An Australian kelpie named Eulooka hoover, just two years and four months old,sold recently at the Casterton (Victoria) working sheep dog sale for the record price of $35,200.
It has been said for a century or more, one good sheepdog is worth two men and the buyer of hoover may have calculated accordingly.
Normally, a well-trained young sheep dog in Australia now sells for between $4,000 and the previous record of $25,000.
The main working breeds
In Australia, two main breeds do most of the sheep work – the border collie and the Australian kelpie.
The kelpie takes a little longer to mature and can be difficult to train but has the stamina un-matched by other breeds and is more than capable of taking on the toughest terrain. It’s where the kelpie excels.
The border collie on the other hand, is perhaps the most intelligent breed of canine, easy to train, easy to handle and some say, a mind reader capable of excelling in any type of sheep work, ie, paddocks, yards, shearing sheds and sheep or cattle dog trials.
New Zealand’s huntaway?
In New Zealand, the huntaway, a larger, stronger dog is perhaps the most popular and known for its deeper and louder bark and is particularly handy in the steep mountainous country there which Australia doesn’t have.
Graziers will tell you about the ‘bitser’ which was the best of all sheepdogs they owned and I can concur, I once had a rough collie (Lassie) bred over a fox terrier/whippet bitch, called digger, who learned to muster sheep or cattle with amazing ease but these dogs are the exception, not the rule.
Smooth-haired border collies
In Australia, breeders have bred the long-haired border collie into a smooth-haired breed. Long hair doesn’t fit well in the heat, nor does short hair get tangled with burrs and grass seed. It’s rare to see a long-haired border collie on the farm but they do exist, I’ve had one.
She didn’t like being shorn like a sheep but she didn’t overheat nor have tangles of burrs.
Crosses of the two main breeds are also popular on grazing properties and I bought a cross-bred bitch from a trainer who wanted to retain her bloodline in the area but she was related to most of his dogs.
I asked her name, he said polar. I didn’t hear him properly and asked how the name was spelt.
“B E A R,” he said. (I caught on quickly).
One pup, work the sheep, then five more
Now polar had been trained for sheep dog trials but was also an excellent paddock dog and as loyal and hard working as any dog I’ve owned. She would never give up.
I was bringing in a small mob of sheep near the house this time and polar, who had started to whelp and so was not working with me, heard the dogs and the sheep approaching. Leaving the first born pup in the whelping box, she jumped the four foot six inch (1.37m) fence and joined in the muster. No sooner were the sheep in the yards than she returned to the box and gave birth to another five pups.
I was amazed and so were the family looking on.
I’ve previously written about diesel, the mind reading sheep dog and the best I’ve ever owned so I won’t go back to him but there has been quite a few others I could write about.
One such dog was fly, a dog I’d borrowed when I had plenty of work and only young dogs. Now fly was an amazing trial dog who had won several but she had a flaw – she was difficult to catch.
The young dogs I had followed fly while mustering and she was just right for the job. Sheep were in the yards, the young dogs thought they were world beaters but fly had disappeared.
I must have called her for an hour but gave up when darkness took over and suddenly, there she was – wagging her tail and waiting to be fed.
A few days later my neighbour told me about this amazing dog which had mustered his sheep, then his cattle, his horses, his chooks and even his kids. I gave fly back to her owners as soon as I could.
Have you ever wondered how many breeds of dog Noah took on the Ark? Did he take chihuahuas,German shepherds, huskies, corgis or any other breed?
Well, my research (https://creation.com/dog-origins) indicates there was only one type of dog on the Ark from which all other breeds have originated – a type of wolf.
The wolf is said to be the most intelligent of all dogs and the further we breed away from the wolf, the less intelligent are the breeds.
God knew what he was doing when he led the animals, two by two, into the Ark and mankind has taken the wolf and changed it into something like 400 identifiable breeds.
John Skinner served as an infantry soldier in Vietnam then the Tasmanian Police before taking up the position of CEO of the Australian Rough Riders Association (professional rodeo based in Warwick Qld). Before retirement to his small farm, he was a photo-journalist for 25 years. He is married with 3 children and 7 grandchildren.