How Often

[Blackdog92 2,047]

Blackdog, I'll try to keep this short else I'll bore people with kelpie pedigrees.

 

I've found all my kelpies to be very full on as pups and also to take a long time to mature. I remember somebody once describing old Rusty as a wall-of-death rider. However, when he reached maturity and "found" his final character he was very laid-back and could work/walk all day but switch off when at home. Amber was the same. Scout will now switch off but it's taken her longer and she's always been the most "worky" of mine.

 

When I looked into getting a replacement for Rusty, I looked at his breeding and felt his character came from a dog called Boanong Oscar (as all the similar types I knew were also descended from him: he's Rusty's great-grandsire). So I found a litter line-bred to him which is where Noggin was from. He has five lines to Oscar but, after getting him and doing even more research, I discovered that Oscar's character came from his grandsire: a dog called Abernant Jim. I then discovered that Noggin's sire had five additional lines to Jim (working name Bob) via his dam.

 

If I hadn't had Rusty I'd be assuming Noggin was a full on nutter too but he does seem to be almost a caricature of Rusty and I often get people telling me they can't believe he's a pup as he's so easy going and laid-back.

 

One final point...the nurture side of the coin...I remember reading an article in the Shooting News/Countrymans' Weekly years ago about using collies for pest control and the author advised spending a lot of time with them just sitting down and soaking up the scenery rather than always allowing them to be full on and I've found this helps too.

 

Incidentally, Amber had some Jim in her but Scout has none...and Rusty hasn't needed replacing yet though he's now so old he's stone deaf, barely gets out further than the garden and skates across any tiled surface like Bambi as his back end has gone.

 

Apologies for going off topic.

 

Edited to add: what do you know of the pedigree of your two? I know a couple of great sites for researching kelpie pedigrees if you're nerdy like me.

I dont no the pedigree but i know there mother and father were fetched over from australia by 2 sheep shearers ive known for a long time who have farms near me thats how we got gifted them there for working sheep not pest controling saying that mine has caught a few furry things in his time. I no what you mean about late to mature he has settled down a fer bit now hes 6 they have a totally diffrent working style to collies and they will never jack in when the going gets tough these little dogs take it in there stride. I wouldnt recomend them to a first time/ novice handler though. Have you found yours very head strong and a bit ferrel in the sence there very much independant thinkers?

[Neal 1,930]

Definitely! I think the two best pieces of advice I've had about working kelpies is to remember that they like to work off their own initiative and (as a result of this) not to keep giving them instructions when they're already doing the right thing.

 

I wasn't aware of these two points when I bought Rusty over fifteen years ago and believed all the hype that kelpies are like collies but tougher (surely you can't get tougher than a collie anyway) so trained him like my previous collie crosses. He soon taught me to accept the above points but I was glad to hear them echoed by lots of kelpie people who really did know what they were talking about.

 

Re the second point (not overdoing the instructions) they tend to wonder why you're telling them to do something when they're already doing it and so either do something else or do nothing. I guess it's because they're either thinking "If he's asking me again I must've got it wrong so I'll try something else" or "I give up!" The lady who bred Noggin told me that when she started working her first kelpie (Noggin's grandsire and great grandsire) she treated him like a collie too and one day, while attempting to round up some sheep with the usual abundance of whistles he simply stopped and refused to do anything. She did a Basil Fawlty number; jumping up and down and shouting and eventually stormed off. He then performed a perfect fetch and put them all exactly where they were supposed to go. She said it was like he was saying, "I know how to round up sheep so next time just shut up and let me get on with it!"