An American Australian Working Kelpie in Germany....

During the past two years I have been living above the sheep barn on the Kramer’s property in Northern California.  There, I had been introduced to kelpies for the first time.  Their four adult dogs were already a blast but then on 1st of June 2001 they had a litter from their bitch Feldspar Joule.  Among them was a little black and tan boy.  As his mother’s name was Joule, he obtained the name Erg (10-7 Joule).  I should have never gone near this one-ear-up, one-ear-down little canine as he changed my so far cat-dominated life quite a bit.  He decided that I was the best pet human for him and that was it.  The problem was that I  knew nothing about obedience training, sheep, and doggie care.  Erg learned how to grow up to be a strong working dog and herd sheep.  In addition he went to doggie bootcamp, i.e. Laurie Batson took him for six weeks in the summer of 2002 and gave him training in cattle herding.  I learned how to be a good pet human. 

Kramers Erg and Junebug, 2001
When it was time to make a decision between leaving Erg where he was born or taking him with me to the new Old World.  He did not leave me a choice and I went through the adventure in itself to ship an adult dog via plane from San Francisco to Frankfurt.  To make a long story short, we were able to ship Erg to Frankfurt one day after I arrived there as well.  Although he was a little tired he was doing fine.  But what a change it must be!  Coming from California and landing in the southwestern part of Germany.  It was cold, wet, and everybody was speaking German.  All I can say, Erg was bilingual in no time!  And he loved running around in the snow.

As promised I tried to contact other kelpie-owned people in Germany.  I tried Antje and Alfred Roettgers-Schulte who own the Letnetti Working Kelpie Stud.  I asked them if they knew anybody near Stuttgart.  How could it be otherwise, there was a kelpie owner right in my own home town!  Uta Reichenbach had imported a black/tan kelpie bitch, Clan Happy Maffin, from Australia several years ago and later this year bought a red/tan male, Mighty Mike.  As I didn’t know how to herd sheep or any kind of stock, we decided that it was best to start on ducks.  What a chaos!  I had to realize that it looked easier that it was.  The ducks were running around in all directions and I could not keep an eye on ducks and dog at the same time.  But with time I made progress. 

I finally wanted to move on to sheep and a great opportunity was given by the Working Kelpie Club Nederland (WKCN).  They organised a clinic and invited Michael Johnston from Australia.  We decided to attend the Sunday/Monday session on the 24th ad 25th of August in Balloo, Friesland, The Netherlands.  Two sessions, with 15 teams (one handler/one dog) each, had been offered. 

What an experience to be surrounded by at least 30 kelpies!  The participants came from the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Belgium.  Michael Johnston and his wife Linda had held a clinic at the same place the year before and a lot of people had liked it so much that they attended a second time. 

Michael and Linda own Milburn Stud, which is located in Woodstock near Cowra in NSW.  On 3,500 acres they have about 6,000 sheep and 200 cattle.  Two of their most famous dogs are Noonbarra Butch and Milburn Basil which have won the Australian National Yard Open Championship in 1992 and 1997, respectively.  Milburn Basil was Yard Dog of the year in 1997, 1998 and 1999.  Michael Johnston was named Top Yard Dog Handler of the Year on 1999.

http://members.tripod.com/~sheepdogs/index.htm

Our session had mainly young dogs so the problems seen were similar and it was very helpful to see the dogs work and hear what Michael had to say about their abilities and problems.  Erg and I were almost the last team to work.  It was exciting and I learned a lot about my and his abilities and problems as well as to see where we had to work on as a team.  We all enjoyed working with Michael a lot.  He has a great influence on the dogs through his mere presence and his omnipresent, magic hat! 

He emphasized multiple times that our dogs do know how to work and have a lot of natural herding instincts.  We should let them use their instincts and don’t try to control them too much.                       

 

Antje Roettgers-Schulte with Letnetti (GY) Sputnik

Bernd and Letnetti (GY) Jack were "Improvers of the weekend"

On the other hand, he also made very clear by addressing the more boneheaded dogs in the group that it has to be clear who gives the commands.  He said that “you are the dog and your dog is the tail.  If you want to wag, your dog has to wag his tail!”  It is that simple!

The clinic was a great learning experience.  And I hope we can do it again. 

by Gisela Fritz