A aussie is a dream breed for me.Two at the moment, it's been a while since I answered this. I think we had two Shelties at the time, Gracie and Sammy. Well we don't have Gracie any more but we now have a lovely but flawed Golden retriever bitch, spayed, a former breeder, named Jenny. I say flawed bc she spent most of her first three years in a kennel so she's socially a bit inept but she's a sweetie.
We're considering getting an Aussie puppy. I'll report back when we decide. It would be nice to get one and raise it up "in the way it should go" instead of trying to fix somebody else's mistakes. But, man .. an Aussie! Like we don't already have enough dog hair around here, lol!
I also want a sheltie(how much energy difference is one from your golden?)