LAKE FOREST – Cooper, a red merle Australian shepherd puppy with tiny blue eyes, lifted his white snout and sniffed the air. Within a second, he caught Tim Welch’s scent and ran a few feet ...

Keller is what’s known as a double merle, a reference to the color of her coat. In the Australian shepherd breed, when a male merle is bred to a female merle, the puppies have a 25 percent ...