Australian Shepherd Puppy With Merle Coat Coloring Page

This Australian shepherd puppy sits square to the front with all four paws on the ground and its head tipped very slightly to one side. The merle patches that give the breed its name appear here as open outlined shapes above each eye and along the cheeks, so you choose the tones yourself instead of working around printed shading.

Spiky short strokes run along the edge of the coat and across the chest, which gives the fur texture without breaking the page into tiny cells. The ears hang in soft triangles, the eyes are large and round with a white highlight left in each one, and a scatter of freckle dots sits on both sides of the muzzle.

A solid black oval sits under the paws as a ground shadow. It is the one filled area on the sheet, so everything else stays open for crayons, pencils or markers.

Younger colorists can treat the body as a single large shape and stop there. Older ones can pick two close tones and blend them across the merle patches to suggest the mottled coat a real Australian shepherd has.