How kelpies doing?

[Neal 1,873]

Poo! I've just spent about quarter of an hour writing a reply but I took so long I timed out and it vanished.

[Neal 1,873]

I'll try again and split it in half:

5 hours ago, mC HULL said:

We’re do you think acd or kelpie come from mate even you for that matter the good old United Kingdom  
and I doubt we sent our best blood over in fact debates I  have had  with you mate tells me we never  

Better people than I have travelled the world to do research to answer these questions and their opinion is that the Australian collie which eventually became known as the kelpie was derived from British (mainly Scottish) collies from three main sources. Also, the original breeders and owners were mainly of Scottish or Irish descent. The original imports worked fairly well in the more temperate regions but weren't tough enough for the hotter conditions farther north. By accident or design the dogs from the sources mention above blended together to produce a dog which was more suited to the Australian conditions. As for the dingo conundrum: I personally believe it was a case of a self fulfilling prophecy. The red gene originally came from two dogs sent over by (I think) Thomas Elliot from Jedburgh. He's also the bloke who bred Queen Victoria's Noble. However, as many people assumed the red colouring came from dingo genes they didn't see any harm in adding some more and lo and behold we ended up with a blend of collie strains which now have about 4% dingo blood.

[Gypsydog94 4,608]

1 hour ago, SheepChaser said:

If I’m honest I would say that the best collies I’ve seen would wipe the floor with any Kelpie I’ve ever seen, I can’t think of much a good kelpie can do that a top collie can’t, and I can think of a lot of things that a good collie can do that a kelpie isn’t doing. 
 

And I accept that farms in oz are bigger than uk, but you were talking about working out of sight and on own initiative, and from my knowledge of stock work in oz, they aren’t exactly sending the jellies twenty miles back into the bush to gather stuff, but granted they are going off a way to work the bush and scrub and gather stuff unsighted. You watch a gooD hill collie working several thousand acres of rock, heather and peat to winkle out blackie, welshies or Cheviots and they are a very impressive beast to watch. 
 

Honestly, everyone bums up the kelpie, but I’ve never seen anything that’s impressed me enough to think about swapping, and I’ve had some good dogs here, including imports. Every time my collies came out on top. 

Agree with that for working sheep I haven’t seen a kelpie beat a collie yet. But I have seen kelpies beat collies hands down on cattle work. 

[Neal 1,873]

1 hour ago, SheepChaser said:

If I’m honest I would say that the best collies I’ve seen would wipe the floor with any Kelpie I’ve ever seen, I can’t think of much a good kelpie can do that a top collie can’t, and I can think of a lot of things that a good collie can do that a kelpie isn’t doing. 
 

And I accept that farms in oz are bigger than uk, but you were talking about working out of sight and on own initiative, and from my knowledge of stock work in oz, they aren’t exactly sending the jellies twenty miles back into the bush to gather stuff, but granted they are going off a way to work the bush and scrub and gather stuff unsighted. You watch a gooD hill collie working several thousand acres of rock, heather and peat to winkle out blackie, welshies or Cheviots and they are a very impressive beast to watch. 
 

Honestly, everyone bums up the kelpie, but I’ve never seen anything that’s impressed me enough to think about swapping, and I’ve had some good dogs here, including imports. Every time my collies came out on top. 

Personally I largely agree with you. I know many may think I'm kennel blind but I only have kelpies because I get on with them better. I'd catch more if I had a lurcher but I prefer a day spent with my kelpies than with any of my previous dogs. I think that for Australian conditions and with Australian handlers the kelpie is best but in the U.K. we don't have either of these things which is why British farmers and shepherds, understandably, prefer to work British collies. I know I've used this quote on here before but the late Mike Donelan used the following analogy. He said he had a converstion with a gentleman who trained both British and Australian troops during WW2 and his opinion was that you needed "...plenty of discipline for the Tommies and plenty of freedom for the Aussies." Donelan felt the same was true of our sheepdogs.

 

[Aussie Whip 4,134]

5 hours ago, SheepChaser said:

If I’m honest I would say that the best collies I’ve seen would wipe the floor with any Kelpie I’ve ever seen, I can’t think of much a good kelpie can do that a top collie can’t, and I can think of a lot of things that a good collie can do that a kelpie isn’t doing. 
 

And I accept that farms in oz are bigger than uk, but you were talking about working out of sight and on own initiative, and from my knowledge of stock work in oz, they aren’t exactly sending the jellies twenty miles back into the bush to gather stuff, but granted they are going off a way to work the bush and scrub and gather stuff unsighted. You watch a gooD hill collie working several thousand acres of rock, heather and peat to winkle out blackie, welshies or Cheviots and they are a very impressive beast to watch. 
 

Honestly, everyone bums up the kelpie, but I’ve never seen anything that’s impressed me enough to think about swapping, and I’ve had some good dogs here, including imports. Every time my collies came out on top. 

I'm not knocking your collies mate, I'm sure they are top dogs for the terrain and conditions you have and only seen some on vids and look hard as nails. It's dogs for jobs, so it's not fare to the great dogs to compare, same as lurchers. I'm not a farmer but do admire a good working animal for what it is.

 

 

[Aussie Whip 4,134]

5 hours ago, fenman1# said:

There's a few videos on you tube out in oz lads using a few border collies to hunt boar the dogs basically round up wild pigs and the lads start shooting like mad c**ts.. But the old borders put the wild pigs on a plate for them 

Any likely mutt with not much heart can bail pigs.Even the little whippets will lug them.

Edited April 29, 2021 by Aussie Whip

[SheepChaser 8,089]

53 minutes ago, Aussie Whip said:

I'm not knocking your collies mate, I'm sure they are top dogs for the terrain and conditions you have and only seen some on vids and look hard as nails. It's dogs for jobs, so it's not fare to the great dogs to compare, same as lurchers. I'm not a farmer but do admire a good working animal for what it is.

 

 

Aye I know you aren’t knocking them mate. But I hear it a lot these days in both the hunting and stock dog world, how the kelpie is this amazing animal that blows the collie out of the water. I think a lot of that is romanticism and a case that there are a lot of poor collies out there. Other than heat tolerance I don’t really see what a kelpie can do that I wouldn’t expect a good collie to, or for that matter do better. 

[Aussie Whip 4,134]

1 minute ago, SheepChaser said:

Aye I know you aren’t knocking them mate. But I hear it a lot these days in both the hunting and stock dog world, how the kelpie is this amazing animal that blows the collie out of the water. I think a lot of that is romanticism and a case that there are a lot of poor collies out there. Other than heat tolerance I don’t really see what a kelpie can do that I wouldn’t expect a good collie to, or for that matter do better. 

The heat tolerance maybe the only thing. 

[SheepChaser 8,089]

7 minutes ago, Aussie Whip said:

The heat tolerance maybe the only thing. 

I think it’s also probably true that you would find most Ozzie farms with working kelpies the dogs would see regular work, whereas a lot of collies seen on uk farms don’t do much work at all! 

[Neal 1,873]

Mine helped me to teach better.

My wife (who's also a teacher) used to moan at me for comparing kids to dogs but I'm definitely in the camp that believes that although dogs aren't "almost human" there are times when we're "almost dogs." I used to teach as though I was training my previous collie crosses i.e. I expected them to do as they were told (all things considered obviously). However, the longer I had my kelpies, I found myself shifting my padagogy so it was no longer "This is what we're doing today," but rather, "this is the objective I'd like us to realize, so how do you think we could reach that?"

That could just be an age thing though as I'm a lot more mellow man! Peace and love and all that jazz.

[Aussie Whip 4,134]

1 minute ago, SheepChaser said:

I think it’s also probably true that you would find most Ozzie farms with working kelpies the dogs would see regular work, whereas a lot of collies seen on uk farms don’t do much work at all! 

In some cases but I've ferreter properties and just gone and fed the working dogs on chains, because they were starving. I think it's a common theme.

[Neal 1,873]

4 minutes ago, SheepChaser said:

I think it’s also probably true that you would find most Ozzie farms with working kelpies the dogs would see regular work, whereas a lot of collies seen on uk farms don’t do much work at all! 

Yeah, I think you could be right. I've lost count of the number of times I've been watching a farming type programme on tv and been shouting at the screen, "Why are you running around, waving your arms: get a bloody collie!" It's almost as though people have forgotten what a decent collie/sheepdog is capable of. They watch One Man and His Dog and think I'll never get mine to do that so I won't bother.

[gnipper 6,524]

On 28/04/2021 at 14:29, W. Katchum said:

Deffo mate, I was told the same long before I got the pup, an iv not asked the dog to do nowt other than basic dog stuff, I like seeing dogs figure things out, always have, but she seems to instantly an instinctively know what I want

They say the same about beardies,  its a shame the twat I had never read the books.

[gnipper 6,524]

2 minutes ago, W. Katchum said:

We have all had them types mate, the ones that don’t even know what a lurcher is. Never mind who they are, I had a lurcher once i shot you not it thought it was a 24 inch terrier

Thinking its a terrier wouldn't be so bad it was the instinctively knowing how to piss me off and be a cnut that got to me. 

[mC HULL 13,277]

1 hour ago, W. Katchum said:

Sounds like yours thought it was a sulkuki

a bad workman always  blames his tools