What question are we asked most often?
                           What is a Calabria?

   Calabria isn't a thing, it's a place.  It is a region of southern Italy as well as a city.  You'll find it at the tip of the boot when looking at a map of Italy.  It is from this region that Gia's family came from.
   By naming our kennel after Calabria, we keep a tie to our heritage.

   Our goal is to produce Aussies that are sound, healthy, intelligent and good family members.  We want to produce Aussies who can compete at all levels of competition.  This is a big claim for a new kennel but our goals must be set high.  The Aussie is a breed that deserves that and more.

Our History

   We had only two dogs in the beginning.  Our two chows, Mariko and Tory, were our companions.  We never worried about competition, we just loved our furry family.

   Then we met Sydney.  We fell in love with her enthusiasm and her willingness to do anything for us.  Our love for Aussies led us to our second Aussie, Crystal.   She was vastly different than Sydney in personality but both are pure aussie.  So we learned something new, Aussies, like potato chips, are all different.

   In the beginning we concentrated on obedience competition only.  Sydney excelled at this new game and finished her CD titles quickly.  When we went to the dog shows, we would show in Obedience in the morning then head over to the Conformation ring to cheer on our friends.  Our friends could see the future and predicted that the Conformation bug would bite us one day.  And it did.  With the help of these same friends we researched the breed; its traits, nuances, health problems, breed history, etc.

Calabria Australian Shepherds was born.

The Calabria Web Page hits the Internet

Some time in 1998 I decided to try my hand at building a web page that would showcase our dogs and their accomplishments.  At that time, Sydney was moving into the Open Obedience ring,  Crystal was learning how to be Obedient and Lucas was in the Conformation ring.  We were also looking into Flyball or Agility to burn that extra energy. 

But we aren't a big kennel (or a rich one) and the equipment needed to compete in Conformation, Obedience, Agility, etc. is expensive.   So we were trying to find a way to cut our costs.  One way to do that is to build your own equipment -OR- find items that do the same job at a lower cost. 
The "Dog Show On a Budget" page was born. 

That was the only Calabria page for a few years.  We started getting deeper into Conformation and we realized that our dogs still didn't have a place to showcase themselves.  You occasionally saw a dog or two on the "Budget" page but nothing that really showed them off.  So I started work on the "Official Calabria Web Page." 

We wanted to be different.  The Official page would be all about the dogs, and the friends we've made in the company of dogs.  Our search of other Aussie web pages always shows the dogs at there very best.  Conformation dogs were always nicely stacked.  Obedience or Agility dogs were always shown with their ribbons.  BUT WHERE ARE THE DOGS BEING DOGS ???  We wanted the Calabria site to have all those nice show pictures but also pictures of the dogs being themselves.  Aussies are natural show-offs with personality to boot.  We like showing that as well.

So we hope you enjoy the Calabria pages.   They're a labor of love.

Mark and Gia Raymond