The Working Dogs of OZ

Diwundrin

Diwundrin

Well-known Member
Location
Nth Coast NSW Australia
I doubt we could have pioneered this country without working dogs. They don't get the recognition they deserve in our history.
How would our wool and cattle industries have fared without the Kelpie and Blue Heeler?
Tough as old boots to handle the terrain and can run all day on a cup of water and a biscuit and enjoy every minute of it.
They're born for it, 6 week old pups start rounding things up just by pure instinct.
There are newer breeds in action these days but to my mind the Kelpie is still the all rounder King.

Love the no nonsense attitudes of these dogs. A really exemplary one sells at around $20,000+ and well worth it. They do the job of at least two men and don't join unions.
Hats off to the workers.

http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/national/working-dogs-20131026-2w88d.html

(Beats me why a Pug was included, can't imagine them be useful for much on a working farm, but.... ?)
 

Top working dog of Oz -

toto.jpg

I'm guessing that these dogs are not treated as family pets? That they're kept in a kennel and well-treated but not invited into the house for snuggles and biscuits?
 
Phil, that is one ugly dog.
True working dogs are outside dogs. The pug is probably the house dog.

I'm fond of the kelpies too and they do make pets but they do need to herd something.
It's in the genes.

I've never heard of a coolie before though.
 

Mostly not house pets as such. Many may retire to the back porch, depends on the type and scope of work they carry out and the personality of their owner. Some I think would find it demeaning to be banished to the house.
They are usually a one man dog when used for mustering. They mostly live chained under a sheet of corrugated iron or an old water tank when off duty. But again it depends on the value and purpose they serve. They're outdoors types and go a bit troppo (loopy) in domestic environments and get themselves into all sorts of trouble, simply because of the boundless energy they have to spend. But many people keep Kelpies and Blue Heelers as pets, often to their regret. I had a Blue Heeler/B.Collie cross and it was literally hell on passing cars' wheels. Lost a couple of it's canine teeth eventually 'cos wheels aren't cow's heels. Kelpies aren't as apt to bite and so are used more for sheep, and quiet lazy ones are okay as family pets.

The best bred working dogs are alpha types who consider themselves in charge of keeping anything that moves in some form of order and will round up grandkids, other peoples' dogs, lawn mowers, traffic, and especially cats until they either get themselves killed by an obstinate car, or drive the neighbours to the point of wanting to shoot them. They also win high jump competitions. I saw one a few years ago run straight up a 9ft plank wall and over the top onto a platform to win at the Singleton Show.
They're really hard to keep in the yard without being chained.
Careful consideration should be given when buying a pup to ensure that it's a very lazy version of the breed.

A cousin's son had one given to him and he'd take it and his bike out to the track for a workout, chasing him on the Ducati wore some of the energy off it. He eventually gave it to a bloke he knew who had a few acres out of town and it was last heard of rounding up cockatoos off his vegie crop. That seemed to be working out okay.

This is what to expect from a 'pet' one.


This is what they're bred to do, and that I've never seen done as well by anything but a Kelpie.
Imagine throwing your average family Fido into this situation. And no, I have no idea how they do this without getting a scratch on 'em.


This is how they work as a team and is why gooduns are so expensive. How many men would you have to employ to get that many sheep organized that quickly and easily??

Watch the one in the background clear the fence 10 seconds into the video. Eaaaasyyyy.

[video=youtube_share;Kfd2ygr_pIE]http://youtu.be/Kfd2ygr_pIE[/video]

Here's a team working cattle. The black Kelpie is the brains of the operation and does the heading, the white pig dog is the enforcer and provides the leg work and muscle. Bet the horse is pleased to see them doing all the work.

[video=youtube_share;2x5Uu9KdOK8]http://youtu.be/2x5Uu9KdOK8[/video]
 
If you're not thoroughly tired of Kelpies yet, here's a video which tells the story of their origin and bloodline from one extraordinary pup, swapped for a good stock horse in 1869.
It's done in (not wonderful) song, with good video to go with it.
 
Di, thanks for those videos - that's an entirely new world for a city boy like me!

The first vid - I can see why having a Kelpie as a house pet could be a problem. Far too much energy for a guy like me - I prefer a dog that actually walks, not pulls me down the street like a sled dog. :D

Second vid - I liked how he did that trick-riding thing with two of the sheep toward the end - great balance!

Third vid - again, a city-boy observation, but I can't figure out what they're actually doing with those sheep. It looks like they're just making them run laps - back and forth, round and round. I'm assuming they're herding them either into or out of a corral?

Fourth - again, tons of energy, and I can see how it would save on both man- and horse-power. That one white bull didn't seem to want to listen to them at the end, but they kept at him until he gave in. ;)
 
Third vid - again, a city-boy observation, but I can't figure out what they're actually doing with those sheep. It looks like they're just making them run laps - back and forth, round and round. I'm assuming they're herding them either into or out of a corral?
Click to expand...

Don't know much about sheep farming but looks like they've been through the shearing shed and turned out into holding pens. The dogs are working them through the connecting gates and back out onto the pastures in one big mob*.

They'll keep them moving and cut them into smaller mobs as they go so they don't clump up and overgraze one area of the property. It seems an easier way of controlling the grazing spread-out of the mob than if they were let go one at a time and just wandered off. Then he'd have to round them up again to move them on.
No doubt the 'boss' would be getting on his motorcycle and supervising operations after that video ended. Those dogs make it a one man operation and motorbikes and helicopters are replacing horses on the bigger stations now.

The Kiwis use dogs differently apparently, because of different terrain. We have wide and flat, they have a lot of up and down, so they use 2 different types. The Kelpie/Border Collie like 'eye' dog which rounds them up gently and heads them down the mountains to the shearing shed. Then a different, bigger, tougher, louder 'Huntaway' dog to chase them back out and up the hills. One to gather the flock, the other to spread it out. Cluey eh? That's how I was told it operated, haven't seen much of either system in action. I was never around at 'action' time.

*Cattle run in herds, sheep and roos are termed mobs. ... don't ask.
 
This is kind of interesting, shows why Blue Heeler Cattle Dogs aren't often used with sheep, far too aggressive.
They lack the finesse of the Kelpie. The second dog in the video looks like a Kelpie Collie cross, or maybe a Coolie, and shows how it should be done.
 
Amazing working dogs!!! You were right Di when you said my dogs looked like Kelpies - they do indeed, right down to the brown noses. My guys try to herd the cats, two of which could give a hoot, so they can try......

I haven't had mine around the horses yet, but I would imagine they won't get much of an opportunity until we can be sure both horse and dog will be safe. Not so worried about the horses, mine hates dogs and will try and round them up like cattle but the dogs will be nutcakes until they get used to seeing them around. Suspect it will be a long process.

Great post!!
 
Glad you enjoyed it TWH. That white one I presume is the Boar dog? It looks very like the ones bred for wild pigs here. Pig dogs aren't a breed as such here, just a type that suits the job. In the main they're all kinds of crosses between Bull Arabs, Bull Terriers, Mastiffs, Blue Heelers, Hounds and you name it. Strangely they all turn out with a certain look about them. Bodies like a brick, strong muscley legs that can give them a turn of speed and endurance and a wide face full of good strong teeth.

A distant cousin bred his own string and he seemed to pick them from the ugly scale. I got to play with the ugliest puppy on the planet, huge head like a sledge hammer with tiny little eyes and ears, almost pure white and the biggest ever pot belly and bandy legs. It was a nice cuddlesome little thing but my god it was hard to look at.
It grew up to look much like the others and didn't get any prettier.

He used to breed for small ears as they get torn up in a skirmish with pigs and those big ugly Bull Terrier/Arab faces with tiny ears ain't a pretty sight. They were all nice calm friendly dogs when they were home though. Except when he'd back the ute out of the shed. Then they'd all go ballistic thinking they were off on a hunt. The yard would be a mass of bouncing barking dogs, it was a really funny sight.

My cousin in Singleton bought a 6month old 'failed' pig dog from the local pound. Lucy was found tied to the bumper bar of a car for sale on the edge of town. She wasn't microchipped and nobody owned her so it seems someone had given up on her ever being a good pig dog and just abandoned her where someone would find her and adopt her on their way through town.

She was/is pitch black with a Bull Arab head, tiny ears long lean legs and the body shape, size and fur of a skinny Labrador, and a blue tongue, so there was a bit of Chow in the mix. She was the most gorgeously natured dog, far too 'nice' for pig hunting and certainly not the right shape for the job either.
She wanted nothing more than to climb into a lap and snuggle but she was far too big for that caper.

My cousin couldn't take Lucy to where she moved and I couldn't take her because I had Belle with me by then, and Belle wouldn't tolerate Lucy on her territory. Lucy could have swallowed Belle whole back then but Belle's an 'alpha' type and Lucy was a big wuss.
My cousin had no trouble finding a home for her with the family of one her employees though so she has fared okay.
 
I was watching an 'eye dog' round up sheep the other day. Not one bark came out of her mouth, it was all done by eye & stealth. Brilliant.
 
My farming friends outside of Adelaide had several dogs, one of which was a 3-legged dog (got run over by the ute) that I nicknamed "Tripod". Here's a cattle dog I saw on the back of a ute back in Thebarton. He had amazing sea legs. I'm sure it's against the law in a lot of places to have a dog in the back of an open truck.

Aussie dog.JPG
 
In New Zealand all dogs carried on the back of a vehicle must be tied on and fair enough, too many have fallen off, been killed or badly maimed when sudden braking etc. occurs.
 

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