Can you help us find a Kelpie from good working parents?
Regular visitors to The Working Sheepdog Website may remember that five years ago, we acquired a Kelpie puppy and called him Red.
Red was a lovely little chap, and we were so impressed with him that we decided to train him alongside Mossie, a border collie puppy we had at the time – and we wrote a blog about it!
It all started quite well but, fairly soon, it became obvious that while Mossie was making meteoric progress (far quicker than the average collie) Red was off with the fairies somewhere – really taking his time.
Worst of all he was quite aggressive with the sheep but, when corrected, would stop working altogether. For me, this is the most frustrating type of dog to train. Obviously we must protect the sheep but, if the dog stops working when you correct it, what can you do?
We sadly took the decision to return Red to his breeder, but it’s a decision we both came to regret. We all make mistakes, but this decision was one of my absolute clangers!
That was five years ago and, since then, I’ve seen a number of Kelpies here on our training courses. Some of them have been very impressive! We’re all learning, all the time, and I’m no exception. Learning how to handle dogs who attack the sheep, and then stop working, was a big step forward for me. So much so that we made a sheepdog training tutorial called “Calm But Firm” dealing with just such a dog (in this case, a collie).
Now, armed with more experience of, and confidence in, Kelpies, the time is right to train another one. We feel we’re better able to, if not yet understand them, at least deal with their differences.
However, I won’t be doing a direct comparison between the Kelpie and a collie; I just want to bring the Kelpie along at its own pace – whatever that might prove to be. Of course, it will be a great opportunity to illustrate similarities and differences between the breeds, as they arise.
If you know of any Kelpie puppies, or young Kelpies that have not yet had any training on sheep, please let us know. When we find one I’ll post here, so while there’s no comment from me below you can assume the search continues.
Who knows? The puppy or young dog you find for us might be appearing in our sheepdog training tutorials quite soon – Find our Contact Details here.
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