MAY, 2025

In this land of many long weekends and 4 month election campaigns, I’m happy to be able to stay sane by breeding some nice dogs! Before moving on to dog news, all of you who are financial members of the WKC will have received an email this morning saying they need to re-run the AGM due to technical difficulties: I’d put it differently, it was divine intervention! To explain, and I know most only join to register their dogs and are totally ignorant of the parent body. Members are not allowed vote at the AGM, only Governing members can, whom I take to comprise the Board. (This assumption proved wrong. There are 100 Governing members ! I am copying the status quo as provided by John Cooper. I’m assuming(again!) that the Board picks the Governing members?:

 

We can only have maximum 10 x WKC Board Members, plus Office Bearers (President, Vice Presidents, etc). These positions have legal responsibilities under the legislation, and like in most larger organisations the Board/Committee are not usually people who are involved in day-to-day operations. Every Board position is retired at the annual AGM, however they may offer themselves for re-election (3-4 people retired this year).

 

There are currently about 100 x WKC Governing members who are eligible to stand for the WKC Board, and are responsible for the election of the Board Members at the AGM. The nomination and voting processes must always follow due process and legal protocols, including being Proposed and Seconded in writing. Only eligible Members who have been correctly proposed and seconded are included in the list of candidates.

 

Under the Legislation, if there are fewer nominees than there are positions available, then there is no opportunity for any “voting” of individuals – we are required (by law) to elect ALL the nominees, and then find additional people to fill the remaining positions at a later time.

 

So, at the AGM the old board is certainly not “re-electing themselves” nor appointing anybody. Each nominee was Proposed and Seconded, and then the 100 x Governing Members are allowed to vote to elect the Board Members from those Nominees. This year (just like almost every other year) there is not enough candidates to fill the positions, so it’s a simple (non-voting) situation of electing everyone on the list.

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Back to my “assumptions”!

Recently there have been appointments made by said Board including two new members and an acting president. The acting President has professed to be in favour of retaining CA carriers in his stud believing there is some relationship to the streak of genius in some sufferers of autism.

 

One of the main reasons for the existence of the WKC, apart from registrations, is “to preserve and protect the health of the breed” and all members of the Breeders’ Directory are asked to do the same. I would have hoped this applied to Board/governing members but that has been thoroughly disproved in the past. 

I am hearing a lot of bad reports regarding the health of working kelpies, only yesterday a lady from NSW rang about a puppy purchase and said she knew of a lot of kelpies having ‘seizures’. The leading orthopaedic vet in Adelaide is concerned about bad hips and luxating elbows, wondering if they’re caused by inbreeding. I had a call from a rural paper in Victoria asking me if I thought Kelpies were getting smaller. I’ve had several reports of very high priced dogs from a well known stud having very poor stamina. A Victorian property manager said it was a sad day when he had to go to Queensland to see good types with some leg under them. Another stock contractor mentioned a lot of indiscriminate breeding of kelpies with little thought beyond income.

Well I did ensure you can’t be charged for ‘slander or defamation’ by stating the truth, but it’s a fact that I questioned a pedigree a few years ago and the matter was brought before the Board and my membership was at risk. I didn’t take it too seriously as the Merino Studbook was well known as The Purple Book of Lies…pedigrees are only as reliable as information provided. In my case I was given false information but my side of the story wasn’t requested. I suppose that’s a good reason to be excluded from “the Governing members”. I’d like to see a list.

Happy to talk to interested members and glad to be open about the situation. The WKC statement above might clarify the AGM re run. Or not.

 

So! I have lots of beautiful healthy pups for sale at present, raw fed, minimal vacs, parents chosen on temperament firstly. Any retained for breeding are well tried on sheep and cattle, stamina well tested in heat and humidity in North Queensland, a certain amount of eye and style is a must. I believe a cool head is essential to stamina and these dogs often work in very difficult country where they need to use their own brains and initiative to find and retrieve stock…impossible without a good searching cast. Our sires are nice leggy, athletic types, the bitches more feminine. You can see what I mean as you look at this website. I have always been on the lookout for good sires that can contribute to my lines, and always offer to test for CA at my own expense…it’s far too easy to believe your dogs are the best and breed yourself into extinction!

     

Three sires, Sid, Black Jack and Snooker and below, three of our dams Speedy, Libby and Sun

I enjoy breeding nice pups  and meeting their future owners either in person or virtually. It’s really important to match up pups and buyers as best I can, no two pups are the same and they can change quite a lot between 7-8 weeks, so about 10 weeks is when I usually send them off. It used to be a lot easier when contact was made via phone or email by buyers who put time into introducing themselves and stating what they were after. I now get many one sentence enquiries from Messenger and have to spend time answering 10 or 12 when the info is available on my website…right when you open it! 

It’s worse when I have a lot at once but as their arrival and number is always at the mercy of hormonal bitches I have no say. I put a lot of time into finding owners for these little gems so apologies if my answer isn’t clear and instant. Just believe I could be saving you future disappointment.

This is the oldest litter, Snooker x Speedy, dob 10/3. They’re an active bunch, more so than the litter by him next door from Libby. The two boys are on the RHS.

Gossip’s Barney litter is five days younger, I’ll be splitting them up this week, its chaos at present with nine all demanding attention at once! They’re a friendly bunch and very bright, they all rush out when I go in to feed them but all quickly find their way back for food.

 

Libby’s are 2 weeks younger than Speedy’s, dob 24/3

Now I’m off to take some photos of Gossip’s NINE pups for potential byers.

 

 

 

 

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