The doggone best by a country mile
Qld dogs in ultimate challenge
WORKING dogs cover a lot of distance in a day, working up and down and in and around the edges of the mob.
Around Australia, a handful of select dogs are about to start doing it with GPS trackers on board, adding up the kilometres and tracking other data in the lives of the energetic Aussie working dogs.
The results will determine the winner of the 2018 Cobber Challenge.
Two dogs from each state have been selected to don the tech from August 13 to September 2 and help find the country’s hardest working dog.
The Queensland entrants are Simon Clarke of Moura and his furry mate Ernie (or, more formally, Wildside Ernie), and Kingaroy’s Christian Bjelke-Petersen with collie-kelpie cross Storm.
MUSTERING STORM
Christian is the grandson of former Queensland Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, but this 28 year old’s life is far from the hub and thrum of politics.
He works as a contract cattle musterer across the South Burnett and north to Comet.
When he’s mustering, it’s just the man and his dogs and horses. Occasionally he is helped by wife Tahlia on jobs closer to home.
Christian’s canine crew includes eight younger and older dogs at home.
“I’ve got four older dogs of working age, Storm being counted as one of them, in the main team,” Christian said.
“Storm has been with me since I first started getting into working dogs.
“She’s probably done the most miles, and is the hardest working out of all of them. The other dogs rotate in and out of days, but she generally goes all day, every day barring any injury.”
It’s the first time four-and-a-half-year-old Storm has been entered in any type of competition, and Christian said he entered the Cobber Challenge out of curiosity.
“We talk about it a lot when we’re out mustering, how many miles the dogs do, but I guess there’s a real thirst for knowledge about exactly how hard and how fast the dogs travel that led us to test it out, and find out with actual technology,” Christian said.
“I know there have been days when we’ve ridden, just the sheer distance from the yards, out to pick the cattle up, and back, and it’s been 15km for us in a straight line on the horses, and they are going backwards and forwards up the side of a mob.
“Some days, it’s just in the yards, and they probably still rack up a few Ks doing that.”
Christian said it would be interesting to see how the
entrants from across Australia performed.
“Good luck to all the other competitors. We’ll see how they all stack up.”
SMART CHARACTER
When out in the paddocks around Bauhinia Downs, between Moura and Rolleston in Central Queensland, Simon Clarke enjoys having his mate Ernie on the job.
Simon works for a company on a property just shy of 5000ha, employed to buy, background and finish cull heifers for processing, and two-and-a-half-year-old Ernie is his right-hand hound, moving the cattle around the property and getting cattle loaded onto the trucks for the mustering.
The property runs around 2500 head of heifers over undulating brigalow and buffel grass and some rocky terrain.
“I bred him. I picked him as three-week-old pup out of the litter and decided he was the one I wanted to keep,” Simon said. “I like him. He’s easy to get along with and he does a good job. He’s a real handy dog to have in the team.”
Simon’s team includes 12 good working dogs, with a few pups and young working dogs just starting out to round out the pack. Simon said Ernie was one of his most consistent working dogs
“We do fairly consistent work here all the time. Being cull heifers, we are rotationally grazing, so we’re moving cattle all the time. He’s one of the dogs that comes to work all the time and he’s good with weaners right up to older cattle, and he stays fit and healthy,” Simon said.
“Hopefully that’ll get us a few miles; it’ll be interesting to see how he goes.
“The dogs do a lot more than us. On a day when we’re just moving one mob of cattle, I’d think they’d easily do up to 10km, I suppose.”
Simon said he had felt proud that Ernie had been selected as one of two dogs representing Queensland.
“We’re pretty excited, and pretty proud to be a part of it.
“It’s good to shine a light on working dogs, and show how much work they do for you, and how much of an asset they are to an operation.”
This challenge will be Ernie’s first competition, but he is also about to start a dog trial career.
“Ernie’s entered in his first cattle-dog trial early in August. I’m not sure whether the trial association will let him keep his collar on while he’s trialling though,” Simon said.