persephone

happy pack !! Lovely spot to walk :)

Ess, sister of Don . Ess ( now BESS) is living with a stock contractor - which means lots of yard work , and her own human to protect . She was never interested in goats - the main stock worked here nowdays ...and preferred yard work , of which there's not a lot , to the miles & more miles of hard paddock work . So - now she has her own human and plenty of her preferred work . So far, so good :)

it is all interesting .. I love watching how working methods in particular carry down generations .. the amount of 'eye' .whether a dog works wide or close ..tends to be bitey or not ...what a dog prefers- yard, paddock, sheep, goat ....even which way they innately prefer to 'cast' to teh left or right ... Most of ours tend to 'air snap' for attention - that's carried down from the maternal great great grandma :) ..

I am so glad he's OK .. and yes, there could easily have been a much sadder end to the story ! Thanks for the update .

awwww... LOOK

Finally caught part of this on camera ... the morning ritual of pups & kangaroos doing their own thing , but together :) When I saw them the other day , the pups were actually lying down amongst the roos .. I'm happy just to get this today :)

:) happy dogs!

GREAT update :)

LINK TO PAGE with video excerpt: it is probably best if you DO NOT click on the video ... trust me - what has been seen cannot be unseen pls do sign the petition though ...

:) That's great ... the drip probably helped her ..and a little food will also .

if puppy is coming from a thoughtful breeder , he will come with a diet sheet and perhaps a few meals of what food he's on now :) As mentioned , stick with the food he's been on ( unless it is very cheap, or weetbix or similar) and gradually change over to what you prefer. Basically, the BEST food is what puppy does BEST on ..ie: nice firm poos,and not buckets of them , weight gain, shiny coat ...

That Frisbee shot!!magnificent :D

OK , GB ..thoughts are with you ...

"I have NO regrets. That pink pig toy deserved what it got...."

Oh my!!! That is scary .

that much for feral rabbits??? Sheesh ! our dogs barely chase them these days ... shooting bunnies commercially is one awful lot of expense and work , and requires all sorts of health dep't rules etc to be followed . A lot of folks used to do it - but it's just all too hard and expensive to set up now

We could buy hay , for sure ..however the roos & rabbits would also demolish it ...and it would need to be ongoing . our sheep are a motley lot - certainly not worth much ..most of them are ancient, and many have not enough teeth left to chew anything hard ....it's sentiment .It costs a lot to keep sheep fed properly , and really, unless they are of excellent breeding, and/or capable of repaying the cost - well... This way at least we have an enforced 'cull'..and only keep the best/strongest . In a year or so - there will be young ones to take pride in :) Thanks for the ideas :)

and a we only have a couple hundred sheep at present - but next week we are selling everything but a couple of dozen breeding ewes and their lambs .The first time in many years we have had to sell off sheep ... I was always proud that our sheep were born here, and , unless eaten by us , they would die here , in their own patch .... No , they are not pets - but I am dreading the day when they will be made to clamber onto the truck :( apologies ... but it is to combat these down times that I focus on the quirky, and the fun ... (literally focus ;) )

I think the OP is asking for stories of experiences .. do you have some to share , or are you just today's prophet of doom ?

to give you an idea of what a lot of the paddocks around here are starting to look like ....it's no wonder the roos and rabbits have decimated most green things around the houses ..(not trees , yet!:) ) the green bushes pictured are a 'last resort' eat ..the leaves are strongly aromatic ..very coarse, and taste strong .

grumpette ..the selected excerpts/views make it sound pretty cool ;) trust me - seen with a 'wide angle' lens it's very different .

ohhh.. SO sorry, GB , but glad that at least now you know , and can have her home where she will be loved and loved until she can be set free . My thoughts are with you - she has been with you for WAY too short a time -

reminder to self ! NEVER walk out the house without camera ... This morning - early-ish , I went outside ..and was a bit bemused as to why the porch wasn't full of lanky ,hungry, bouncing pups . Glanced across the track running alongside the house, and about 60 mtrs away noticed the usual complement of roos trying to graze on remaining dry and prickly vegetation . THEN I noticed pups lying/sitting amongst the roos!!! Such a calm scene - I hardly believed it for a second grin emoticon When I called, the pups all came racing back for breakfast ... and the roos just remained where they were ... The Boss has seen them there as well- he thinks they do it every morning - spend time with the roos .... Most odd . *sigh* there is always something .....

CLICK HERE for article excerpts O’Connell is here to sell Bart. Born to the farming life, O’Connell is fit, lean and weathered, with blue-grey eyes that seek the horizon. He now splits his working life between farming sheep and training people to handle working dogs; around 500 people a year take his courses. He also breeds kelpies – selectively. “Perhaps two litters a year. I’ve got this thing about quality not quantity,” he says. “My hobby is to find the perfect working dog. I hope it never happens, otherwise I don’t know what I’m going to do with the rest of my life.”A Kelpie working the sheepCREDIT: AUSTRALIAN KELPIE MUSTER 2015, CASTERTONThey might not be perfect yet, but the dogs O’Connell breeds are exceptional as evidenced by the top auction prices he has claimed over the years. Sitting on the back of his ute, O’Connell affectionately rubs Bart’s handsome head. Bart’s brother Balgalla Coke topped the 2014 auction, selling for $10,000. Calm and relaxed in the lead up to the auction, which has drawn a paying crowd of 3,000, O’Connell has set Bart’s reserve at $5,100. He says: “If he doesn’t make that I’m only too happy to take him back with me. I just want him to go to a good home. I’ve spoken to a lot of people about him and I’ve told some of them they won’t suit him.” So what kind of owner-handler would be suitable? “Someone that understands traits, which is hard to find.” “I see amazing dogs who have all those wonderful traits but the handler’s got no idea.” Some geneticists are now convinced canine DNA is the best place to look for the genes that control human behaviour. Witness the titles of these recent scientific papers: "The canid genome: behavioural geneticists' best friend?" or "A fetching model organism" or "Both ends of the leash — the human links to good dogs with bad genes". Geneticist Claire Wade at the University of Sydney agrees. "They're so much a part of our lives and we observe them so closely." Her main quest is to find the individual genes behind behaviour. "It's not obvious how they work. I'm keen to find out." Kelpies are a great place to look. They have extraordinary problem-solving behaviours – most likely passed down from the border collies they were bred from. Patrolling sheep through the rough wilds of the Scottish borders, collies needed to solve problems independently and think on the fly, explains University of Sydney vet Paul McGreevy. And their ability to learn is legendary: McGreevey cites the example of Chaser, the border collie who can decipher sentences and recognises more than a 1,000 words. But kelpies also combine other curious psychological traits such as the ability to intimidate a sheep by giving it 'eye', fearlessness, or phenomenal resistance to pain as epitomised by the legendary Coil that won an 1898 Sydney dog trial, despite fracturing his foreleg in the first round. How do you write those traits into DNA? That's what Wade and McGreevey are trying to find out with the Farm Dog Project. But they face two obstacles.

The best anythings are the ones your dog does best ON ;) have fun with the new boy - and don't forget PICTURES! :)