It isn’t easy to exhaust an Australian Shepherd, but on this night, Jesse was tired. The tri-colored Australian Shepherd spent most of the humid evening working at the obedience club with her owner, Sharon Fontanini of Waukee, Iowa. Fontanini was getting tired, too, so she decided to end the evening’s efforts with one more set of exercises, beginning with a hurdle over the pole jump.

“I sent Jesse out, and she ran to the pole jump, stopped, turned around, looked right at me, then knocked the pole down and walked over it,” Fontanini says. In typical Australian Shepherd fashion, Jesse figured out a way to get her message across without technically doing anything wrong.

Smart and protective, active and independent, the Australian Shepherd can be a challenging pet, but also an incredibly rewarding companion for the right family.

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