born with a full tail and is docked when born. Dogs with strong working instinks may show more  gaurding behavior with a tendancy to chase or nip at strangers.  It's not clear were the "Australian" came from, all though it is possible that many of the dogs coming from Australia were blue merle and the adjective "Australian" became assosiated with any dog of that color.  The breed began in Arizona, California, Colorodo, Idoho, Navada, and The Pacific Northwest. Aussies love snow. They think its cold and not warm like summer. They love to roll in it and love to eat it when they get thirsty.

Sources of Information:

http:/en.wikipidia.org/wiki/australianshepanrds

Image source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/41/Bvdb-australischeherder.jpg/240px-Bvdb-australischeherder.jpg