- My name is Laurie Batson,
and I live here in Parkfield, California on our ranch,
the Rafter Lazy J.
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Here on our ranch, we have about 70 acres.
So, I raise Australian Kelpies and I breed them.
It's not one litter after the other.
I'm very specific on what I breed.
And then, I also train outside dogs.
I prefer Border Collies and Kelpies.
I train them here, I start them on sheep,
or if they're older, a year-old,
I usually don't like to take them until they're a year-old.
I train 'em on with calves,
if they need to be trained for cattle.
So, I train 'em for people that wanna child
and I train 'em for people that have actual working ranches.
They're extremely athletic.
They can jump.
They've used 'em like, even in Australia,
they do a lot of agility with them.
Well, basically here at the Rafter Lazy J,
when we get up in the morning,
it's animals that have to be fed.
So, pretty much everybody has to be fed.
Everybody has to be watered.
The sheep have to be fed.
Everybody is crying for food.
The Australian Kelpie was brought here
into the United States,
I would have to say probably 80 years ago,
maybe a little bit longer.
And they were introduced as working dogs from Australia.
And they were used mainly on cattle
because they come from a sheep country in Australia
and they were brought here for cattle.
So, the cowboys were a little bit disappointed in them
because they didn't have a lot of bite
because they are mostly sheepdogs.
But, I think within the years that we've had them here,
we've developed now some really good cow dogs
that have quite a bit of bite.
They come in several colors.
They come in black and tan, blue and tan, red and tan,
fawn and tan, all black, all red, yellow.
The average size for a Kelpie is probably anywhere
between 35 and 40 pounds is probably average.
They can get up to 55 pounds, some of the males
and they can be smaller.
But they are a cross between a Scottish sheepdog
and a Kelpie that the man had.
Now, whether that's a dingo in Australia or not,
there's a lot of dissonance about
that the dingo is in there and I'm thinking
that it was at some point,
but then they crossed it with the Scottish sheepdog
and they've come up with this great breed and they are...
They're very friendly dogs,
they're very personable dogs.
They're really smart.
They're great for this type of weather here in California.
They can handle the heat.
And here in Parkfield, on our ranch,
and pretty much a lot of the places in California,
the ground is really hard and very rocky
and it's like concrete.
And the Australian Kelpies do really well
with that type of terrain.
And they're just my go-to dog.
I wouldn't known anything else.
Their endurance is incredible.
I've had them for I think about 30,
I wanna say 35 years.
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Your perfect dog would be a dog
that knows how to read ducks,
knows how to read sheep, and knows how to read cows.
So, if they need to be gentle with the ducks,
then they know how to read the stock.
In other words they know,
okay, I have to be gentle with them,
I'm gonna be gentle with them.
On sheep, it's the same thing.
If a sheep doesn't need to be pushed really hard,
then that dog should be able to read that
and know that on its own.
And with the cows, it's the same thing.
So that he can move them accordingly.
So presence is important.
Bite is important for a dog with calves
because they are stubborn.
If a cow is not gonna move,
they can be kind of not nice at all and wanna attack you,
they can attack your horse.
And a dog is very agile and very athletic
and they can bite in the face and tell that cow
no, you need to stay away, go.
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And then, it pretty much lets them know
that oh wow, I guess that dog just bit me
so I think I need to go somewhere.
So, pretty much has a lot of respect for a dog
that will take a hold of 'em and bite 'em.
And there's times when you don't need it,
like with cows and calves, you don't want your dog going up
and biting calves in the face
when they have a little baby calf because it makes mom mad
and then the mom will chase the dog.
So the dog pretty much has to know
when to put the pressure on
and when to take the pressure off.
So, if a cow is going to attack them from a distance,
then they need to stand their ground
and take a hold of the face and say
no, you're not gonna, you know,
I'm telling you what to do,
you're not telling me what to do.
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Kelpie, they can be very strong-eyed,
and Border Collies are strong-eyed, as well.
And as far as I'm concerned,
the way that the Border Collie and the Kelpie work,
they're very much alike.
They can have too much eye.
I mean, in other words, they get kind of in a trance
sometimes and you can't get them to move
when you want them to because they're in their mind
they're just saying okay,
I have the sheep exactly where I want them,
or the calves exactly,
you mostly see it with sheep
and they're satisfied with that and they don't wanna move.
They go I have them exactly where I want 'em.
So, too much eye is not a very desirable trait.
On a scale from one to 10,
I like a dog with about a three or a four on the eye level.
But when it starts to get up to close to nine or eight,
that's a lot of eye and it doesn't work for me.
That doesn't mean other people don't like it,
but they both have quite a bit of eye.
An Australian cattle dog is
and an Australia shepherd, they are known as loose-eyed dogs
so they don't have that creepy, crawly stance
and that, you know, eye look.
They're loose-eyed dog, they're wearing dogs,
they call 'em wearing dogs.
A dog that wears is a dog that's moving all the time
and they are just moving here, moving here,
wearing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth
and that's how they get the stock to move.
And a lot of your other breeds are like that, as well,
but Border Collies and Kelpies are the ones
that have the strong eye.
Kelpies are bred in Australia.
Border Collies are bred in England.
So, as far as the heat is concerned,
they can take the heat better.
And the terrain also.
Border Collies were bred in England.
They were bred for cold weather, wet ground,
grassy ground, so Australian Kelpies are,
they're very tough, they're pretty tough dogs.
They get hot, but their recovery when they cool down
or get into some water, they don't need water as often
as a Border Collie.
But, as far as their herding styles are concerned,
they pretty much exactly the same.
They're just bred in different countries.
The other thing about Kelpies is that they are
virtually maintenance free.
Their hair coat is very short
and you don't even have to brush 'em, you don't have to,
I mean, they're just very self-containing in that matter
and their feet are real tight,
so they're made for endurance on tough ground.
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Yeah, the little pup Diamond, she's 10-months-old.
She came into heat, she's a little bit early on that.
But, as far as her going in to work stock,
it's basically what I start 'em on sheep,
if I had a little calves, I would use little calves
but I don't have access to those.
So, I have sheep and I basically want to see
how much intense desire she has to work.
So, when I put her in there, she went directly to chasing
which is perfect.
If she kind of stood there and kind of smelled the ground
and looked around and kind of looked out to sky
and I'd be a little bit concerned
about whether I wanted to keep her or not as a herding dog.
But, it's very difficult to get a dog to actually
want to work, or go to work.
You can't make 'em.
So, you want them to be pretty much,
when they get in there and they do exactly what she did.
She was very, very excited.
The bark comes along with the excitement.
The bark will not stay with her, I'll go away.
And, I saw exactly what I wanted to see.
She was actually trying to bite one
which will transfer pretty good over to cows
'cause that's what's she's gonna be eventually.
All I basically do with 'em is put 'em in a position
with the stock to get around 'em
and basically I just let them know
the positions that I don't want them to be in.
So, I let them think for themselves a little bit
and I'm just saying if they wanna come all the way
around me and circle, I'll say no, you don't do that
and I'll let 'em know that that's not acceptable.
And then, they make up their own mind.
Oh, okay, I can't do that, but I can do this?
Okay, I'm good with that, so.
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No, they don't really make,
they can't make good pets.
Some of them are not interested in herding.
So mine, you wouldn't want mine as a pet
because my dogs have been bred over the years.
I mean, it's taken me 30 years to get what I want
which is cow dogs, they're very intense to work.
So, if you want one as a pet,
you probably wouldn't like that particular one
because it's pretty intense and pretty busy.
They're gonna wanna hurt your kids,
they're gonna wanna hurt flies.
They're gonna wanna hurt anything that they can other than
because you don't have sheep, you don't have cows,
so they're pretty intense.
So, if you did put a dog in a yard with some children,
like Diamond that really wants to work
as much as she showed, she would just try to hurt the kids.
And she would be good with them,
but she would want to,
if they're running around screaming and playing like kids do
she would just want to hurt them
and she might even go to biting nipping at 'em
because that's pretty much what their instinct is to do.
But, like I said, there are some
that have no interest in herding at all.
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Kelpies are really,
there's really not a lot of health issues with a Kelpie.
They live to be 16, 17, you know, 18.
There was a dog in Australia, they said she was 30.
I don't know, you know.
I mean, they can live a really long time.
I have to say their average life expectancy
is anywhere from 14 to 16.
And they just don't really have a lot of health issues.
I mean, they have some hip dysplasia, but it's very slight.
If you're interested in buying an Australian Kelpie,
you would go to a reputable breeder,
you can call our registry,
the North American Kelpie Registry
and you can talk to Leslie and she can tell you
who she would recommend for you to go to.
But, you really need to think about it.
They're beautiful dogs and they're great dogs,
and they're very loving, and they're very loyal,
and there's very few people that don't like them.
But, they are a working breed
and they are very intense to work.
And most of the ones that are registered
and are bred around the United States are bred for work.
And if they don't get the work,
they become a little neurotic and they're not happy.
Although, they are people that, you know,
can get them spayed, get them neutered and keep 'em as pets,
but they still have to either take 'em to go herd somewhere
or hike or agility.
But eventually, it all comes down to their brain
needs to be stimulated for what they were bred to do
and that's herding.
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I just I fell in love with the breed right away
and I've always had cattle, I was raised on a...
I've had cows and calves since I was 17-years-old.
So, I've always had a use for a dog and had had others.
I had had other dogs, but my first very Kelpie that I had,
he was just a he won a lot of trials,
I could take him home.
He would work house.
He would do everything,
anything I asked him to do, he would do.
I probably ended up through my trialing with him,
he probably made me about $18,000,
I'd have to say in the years.
He lived to be 16 and from then on
that was just nothing but Kelpies.
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