kelpie x

[jigsaw 11,863]

very very nice postie,how about a bit of info on him.Neal I was going to try out a pure kelpie a while back but I have to retire from other hobbies first,just havent the time for other stuff right now.

[MagyarAgar 88]

 

1st x kelpie / greyhound

 

stunning!

Really a fine specimen!

 

Cheers,

MagyarAgar

[TOMO 26,070]

neal,, have you thought about breeding a litter of lurchers, with any of your dogs??? and if you did is there one of your 3 that would in your opinion make the better dam/stud???

 

the reason i ask is ,, although there are a few kelpie crosses about, apart from sleight, with his kelpie/collie,, no one is realy breeding pure crosses.

 

im not suggesting you become a comercial breeder, but a litter or 2 i think would find good working homes, with good owners.

[Neal 1,857]

neal,, have you thought about breeding a litter of lurchers, with any of your dogs??? and if you did is there one of your 3 that would in your opinion make the better dam/stud???

 

the reason i ask is ,, although there are a few kelpie crosses about, apart from sleight, with his kelpie/collie,, no one is realy breeding pure crosses.

 

im not suggesting you become a comercial breeder, but a litter or 2 i think would find good working homes, with good owners.

Unfortunately, only one of mine is able to breed and he's a bit past it.

 

Rust is still entire but was hit by a van at eleven months old and now finds it a bit of a chore lifting his leg to pee. Poor old sod. I actually tried him on a friend's first cross kelpie x collie but he wasn't interested. This was about four years ago and my second kelpie, Amber, was also in season at the time. She ended up having a massive internal bleed on, what turned out to be, the last day of her season and I had her spayed as a result.

 

Amber is just coming up for eight years old but I'm actually trying to rehome her at the moment. It's a very long story but she's basically a very one-man-dog and because she has such a strong pack instinct we presumed she'd be great with our son, who's nearly three. Unfortunately, she hasn't taken to him at all and we have to keep them completely seperate.

 

Conversely, Scout, who's the youngest at four, and Oscar, my son, get on brilliantly. She's also been spayed. I had a long chat with Phil Lloyd about the pros and cons several years ago which made me realise that there were enough working kelpies about to keep me and others happy without needing to breed any more. She's definitely got the best potential of the three and I almost regret getting her done. She's tiny for a kelpie, only a tad over 17" and is built like a whippet cross. Her nose is 100% and I've lost count of the number of times I've said to her, "there's definitely no rat there!" only to be proved wrong. Ironically, although her size allows her to be great for where I work her, which is thick woodland with lots of ground cover and similar hedgerows, it makes her a bit too slow for catching in the open. All her catches have been either ones with myxy or in dense bushes or ditch bottoms. Her first few catches were actually all winged wood pigeons which she came across accidentaly while checking out the farm where we have permission to do the ferreting when she was just a few months old. Fortunately, her first winter was during a season which started with no rabbits for Amber due to myxy having wiped them all out so I took Scout out instead and she caught on really quickly and that's how I started to find out how good her nose was. She was only 8 months old when the season ended but the "short sharp trips" did her no end of good...another good bit of advice from Phil Lloyd ie starting them young with small achievable steps.

 

I keep thinking that adding more pace with some whippet blood would let me catch more rabbits but I think I like my kelpies too much to go back now. Maybe one day.

[stroller 341]

Maggie kelpie x grew 2 year old

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not a cross for the faint hearted she is hard work, and she never relaxes. she is a great gaurd dog and has taken in the last couple of weeks pheasant, duck, and a waterhen out of the air. spot on little rabbit dog (Although she missed one she should have had easily this morning by trying to out guess it).

she takes day time rabbit easily enough. ive never bothered with foxes she is only about 22" to the shoulder but if there was one at my chucks i would think she would have it and probably the chickens as well!!

 

She isnt the most likeable of dogs as she is very sharp and nervy, she does agility and has been socialised really well from a very young age but she is constantly working, herding our other dogs during walks. obedience is spot on and she is game for anything ive shown her, very good nose and has taken to water ok, clever how she works out where rabbits are bolting and she has marked burrows in different ways which means there are rabbits close to the surface and more than one rabbit. i can almost tell how deep the sets are by the way she goes on.

 

im really looking forward to this season she has shown a lot of maturity during the summer, i wasnt going to breed from her as she is a cow with other dogs but i cant ignore her good points so if she continues to improve i will take a litter from her in a few years

[KittleRox 2,147]

Interesting, good stuff

[TOMO 26,070]

yep mines a c**t with other dogs stroller,, especialy if there smaller

[postie 425]

Hi jigsaw, the dog marked, hunted and retrieved really well. His only problem was that he opened up most of the time whilst chasing, even when he caught. At the time I did a lot of poaching and two definitely do not go together. He was a big boy standing about 27 inches and weighing 70 lb. All round he was a decent dog with an excellent temperament, I unfortunately had to re home him as a pet.

 

 

 

[jigsaw 11,863]

very enjoyable read,Postie was he a 1st x?some big dog for that X.Stroller thats a lovely animal,great condition.I have to do more work next season with taz,the more she gets the more she wants.Theres another drawback with Taz,she doesnt like water.No hope of retrieving from a river or lake.

[postie 425]

you see i dont get this collie/kelpie cross,,, well actualy i do,,,, its all about making them merl.................how many people who have bred a colie to a kelpie, have done it without the collie being a merl???????????

 

now i got nowt against collie crosses,, in fact i dowt theres a great deal of difrence between collie's and kelpies,,, and if i wanted a replacement for Tara, i could quite easily go for a collie cross

 

Totally agree with you there Tomo, I personally believe that A Kelpie, Collie or a cross between the two would make a decent lurcher as long as there off decent working stock. I must admit I do like the look of the kelpie but wouldn't say they were superior to a good collie.

 

[jigsaw 11,863]

That photo postie would want to make ye go right out and buy one,stuning animal.

[Neal 1,857]

I'd tend to agree. All things considered I personally think that collies are the best all-round breed of dog. My only reason for choosing a kelpie over a collie or heeler or a blend of the three is simply because I find that I get on really well with them.

 

It's a huge over-generalisation, but I've found that all the collies and collie crosses I've either owned or met have been very biddable but have tended to be more likely to do exactly as asked whereas the kelpies and kelpie crosses I've had have been biddable but are more likely to over-rule me if they disagree. And they're usually right. They wouldn't do it to the extent where they'd say, "I know you've just scremad at me to stop but I'm still going to cross that road because I think I can catch that rabbit," but they will if if I've not made it clear that it's a definite "NO!"

 

One example of this was in May of this year when I was searching for a doe in my local wood (purely for photographic reasons I hasten to add). Scout went over to a pile of brushwood and tangled brambles and long grass so, after checking it, I said something like, "No you silly bitch I said "Where's the deer?"." About half an hour later we were walking past the same area and she went back to the same spot. I checked it over, hoping to find some roe droppings to explain her stupidity but found nothing. I went off with the other two kelpies but Scout flatly refused to leave her now perfect pointer-style point. I went back for a third look and eventually found a kid curled up in the middle of the brambles. Who's stupid now! I later read somewhere that apparently kids have virtually no scent for the first few days after birth and are almost impossible for even trained deer dogs to locate.

 

On another occasion, when she was just a pup, I saw a rat through the kitchen window, sitting on the lid of the coal bin. I whistled up the dogs and rushed outside calling out, "RAT!" Rust and Amber, using their superior knowledge and experience, went straight for the bushes near the back door...because rats hide in bushes don't they. Scout ignored them and stood part way down the garden staring up at the privet hedge. I called out, "Over here you silly cow, we're looking for a rat not a sparrow," or something similar. She continued to ignore me and after a while actually stood up on her hind legs like a kangaroo pointing straight at a point about five feet up in the hedge. Needless to say, when I went to get the torch and pointed it at the spot it lit up an ugly whiskery face.

 

Actually, writing these thoughts down makes me think even more that I'm definitely the stupid one in the relationship. Why oh why did I get her spayed? There was even a thread on this forum at the time I had her done and a post by Skycat nearly made me change my mind at the last moment but I went ahead as it was already booked and everything. Oh well, you live and learn. Hopefully my next one will have just as much potential.

 

Edited to add: I just wanted to point out that my earlier comments re Amber weren't intended as a hint or a free advert as her attempted rehoming is already being organised by a woman in charge of kelpie rescue in the UK.

Edited August 15, 2011 by Neal

[worldruler 58]

jez I love the look of that brindle bitch

[Mustelid 143]

I think I may well have the litter sister to the dog that Postie had...

 

My bitch has just turned seven and is a first cross kelpie/greyhound. Molly was my first ever lurcher and had a lot of time invested in her. She is an obedient bitch, has a thick coat and excellent feet, skin like a rhino and is an easy animal to have about the place - very laid back and chilled out. Her prime asset is her hunting ability, she has always been a first class hunter, in spite of the lack of game in South Wales. The bitch will follow a line laid by charlies all day long.

 

Molly used to accompany me beating and would hit thick, and I mean thick, cover without thinking twice about it. At lunchtime on the shoot whilst the other beaters were eating we would be hunting rats among the barns - rat hunting she loves!

 

The major negative is her catch rate. Molly would miss rabbits I thought she would catch. I'll explain... the bitch has only ever caught one rabbit 'on the run' - by that I mean gallop alongside a speeding bunny and snatch it up. Nearly all her catches have come after she has pushed rabbits off fences/hedges or indeed caught them in the hedge. Many times I've wanted her to throw herself at a rabbit, but that's just not her style.

 

If this bitch had more 'strike' for want of a better word I would be over the moon. I've often considered putting a coursing whippet across her to compensate for her negatives. However, given the difficulty in finding good homes for pups these days I would never have a litter from her unless I had some homes sorted first.

 

Sadly, I don't use the bitch as much as I used to as I have a younger whippety type that catches more rabbits! However, the little bitch cannot hold a candle to Molly when it comes to hunting.

 

 

 

 

[Rabbiting man 1,191]

You cant get more honest than that lads