NO! The hair on a Australian Shepherd is for protection, as well as insulation from the heat and cold. Trimming feet, ears, tail, and feathers are fine, but cutting body hair will result in hair growing back in that is not the same as what they had before.
Yes you can, It is best to get your aussie use to being groomed from the minute you bring him home as a puppy. Get him use to you touching his feet and being combed with a brush. By starting him with this at a young age, he will grow to love the bonding time and look foward to it. He might not like getting his toenails done, but its a necessary evil. Letting toenails get too long is not good for the bone structure of their feet.
Sometimes it is nessasary to take your Aussie to the groomer in the spring and in the fall, when they do their biggest shedding to get most of the loose hair out.
This is a touph one to try and answer, because we all want to love our puppies and tell them its o.k. when something scares them.
The problem is, when we pet them and tell them its o.k., when they are scared. In a dogs mind we are telling them its o.k. to be scared and their must be a reason to be scared.
When a puppy is scared of something, take thunderstorms for example, if the puppy acts uncomfortable about it. Don't say anything to him or make a big deal of it. When he settles down, then give him a pet and tell him he is a good boy. If walking with him and there is somebody mowing the lawn and the noise scares him, Keep walking past it, not saying anything, so the puppy eventually learns that it is no big deal. After getting past it and he has calmed down then pet and say good boy.
A dog that is comforted every time he is upset about something is usually a dog that gets worse about the situation each time it happens.