July 2025

The first week of July was a bit too busy to get to do this! Good and bad: the weather was terrible with icy winds that froze your brain so I’ll blame that for getting scammed and wasting time trying to sort it out. It wouldn’t have happened if the bank had responded during the hour I waited, then I got mad and stuffed up!

On the more positive side, Vamp decided to cycle properly after a couple of years messing about and is mated to Black Jack…a mating planned three years ago. And Mina has been mated to Eventine Ralph. Her litter sister McKenzie had five pups to Ralph a year or so ago but there was only one bitch pup, GracieHarris. Her work is great but her temperament, not quite so much. She loves Derek but isn’t so keen on Em or me, so wanting to have the genetics, the obvious thing to do was mate Ralph to Mina who is our top brood bitch. Ralph is a litter brother to Comet who leaves very smart pups; we have Cassiopeia by him from Midnight. She refused to work for some time after jumping off the bike and getting her feet full of burrs! But eventually condescended to help in the yards!!

Photos below of Jack and Vamp

 

Siggy’s been super excited with the two girls close to mating and lost a bit of weight racing between the two kennels. He was quite accurate this time although has been known to get a bit ahead of himself! I took Ralph and Mina to Pittsworth for AI as she’s a fair bit taller and he seemed to be battling. The added bonus was checking his fertility, which is good. Not so lucky with old Digby, unfortunately. Grant brought a lovely Comet bitch to him and I checked him out the same way. No luck. Below is the Homoz. for the Ralph x Mina mating. It’s a battle keeping two families in the stud to ensure we don’t run out of options. This pushes the Wills/Brandy family way down and has a nice IB %.  Clover seems to be coming on heat in a hurry too, another prospect for Ralph! I’m hoping old Karrawarra Kelp follows on next, that will be breeding back to the old Karrawarra dogs as she’s got an AI mating behind her.  Karrawarra Gift IV was a foundation bitch and had a lot of influence through her daughters by Riana Glide, Tilly, Lily and Gemma.

In all areas of life people seem keen to criticise. Finding the negatives, picking holes in others’ endeavours has long been an Aussie tradition which has gathered pace with social media…an effective tool. There seems to be little difference to these ‘experts’ between breeding a lot of pups for financial gain(puppy farming?) and running a stud devoted to breeding better dogs for the pastoral industry. My family has a long tradition of breeding stud stock and I can guarantee you can’t improve a line without matings and quite strict selection standards! Tony Parsons often told me I was too critical of my own dogs, but you can’t improve if you don’t acknowledge the weaknesses and work to overcome them. I suppose people see me on 80 acres and only 9 sheep these days, so it’s easy to assume the dogs don’t get work. What they don’t bother to find out is the way the stud dogs are selected and the work they go north for before being bred. The feed back from Emma and Derek is crucial and has led to great progress in selecting dogs that can cope in difficult country. Stamina is one trait sadly lacking in many kelpies these days. That was another one of Tony’s sayings…”don’t assume”! We believe it’s very important to keep a line of the old style Kelpie when so many are selecting mainly for yard work and trials. 

The Snooker x Ginny litter that was reared out at Tallwood has been gradually moving off to their new homes.  This is Coup, who is on her way up to Mt Tom in this photo….and waiting for her ride!

    

It’s a very nice litter, a few photos of them taken over the last month.

The pup I’m keeping, Tickle, is a super cool girl! 

 She loved all the attention from my visitors.

Meanwhile the champion escaper from Libby’s litter, Scuffer, has been keeping his title intact! He’s heading off to Mildura in a week or so  where he’ll have sheep and goats to keep him busy. He’s showing nice eye and style.

 

The little bitch I’d planned to run on from the Snooker x Libby litter, Shim, developed a big lump on the back of her neck(first pic) which burst and drained nicely, 2 weeks later she’s almost back to normal apart from a bald patch. I gave her some Infection Fighter and put aloe vera on it. 

 

Sid has flown over to WA, Dave didn’t ask how he was with poultry. He’s since found out that he tolerates ducks and guinea fowl but not his exhibition  chooks! I do hope he quickly realises they’re out of bounds, despite them free ranging.

I was sent this photo during the week of Karma and  Spice/Billie who are doing well with their training. I hear they are both showing signs of cycling at the same time!

 

And to finish this month, I’d like to wish Em all the best and hope she’ll mend quickly. Two separate incidents have put her in hospital and I haven’t heard the latest. I’ll update here when I do. 

 

 

 

 

 

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