It’s Monday morning on the long June weekend.
School children enjoy a break and a break from books.
But not all classrooms have closed their doors.
In Boonaroo’s sheepfolds, nestled in the rolling hills near Casterton, west of Victoria, is the school and the classroom is full of anxious eyes and moving tails.
It is a working dog school where farmers, caretakers and dog lovers come together to learn the fine arts of bonding with their fellow kelpies.
Kathy Brown traveled six hours with her three “kelpie kids” to attend the class, led by award-winning GoGetta Kelpies coach and teacher Joe Spicer.
“We were reduced to a hobby farm about 10 years ago, but I’ve always had working dogs and I love the breed. I’ve done everything from agility to grazing and testing. “ANKC … but there is always more to learn,” he says.
Kathy Brown with her six-month-old kelpie puppy, Sache. (ABC South East SA: Liz Rymill)
Ms. Brown says she took her three kelpie and kelpie-collie cross dogs (koolie) to the working dog school to learn “how to get the best connections with them.”
“I brought in Kim, an 11-year-old koolie, and Blake, an eight-year-old male koolie who inspired me to learn more because Kim was easy to train and very tough,” she says.
“Blake learns differently; you have to be in the right place, you have to be on the ball and know exactly what you’re doing … and if it’s all too much for him, you just give the session.”
“And I also brought my six-month-old kelpie puppy, Sache.”
It’s not the first working dog school Mrs. Brown attended, and “it won’t be the last,” she laughs.
“Every time you learn something new.”
“It’s really about the trainer … and how we interact with the dog, not what the dog is or isn’t doing.”
The school is in, but not as you know it
With a set of covert sheep pens for a classroom courtesy of local Casterton farmers Shane and Jodie Foster in Boonaroo, a dozen manipulators and their eager-eyed pupils are put to the test in crowds of quiet sheep but you volunteered.
Black and brown, red, brown and brown and all the colored kelpies in between are waiting their turn in the center of the stage, silently tied to the side.
Mr. Spicer doesn’t like barking dogs – “noisy companions” – during class.
The rakes line the rails. “Arm extensions to help the handler position himself properly and send the right signal to the dog,” explains Mr. Spicer.
The notebooks are marked with “position, position, position” … “pressure and relief” … “come in with a plan” and “HAVE FUN!”
Ready: The school is ready for this training of peers. (ABC South East SA: Liz Rymill)
One by one, the handlers and their working dogs go to the round yard to work their dog with custom-made exercises designed to build the basics of real-world meeting work in small quiet sheep mobs.
It is a formula that has seen thousands of successful graduates improve their handling skills, learn to be skilled ranchers, and perhaps most importantly, understand the psychology of working dogs.
Working dog schools travel around the country courtesy of Daniel Ball and his successful sheep and dog training business.
For the past eight years, he has run hundreds of schools, but since the hit ABC television series Muster Dogs, demand has risen.
“We’ve probably run twice as many dog schools since Muster Dogs,” Mr. Ball says.
Looking, waiting. Kelpie ‘Jim’ waits his turn in the working dog school yard. (ABC South East SA: Liz Rymill)
“We’re also discovering that we’re getting a greater combination of attendees, including people from the suburbs who want to take out their kelpie or kelpie-cross and see what they can do … as well as farmers who want to improve their handling skills and understand the its better the dogs “.
He says that while most attendees come “just to see what their dogs can do,” some are hoping to find the “Frank and Annie” connection.
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“In our schools, all dogs will get better. But if we all thought we could turn our dogs into Annies, we’d probably be kidding,” he laughs.
Mr. Ball says the popularity of kelpies is also on the rise, but warned potential owners about the complex needs of the breed.
“What we don’t want to happen is another‘ red dog phenomenon ’, which saw people rush to buy red kelpies after the popularity of the film of the same name,” he says.
“They are a very intelligent breed and need a lot of mental stimulation, not just physical activity.”
But for those who are not yet determined to enroll in a working dog school, Mr. Ball poses the challenge.
“You can’t get better if you stay home dreaming about it,” he says.
“For all the hours spent in training, even on shows like Muster Dogs, you see that it doesn’t always go as planned, but it sure is a lot of fun anyway.”
Better stock, calmer and happier
Joe Spicer carves a well-known figure in the world of working dogs.
He is an award-winning trainer who has claimed the best gongs in working dog trials nationwide and runs a leading stallion, GoGetta Kelpies, in Glenthompson, Victoria, where his kelpie puppy waiting lists are more longer than the queues for the Boxing Day Test Match. .
But he is humiliated by the success of Muster Dogs, in which he was recruited as an expert breeder trainer.
“Probably the most important thing that was found was actually the connection we saw between the owners and their stocks and of course their dogs,” Spicer says.
“We are all here to be guardians of our land and we want our stock to be happy and healthy.
Since the Muster Dogs program, more farmers are enrolling in working dog schools. (ABC South East SA: Liz Rymill)
“I also thought that bringing together many different types of people, from poodle owners to ‘townies’ to landowners, seemed to play a string in the hearts of so many Australians.
“I think the basics of obedience and dog psychology really resonated with people, regardless of the breed of dog they have.”
Mr. Spicer says the demand for knowledge has never been so great in the working dog industry.
“People are seeing results the more they are getting out of their dogs and the easier it is to make the stock work, but also how much better it is when their dogs are doing well,” he says.
He says he never tires of seeing kelpie owners and their puppies building a bond about working in stock.
“Probably the biggest lesson for people after a dog school is the understanding they get about their dogs,” he says.
“A lot of people say they didn’t realize how alien they were from what their dogs were telling them, how their dogs were interacting with each other, and how they were communicating.”
Spicer says schools teach the importance of manipulator positioning and help owners understand the working dog’s instincts around livestock.
“Obedience doesn’t just come from training; it comes from earning your dog’s respect and that comes down to showing him that you make good decisions,” he says.
And for the dozen controllers gathered around the campfire at the end of the class, the conversations come to a point where everyone agrees: it’s not about teaching dogs, it’s about teaching humans.
Posted 14 hours, 14 hours ago, Thu, 16 June 2022 at 2:24 am, last updated 14 hours, 14 hours ago, Thu, June 16, 2022 at 2:42 AM