Women on the land: Kelly Barnes’ heartwarming project
HER WORKING-DOG SCHOOL IN VICTORIA ISN’T JUST GOOD FOR THE DOGS, SAYS KELLY BARNES – IT’S GOOD FOR THEIR HUMANS, TOO.
SEPTEMBER 2018 WAS A PIVOTAL MOMENT in Kelly Barnes’ life. Working casually for the National Centre for Farmer Health, her path crossed with suicide prevention researcher, Dr Alison Kennedy, who was running digital storytelling workshops. Kelly joined a workshop, creating a short movie using photos and videos of her life focusing on her mental health struggles and her battle with chronic pain and fatigue.
“I have a chronic pain condition called fibromyalgia. The easiest way to describe it is you have a hypersensitive nervous system, so you react to pain and external stimulus on a much larger scale,” she says. “I was looking through pictures of my life to put together my story, and realised they were mostly photos with my dogs. It just made me really think about how much I loved having dogs around; how I take them everywhere with me and they make me more confident and less anxious.”
Also attending the workshop was Alex Thomas, South Australian winner of the 2018 Agrifutures Rural Women’s Award. The two stayed in contact, sparking the next step of a research project that was starting to form in Kelly’s mind.
“I’d been interested in how farmer information workshop groups not only offer information, but also a social wellbeing aspect where they interact and get together,” Kelly says. “I was pondering how you could evaluate how these groups affect producer wellbeing. I realised there could be something meaningful in researching working dogs and their relationship with farmers.”
The result has been Kelly’s concept, Mates Dog School – a working dog school to build low-stress stock-handling skills and to create a strong bond between dogs and their owners. Offering social connections and networks with like-minded producers, the project offers tangible skills and a day of interaction off the farm.
“I deal with mostly male farmers and they’ve all been really interested, so it’s been quite amazing,” she says. “I’d like to scale the project. I want to get some good data from this pilot program, then go to funding bodies and be able to roll the project out nationally.”
Kelly launched the pilot program in February, enlisting the help of dog trainer Ian O’connell to run the six full-day sessions. “Ian has been running dog schools for 20-odd years, he’s amazing at it,” she says. “He’ll do the dog side and I will incorporate the social and emotional wellbeing side of things, ensuring producers are interacting within the group activities. Each day there will be an aspect of building resilience, tying in with the dog.”
Kelly has adored dogs her entire life. Growing up on a farm in south-east England, she acquired her first working dog after she left university while working on a sheep property. Travelling to New Zealand and then on to Australia in 2007, the then 24-year-old bought a kelpie, Dugald, who has been by her side ever since. “Working in shearing sheds and as a station hand, I really struggled without a working dog,” she says. “He’s pretty much been everywhere with me ever since, and having him helped me get a lot more stock work.”
The intrepid stockie took up permanent residence in Victoria in 2010 and contracted for a number of farms, before her diagnosis in 2015 forced her to look for alternative work. “The hardest part is the loss of my previous life. I love farm work, but I just physically couldn’t do it anymore,” she says. “I’d always been quite fit, active and strong, and it took away my identity. It’s so difficult to explain, as people think you’re just lazy, as it’s not something that’s physically obvious.”
Diagnosed with depression in 2008, Kelly says it was her dog that kept the darkest of days at bay. “Living on my own, Dugald boosts my mood and gives me company. He’s 14 now, and has had quite a few injuries, so I really relate to his slow pace. He gets me out to take him for walks and we have a real affinity. I started thinking, there’s a lot of people that live on their own or they live on a farm and they spend most of their time just with their dogs. It’d be good to help foster that relationship, so they’ve always got that go-to for company.”
Despite COVID-19 raining on her presentation parade, the 37-year-old says being the Victorian winner of the 2020 Agrifutures Rural Women’s Award has offered a huge shift in her perspective of herself. “You get all this backing and then all these people saying what a good idea it is,” she says. “You think, I have got value and I’ve got something to give.”
Kelly’s enthusiastic for others considering applying for the next round of the award. “I had a previous winner contact me because I put in a really rubbish application the year before. She said, ‘I’m happy to help you brainstorm’. There is so much support. You don’t have to have a fine-tuned amazing idea; you just have to start and the process is designed to help you fine-tune it along the way,” she says. “Just have a go and get it out there. Keep having those incidental conversations and keep building on them.”
“I was looking through pictures of my life to put together my story, and realised they were mostly photos with my dogs.”