In today's episode, we'll take a deep dive into the world of the Australian Cattle Dog, also known as the Blue Heeler.
With the popularity of the cartoon "Bluey and Bingo", this breed has never been more popular.
Our guest, Narelle Hammond of Kombinalong Australian Cattle Dogs, will share her wealth of knowledge and experience with the breed, its history, temperament and its role as a family pet.
If you're considering getting a Cattle Dog, listen to this episode first.
Guest
Narelle Hammond
Kombinalong Australian Cattle Dogs
Products Mentioned
Mega Egg
Books
New Owner's Guide to the Australian Cattle Dog by Narelle Robertson
This is the Cattle Dog
Don't forget to subscribe or leave us a review. I'd love to hear from you.
Drop me a line at hello@wildheartpets.com.au.
In today's episode, we'll take a deep dive into the world of the Australian Cattle Dog, also known as the Blue Heeler.
With the popularity of the cartoon "Bluey and Bingo", this breed has never been more popular.
Our guest, Narelle Hammond of Kombinalong Australian Cattle Dogs, will share her wealth of knowledge and experience with the breed, its history, temperament and its role as a family pet.
If you're considering getting a Cattle Dog, listen to this episode first.
Guest
Narelle Hammond
Kombinalong Australian Cattle Dogs
Products Mentioned
Mega Egg
Books
New Owner's Guide to the Australian Cattle Dog by Narelle Robertson
This is the Cattle Dog
Don't forget to subscribe or leave us a review. I'd love to hear from you.
Drop me a line at hello@wildheartpets.com.au.
The Australian Cattle Dog
[00:00:00]
[00:00:00] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: Today I'd like to welcome Narelle Hammond of Kombinalong Australian Cattle Dogs. That's her kennel. And it's a great pleasure that I have Narelle with me today because she has a wealth of experience in breeding Cattle Dogs. So, we're going to have a good old chat about the breed. I know very little about Cattle Dogs, so it'll be great to learn a lot more about these wonderful animals.
[00:00:24] And one of the reasons I started this podcast was actually to share information about dogs. And not only what they do for us as companion animals, but also what they do for us as working animals as well. So that's why I thought talking about the Cattle Dog, particularly being an Australian dog, would be a great addition to this podcast.
[00:00:48] So welcome Narelle, and you know a lot more about your background, obviously, than I do. So, I'd love to hear about your experience and a little bit about your kennels too.
[00:00:59] Narelle Hammond: [00:01:00] Thank you Suellen, and I appreciate the opportunity to be able to talk about the passion of my life. My name is Narelle Hammond.
[00:01:05] As Suellen has already indicated I've been breeding Cattle Dogs for 44 years. I've written two books on the breed for the new owner, which were widely distributed. And I'm about to complete my third book. I purchased my very first Cattle Dog, for my ex-husband.
[00:01:21] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: For your ex-husband?
[00:01:22] Narelle Hammond: Yeah, for my, well, he was my husband at the time. Newly wedded. I was born and bred into a dog show. I was born literally with a lead in my hand. My mother bred Welsh Corgi Pembroke, and my grandfather bred German Shepherds, and I was showing from the age of six.
[00:01:40] When I got married, my then-husband, Tony, didn't particularly care for either breed. So, I said to him, I said, well, you choose, and he said, I wouldn't mind a blue heeler. and I went, oh dear. All I could see in my eye was [00:02:00] these aggressive, nasty dogs that really just came to ringside and, you know, with owners that were strapped up with, bandages and all that sort of thing.
[00:02:11] It wasn't a good look. And I went, okay. So, I then went along to the secretary of the club and did all the right things and got my very first beautiful dog by the name of Jody, and I just fell in love with the breed. I fell in love with the temperament. I fell in love with the tenacity.
[00:02:27] I fell in love with the alpha, the strong alpha pigheaded, but loyal temperament. They're like superglue. They just don't leave you. They just stick by you, wherever you are. They watch you the whole time. They just love you to death. And that basically was the beginning of my journey and I went on from there.
[00:02:49] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: So, from that point, you, that's the decision you made then, was to start breeding?
[00:02:55] Narelle Hammond: Initially I showed Jody, and she wasn't a good example of the breed.[00:03:00] The only time she ever won was when she was on her own, I think back on those times and think, oh dear, did I actually show that I've got photographs of me showing her and I'm thinking, oh my goodness. It wasn't until I actually was at a show at Castle Hill Showground in New South Wales, that I had a lady, who was no longer with us, from a very, long-standing breeder in the breed who told me everything that was wrong about her.
[00:03:26] And I was absolutely shattered. Shattered to the point where I went home and I thought, I'm never going to show her again, ever. And after about two or three days, I thought about it and I thought, you know what? I should actually read the breed standard and actually see whether she's correct or not. Well, sadly for me, and, and, and for her, she was absolutely correct.
[00:03:47] So then I went about to study the breed in great detail to work out what the original forefathers of the breed wanted. and I studied the reading, great detail. I read every book that I [00:04:00] could find. I read every piece of information, every seminar, book, everything that I could possibly get my hands on.
[00:04:06] You know, I'm a very much a person that does everything 110%, and I just sort of went, okay, I need to, I need to fix this, and I need to work towards what I'm looking for in my mind's eyes being the correct Australian Cattle Dog . After a period of about five years of breeding, buying dogs and looking at different breeders, et cetera, et cetera, I, then basically, came to the point where I bred a litter, and I bred my heart dog, and he still is to this day, the greatest winning Cattle Dog in breed history worldwide.
[00:04:42] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: Oh, wow. That's amazing. And did you ever breed from Jodi?
[00:04:45] Narelle Hammond: I did, and it was dreadful. Okay. It was awful. I mean, I was, I'm a great believer in you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. I learn the hard way about that. I just, you know, went about looking for [00:05:00] what I believe.
[00:05:01] Narelle Hammond: Our forefathers of the breed, a gentleman by the name of Thomas Simpson Hall, who lived in Aberdeen, on a property called Dark Brook in Aberdeen, in the Shire of Mussellbrook. And the first breed standard was written in 1903, and the very first line of the first breed standard says, liken to a small, thick-set dingo.
[00:05:18] That has, that has held me in very good stead for 44 years, and that's exactly what I breed.
[00:05:25] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: That's interesting because, we actually had an expert talk about dingoes and he talked about how they're, their musculature and how they look physically, and from my observation and the sorts of things he said, they're a very lean dog with very, quite narrow shoulders.
[00:05:43] Narelle Hammond: Yes. Correct.
[00:05:44] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: Without knowing too much about the Cattle Dog, they're very different in that respect, aren't they? Physically?
[00:05:50] Narelle Hammond: They are a smaller stockier version of a dingo. See, what Thomas Simpson Hall did was he crossed the dingo.[00:06:00] With the dogs that his parents bought out from England called the Northumberland Cur. Now they were a blue merle, dog. That was Bob Tail/Long Tail. A bit of a mixed breed. A cur is just basically a mongrel dog that used to, drive the sheep and the cattle, you know, in the markets.
[00:06:19] And what he did was he crossed those with the dingo. He could see the ability of the dingo being such a sly hunting animal. Keeping in mind the dingo is not a dog. They are a dingo. They're their own species. And he crossed them.
[00:06:37] He crossed the dingo with a Northumberland Cur and the progeny of that were red and blue. Red from the dingo and blue from the Northumberland Kerr, and they had long tails and short tails. Therefore, there were the two breeds that Thomas Simpson Hall developed, which were the Australian Cattle Dog and the Australian Stumpy Tail Cattle Dog[00:07:00]
[00:07:00] Those two breeds are still separate breeds today. They're not a variety of an Australian Cattle Dog. There are two entirely separate breeds. When, when Thomas Simpson Hall died in 1870, a gentleman by the name of Jack Timmons preferred the Bobtail variety, and then he took them from his property in Dark Brook to Queensland.
[00:07:22] and he continued with the Australian stumpy tail, whereas the gentleman from the markets in Sydney, the Baggus brothers, et cetera, continued with the long tails.
[00:07:32] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: And what breed do you breed,?
[00:07:35] Narelle Hammond: I have the Australian Cattle Dog, which is the long tail. I do not breed Australian Stumpy Tails.
[00:07:42] Suellen - Host of The DogPod:
[00:07:42] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: Okay. I'm with you now. You talked earlier about their temperament, how loyal they are, how determined they are. And you mentioned this sort of original dingo parentage. So, I guess some of the characteristics of the dog, may come from the dingo I [00:08:00] understand that dingo is not a dog, but if people do have them as pets, I understand that they're a little difficult to train.
[00:08:06] They don't look to humans for anything like food or, help in any way. They're very independent as an animal, how does that compare to the Australian Cattle Dog?
[00:08:19] Narelle Hammond: The dingo traits, do come into the Cattle Dog, as far as their stubbornness and they can be very pigheaded.
[00:08:28] They're a very alpha dog. They are probably one of the most highly intelligent breeds of dogs in the world. They can think for themselves, but they still have that loyalty that comes from the other side, which is the Northland Cur. Being the sheepdog, right? They've still got that absolute total loyalty to their master and their master's properties.
[00:08:54] One of the things that was very evident with Thomas Simpson Hall was the fact [00:09:00] that he wanted to breed an all-round utility dog. A dog that could drive cattle long distances in very harsh terrain. He bred Durham Cattle, which were big, big cattle, and they could be quite recalcitrant, and he would drive them long distances from New South Wales to Queensland.
[00:09:20] He also needed a dog that was able to do endurance work long distances with very little food and also to look after the horses and the master and the saddles and all that sort of thing and all their property. Whilst they were droving. One of the things that's very evident with this breed is they have a love of horses you find.
[00:09:47] Rarely do they have problems with horses. The other thing is that they are also, and I mentioned that about driving cattle long distances without little food. They have a very slow [00:10:00] metabolism, and you often see a lot of fat Cattle Dogs because they love their food. They eat the pattern off the plate.
[00:10:07] But they have a very slow metabolism because they were used to not eating a lot of food on the long drives that they went from state to state. So, what you find is that people feed them what they would normally feed a normal, average, medium-sized dog, and you have a fat Cattle Dog. So, they literally live off the smell of an oily rag.
[00:10:31] Suellen - Host of The DogPod:
[00:10:31] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: That's good for new owners to know. So people who are getting a Cattle Dog for the first time, what sort of things, given all those personality traits, would they expect when they get a Cattle Dog puppy home?
[00:10:46] Narelle Hammond: One of the first things that they will find is that we call them the piranha, they are very bity, nipping at the heels, the children run, grabbing their legs, all that sort of thing. That's just a normal trait,[00:11:00] but that can be corrected with the right training. One of the things that is absolutely vital for anybody buying an Australian Cattle Dog for the very first time, or a puppy at eight weeks of age, which is the normal age that they would, would get them from the breeder, is that they start their training straight away because the puppy needs to know whose boss. And if they don't know whose boss they'll take over the house.
[00:11:28] They will literally have the family wrapped around their little finger. So they need to have that training straightaway. And, you know, puppy school, whatever, whatever they've got locally, I usually recommend they go to the local, vet and check to see that they've got puppy training, things like that.
[00:11:44] They need socialisation with other dogs. They're not the best dogs in the world with strange dogs. I'm the first one to say that. Okay. So they need that early socialization to be able to [00:12:00] fit in with other dogs of other breeds. If they don't have that, they're going to have difficulty with it as it gets older.
[00:12:07] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: So training is key and training early and socialisation early.
[00:12:12] Narelle Hammond: Absolutely. From the moment that they get the puppy. From the moment they get that puppy at eight weeks of age, they need to be able to take it to the local training school where the puppy training is and puppy kindy at the local vet or wherever.
[00:12:26] It's absolutely essential for them to be able to, for the trainer, to train the owner, to train the dog. That's what they do. You know? So you know people that sort of think, oh, I'll take it and I'll get a trainer and they'll train the puppy. No, the trainer is there to train the owner, to train the dog.
[00:12:47] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: Yes, that's very true.
[00:12:48] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: You mentioned children, and you mentioned the nippiness because I guess that's how they control the cattle, right? They nip at the heels of the cattle. [Yes.] So any [00:13:00] dog has a tendency to be nippy, particularly when it's a puppy, and it's teething, and it's just exploring the world and all the rest of it.
[00:13:07] Is that any different to the Cattle Dog? Or is the Cattle Dog just even more so because of what it's bred to do?
[00:13:15] Narelle Hammond: It tends to be more so, Suellen, but you don't run when you've got a puppy running around because one thing you'll end up tripping over and the puppy will, you know, jump over you and smother you with kisses, and then bite you and do all the things because that's all, that's what dogs do.
[00:13:31] I mean, they only have the ability to be able to, you know, show their affection by licking, biting, doing all that sort of stuff. Right. So it's really important that kids don't run, kids don't squeal, with any dog. Yeah, but particularly with a Cattle Dog, right? Any dog that is a working dog and you've got the children all squealing and yelling and things like that, that's only going to excite them even more.
[00:13:54] So, you know, everything has to, you know, stay calm. We play with the dog, we, you know, do all the [00:14:00] normal things that we do. I mean, the biting and the nipping, I mean, you can control that with a firm hand and that sort of thing. You can stop that from happening. But the worst thing parents can do with small children - never leave a child under 10 unsupervised with a dog anyway. I mean, that is absolutely essential. I can't stress that enough. You just don't allow the squealing and the, and the carry-ons and things like that.
[00:14:26] Worst thing you can do with a breed, that's a working breed to start screaming and yelling and carrying on, because that's just going to excite them even more.
[00:14:33] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: So in general, you would still say it makes a good family dog with children providing all those safeguards are put in place.
[00:14:40] Narelle Hammond: Oh, very much so. Very much so. I mean, I've got, you know, lots and lots of dogs out with families. You know, anything from littles at three and four years of age.
[00:14:49] I mean, my, my kennel assistant in my kennels, looks after the dogs when I'm not around, has a 14-month-old. And he wanders around in amongst the puppies and [00:15:00] does all that sort of thing and gets knocked over and gets slobbered all over by the dogs. He understands even at 14 months of age not to scream and yell and carry on, you know, they make, they do make great family pets, but they're not good with strangers. Their part of their makeup is to protect master and property.
[00:15:24] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: And you mentioned that component about how good they were with horses.
[00:15:28] I've been thinking and reading a bit about livestock guardian dogs recently since my conversation about dingoes. Do they take on an element of that livestock protection role?
[00:15:41] Narelle Hammond: No, no. Cause they're obviously droving the Cattle Dog droves differently. It actually herds differently to a Kelpie or a Border Collie.
[00:15:49] They're a driving dog. They drive from behind; they move the cattle forward. Whereas the Kelpie and the Border Collie being our other, well Kelpie, in particular, being our other [00:16:00] Aussie breed, it's a casting dog. It casts from the front and moves the stock in a totally different manner.
[00:16:07] The Cattle Dog can be very much like a bull in a China shop. They go in and they just grab the heel, to move difficult cattle and they then drop and. when the cow kicks. So that's part of their makeup is they go in low to the heel, grab the heel, and I mean, they don't nip people say, oh, they only nip no, they bite.
[00:16:27] They give a good damn hard bite. That's what they're bred to do. And then they drop, when the cow kicks, they drop and roll away.
[00:16:35] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: Wow. That's amazing. That's amazing. I did not know any of that. That's really interesting. And while we're on that, one of the questions I had for you was, is there a difference between the Australian Cattle Dog that are bred as companion animals and those that are bred as working dogs. Because
[00:16:52] my experience is with Cocker Spaniels; there are different strains. Like my dog is an ex-show dog, and there's no [00:17:00] way he could herd anything. He doesn't like water, he doesn't know what a duck is. He's got none of that, that retrieving drive, really, he doesn't even play with the ball. So that's where my question comes from.
[00:17:12] Could you take one of your puppies and train them to drive cattle?
[00:17:18] Narelle Hammond: Oh, most definitely. Most definitely. But, I mean, they have to start early. I mean, my dogs that I keep as show dogs do some basic herding training and some basic herding trialling, but I'm not out there every day working them.
[00:17:35] Okay. But I do have a lot of dogs around the country that are actually bought as working dogs. They go out there and work. They still have that ability. They still have the instinct to be able to do that. But any breed, like a Kelpie or a Border Collier or a Cattle Dog, they all have to be trained.
[00:17:56] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: So is that something that you look for in the characteristics of [00:18:00] your breed in the parentage is still that ability to be an active working dog?
[00:18:05] Narelle Hammond: I certainly look for that, and I look to see whether they've got that instinct, but I don't specifically keep that myself because I'm a breeder and a shower.
[00:18:17] You know, I show my dogs and I breed my dogs, but I have a lot of dogs out there. I actually had a dog that used to grade Turkey. Turkeys into sizes.
[00:18:26] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: Really? Tell me about that.
[00:18:29] Narelle Hammond: Interesting to watch.
[00:18:30] Yes. Yeah, it's quite interesting to watch. It used to grade the turkeys into sizes on a Turkey farm up the Hunter valley.
[00:18:37] And sadly, the dog was killed by kangaroo. He was drowned in there, dam. Kangaroos are nasty; I mean, a Cattle Dog goes after kangaroo near a water hole, and the kangaroo will literally drown them. It can be very sad to, you know, to have that happen to your dog.
[00:18:54] But he was the best Turkey grader. He used to grade all the [00:19:00] turkeys into size.
[00:19:01] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: So he was obviously taught how to do that, right?
[00:19:05] Narelle Hammond: Yeah, absolutely
[00:19:05] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: Amazing. We talked a little bit about them being a family pet.
[00:19:10] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: You've mentioned in your notes that they've become very popular because of this TV series called Bluey and Bingo.
[00:19:18] Narelle Hammond: The phenomenon of Bluey, the cartoon character that was created by ABC and now is owned by Disney.
[00:19:26] It's the single number one cartoon in the world for six to 12-year-olds. it's 10 minutes segments. And it's actually quite an interesting, interesting series, it's been going for years now. It's a family of Blue Dogs and red dogs. Bandit's, the father, and then you've got Bluey and Bingo, Bingo's, the sister Bluey's a female. Bingo's a female, but Bingo's Red and Bluey is blue, and they do 10-minute cartoons scenarios about [00:20:00] life, they'll talk about bullying, they'll talk about those sorts of things. And they're really great.
[00:20:04] I mean, the cartoons themselves are very, very good. However, the phenomenon of Bluey has created the problem of having a lot of backyard breeders, blue breeding Bluey's. So when Bluey first started, you'd get the phone call from someone wanting to buy a Bluey. And becasue you're used to people calling them Bluey's, because now it's a registered name.
[00:20:26] And they'd say, but I want one that looks like bluey. And I went, what does Bluey look like? Um, hang on a minute, I'll just have to go and have a look at my coffee cup. So I trotted along and went have a look at my coffee cup and realised that blue was a double eye patch, what we call double-eye patch.
[00:20:40] So black eye patch, double-eye patch. Blue dog. I thought, okay, that's fine, you know? But I want one that looks like Bluey. Well, unfortunately, you can't just pick 'em off the clothesline.
[00:20:50] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: No.
[00:20:50] Narelle Hammond: Because they come in varying degrees of markings. Cattle Dogs are born white, completely white. Because of the double highball [00:21:00] gene.
[00:21:00] They're born completely white, like a dalmatian. Dalmatians are born white and. Have their markings when they're born. So if they've got a single eye patch or they've got a double eye patch, or they have no markings at all, or a plain face or a tail butt or a body patch, they're all there. The patches are there regardless of whether they're red or blue, but they're born white, so they're like these little white blobs with these black patches.
[00:21:26] So when they come out, you sort of go, okay, I've got a single eye patch, I've got a double eye patch, I've got a plain face, whatever I've got. You know, so, so then you get, you know, the phone calls to sort of say, you know, I, I saw that you've got a litter of puppies, but I want one with a single eye patch.
[00:21:41] Well, my answer to that has been, and it always will be, that I don't breed for markings. I breed for the health and for the temperament of the dog. If you want to buy a dog specifically for markings and that's all you are wanting as a cosmetic thing, I suggest you go to another breeder because I don't supply that.
[00:21:59] I [00:22:00] breed for health, which is really important to me. And all of my dogs are genetically health tested, because we also carry the same problems as dalmatians with, congenital deafness.
[00:22:12] And all of my dogs are hearing tested and they're all d n a tested for our eye diseases and the other diseases that we do have. So if people just want a cosmetic, if that's their number one criteria, they're better off going somewhere else.
[00:22:26] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: Now there seems to be a preference with Cocker spaniels for gold Cockers.
[00:22:31] And I understand from the breeders that it's like a double recessive you have to breed from. And so the risks of congenital issues are much, much higher. And so I completely understand what you're saying is that if you're breeding for cosmetics, then you could ignore all these underlying health conditions that you test for.
[00:22:51] Narelle Hammond: Absolutely. You know, so I mean, my preference personally with the breed is a plain face. I like them [00:23:00] without markings. It's really of no consequence, even though our breed standard says evenly marked for preference, and everyone ignores that.
[00:23:13] Because it just doesn't matter. I mean, you know, you're not going to, you're not going to have, you know, you can't say to the bitches, you know, I need neither more plain faces, or, I need them all with double eye patches. I mean, you know, they're going to come out as they come out.
[00:23:24] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: And like you said, it's much more important. The temperament and the health of the dog is so much more important than what colour it.
[00:23:31] Narelle Hammond: Absolutely. We're lucky that we have the two colours because I have no preference. A lot of people have preference for blues because they're just known as blue heelers.
[00:23:41] But I have no preference. I have both colours and I love them both equally.
[00:23:45] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: And you mentioned. Genetic testing as well, which I, I know is very important when you've got a reputable registered breeder, is that people should test for inherited abnormalities. Do you just want to expand a little bit about what those [00:24:00] are in the Cattle Dog?
[00:24:02] Narelle Hammond: The main ones we have is, number one is congenital deafness. There is no DNA test available for deafness. If there was, that person would be a very rich person because it's a pologenic gene, so it's a multiple gene. Multiple genes make up the deafness problem we are yet to discover, and there's been a lot of research done on it to
[00:24:29] discover a DNA test, to find the marker. So we have to physically hearing test the dogs, and it's called a BAER Com unit that they use. And it physically, hearing tests the dogs to see if they are full hearing, unilateral, which means can hear in one ear and not the other. Or are they deaf. The incidence of deafness, if you continue to breed without testing can be quite high because people don’t know whether they're breeding [00:25:00] from, you certainly know if you've got a deaf dog, but you don't know whether you've got a unilateral or not. So you need to test for that. And if people continue, if breeders continue not to test and they continue to breed with, unbeknownst to them unilateral dogs, they're going to just perpetrate the problem and they're going to get more deafness.
[00:25:20] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: So you test the parents before you breed from them?
[00:25:24] Narelle Hammond: Every single dog in my yard is hearing tested.
[00:25:27] The puppies are tested at seven weeks of age.
[00:25:29] Part of what I do, to make some income as a poor writer, is that I own my own BAER Com unit, and I do mobile hearing tests. I've been doing it for 25 years, and I go around to letters, and I actually hearing test litters like Dalmantians , Bull terriers. Australian Shepherds, Border Collies, old English Sheep Dogs.
[00:25:50] You know, there's a list of breeds, English Setters, Cockers, all that sort of thing. There's a list of breeds, a list of a hundred breeds, but there's probably about 15 in that [00:26:00] high level of congenital deafness.
[00:26:02] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: And what do breeders do if the puppy is deaf?
[00:26:06] Narelle Hammond: Up until about 11 years ago, we used to put them to sleep.
[00:26:10] I bred my last deaf puppy about 12 years ago. And this particular lady in Victoria that I've been in contact with for some time prior to that, she'd already had a couple of deaf dogs. And I had this puppy that was deaf and she begged me begged me. To take the puppy. And I said, no, I never, ever, ever hand over a deaf puppy to anybody. She wore me down in the end. And her name was Judy Small, and she was a lovely, lovely lady and his name was Chance. I sent him to Melbourne, and he was able to perform over a hundred tricks.
[00:26:47] She taught him over a hundred tricks, and he was in magazines, and he was on one of the canned food, dog food company. He was the photo on their dog food Chance was, Just delightful. He was [00:27:00] an absolute gem, and he could do so many things. He could open doors; he could ride a skateboard, he could do all sorts of things that she taught him.
[00:27:09] He passed away. And then she passed away. Not far behind him, unfortunately. So when 13 years ago was the last time I had actually bred a deaf dog, and I do not hold back on what I've bred. A lot of breeders are embarrassed. They don't want to tell people, they don't want to have their dogs tested because they don't want to know. You know, you go through all of those things, right?
[00:27:30] and I used to spend many, many years on my soapbox trying to get breeders to test for the genetic disorders in the breed. We've only spoken about deafness. We also have three eye conditions in our breed, which are common in a lot of breeds. PRA is particularly common in a lot of breeds. We also have PLL, which is the lens luxation.
[00:27:53] And we also have RED form, which is a form of PRA. Okay. It's a broad cone, late-onset form [00:28:00] of PRA; common in a lot of breeds that we have. And there's a lot of breeders that don't test because they don't want to know.
[00:28:07] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: I had a friend a long time ago who had a deaf Cattle Dog, and she used to, I can't remember where she got it from, but she used to sign to the dog.
[00:28:16] It was amazing. Like the dog, the dog knew just by sign they're, it was incredible. But you know, dogs are so adaptable. They're amazing.
[00:28:24] Narelle Hammond: Absolutely. And I mean, there's the best book for anybody that's interested in learning more about deafness in dogs called really simple title, “Living with a Deaf Dog.”
[00:28:34] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: Okay, I'll, I'll put the link in the show notes.
[00:28:39]
[00:28:39] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: we talked about earlier that Australian Cattle Dogs are obviously have the activity to be a working dog as well as a companion dog. As a companion dog. What kind of exercise and mental stimulation do they need? Being a very smart breed.
[00:28:54] Narelle Hammond: They need to have a job to. And their job is to look after their [00:29:00] family.
[00:29:00] That's their job, and that's their whole existence. That's their whole meaning for being there, is to look after their family. But they need that activity as well. And they need people that are going to be active with them. I mean, I'm not talking about taking, you know, an eight-week-old puppy for a five-mile run.
[00:29:16] I mean, you know, that sort of thing is just not, is out of the question. But you need to give them stimulation. They need to be kept active. You've got to give them lots of things to do. You know, with my own dogs, I spend quite a bit of time walking them with my adult dogs; with my puppies, I spend quite a bit of time making sure that they've got things to play with.
[00:29:38] I do a lot of the interactive type stimulation where I have rods hanging from occy straps across the fence line with things dangling down, and they can pull at things and run. I've got plastic tunnels. I tried, the Kmart, you know, style tunnels for the kids,
[00:29:58] and they lasted about, [00:30:00] half an hour. So I went and bought the 44-gallon plastic drums and took the ends off them. And that's what I used. Plastic ties and I have a very good relationship. I plastic-tie everything, so all the tunnels get plastic tied together.
[00:30:14] I just get my husband to drill holes in the ends and plastic, tie the, the 44-gallon drums together and they run through those and jump on top of them. Cattle Dogs like to actually be up high and it's a dingo trait. They love to sit up on things, and you'll see them sitting up on the tunnels, look observing the world.
[00:30:34] And that's a dingo trait because what dingos do is they like to be able to look 360 around them. To sort of, check out if there's anybody that's going to be preying on them or whatever, or, or they're preying on something else.
[00:30:48] Cattle Dogs do the same thing. They actually like to sit up high, so all of my dogs have tunnels and in their runs, and it's not unusual to go out and see [00:31:00] them sitting up on their tunnels, observing the world, looking around at things,
[00:31:04] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: Do they entertain themselves?
[00:31:06] Because some dogs, like mine, would prefer a person at the other end of the game. But will they amuse themselves with toys or tunnels?
[00:31:15] Narelle Hammond: Absolutely. And it's really important with a Cattle Dog, regardless as to what age. They must have a swimming pool. Essential part of the equipment for a Cattle Dog.
[00:31:27] My puppies at the moment, I've got five-week-old puppies, they've actually got their little wading pools in their runs so that they can actually walk Cattle Dogs. And I say this to people, Cattle Dogs actually drink through their feet. They have to have their feet in water. And they make a lot of mess.
[00:31:44] I gave up about two months ago on the Bunnings wading pools after several years of them eating them and breaking them and dragging them around the yard. And I actually took the deep [00:32:00] breath and I went and bought sheep troughs.
[00:32:02] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: Good idea.
[00:32:03] Narelle Hammond: At huge expense. But I don't have a graveyard of Bunnings wading pools anymore.
[00:32:10] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: And on that, I guess from what you are saying is that they're quite robust chewers, so they have to have quite strong toys. Like you're not going to give them a soft plushy; you'll have to give them something quite hard and tough.
[00:32:25] Narelle Hammond: If you feel inclined to buy them, a $2 toy from St.
[00:32:30] Vinny's expect to be cleaning up the following morning where they've ripped it to pieces, and it's strewn all over the yard. I do that occasionally, and I think, well, maybe last more than an hour, but no, doesn't happen. My suggestion to people is that I have what's called the Mega Egg. They're an egg-shaped, they can't grab onto any of the out outside surface of the Mega Egg. And all of my adult males have the Mega Egg and [00:33:00] they chase that all over the yard and bash it up against everything and smash it against walls and
[00:33:08] all that sort of stuff. And they come in three different sizes. So you have the little ones, the medium and the adult and the large. And I've got all three sizes for the varying ages of the dogs. So you've got the mega egg, which keeps them entertained for some time. Soccer balls are always good, but they tend to deflate the soccer balls, but then they just eat, the leather and continue with that and chase that around the yard.
[00:33:32] Kong toys are pretty robust. Kong toys manage to last; never buy anything from the cheap shops because you are just wasting your money. They will eat everything, and I mean, they even try and eat the troughs, the sheep troughs. They can't, they can't do anything to them, but there is teeth marks.
[00:33:53] Where they have tried. I have one particular girl called Maddie that a lot of people are very familiar with Maddie [00:34:00] and her name is Truely Madley Super, and she is mad. She actually rips the horse water trough that I hang on the fence. She rips it off the fence and then carries on her head.
[00:34:12] Suellen, they're very robust. They really are, for the size of the dog. They are extremely robust dogs.
[00:34:20] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: They sound like great dogs for rural and active families they sound like a great no-nonsense dog, actually.
[00:34:28] Narelle Hammond: Yeah, they're, and I mean, they're not a difficult dog to look after they have a double coat. However, people have to expect that if you have a Cattle Dog, you're never going to have a clean house.
[00:34:38] If you have it inside, because they shed twice a year, six months and six months. They tend to drop coke constantly. They have two major drops, at this change of seasons, but they do actually continually drop coat.
[00:34:55] So you're constantly grooming the loose hair out of them. So they're not [00:35:00] a dog that you would have if you had any allergies to dog hair.
[00:35:04] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: And just quickly, you mentioned them being very loyal to their families and wanting to look, look after their families, but I read in some of your notes that you said that they don't guard like a typical dog.
[00:35:18] They won't necessarily bark when somebody comes to the door. Can you just talk a little bit more about their behaviour?
[00:35:24] Narelle Hammond: Certainly. The aboriginals called them Manya, which was silent worker. They're a breed that will let you in, but won't let you out. If you're a stranger that comes into someone's home and you jump the fence and you've got a Cattle Dog there, good luck to you, because you'll probably be bailed up in the corner of the yard until master comes home.
[00:35:45] Dog will just sit there, won't let you go, that's what they do. They are a silent worker, whereas they're not a guard dog, like a Doberman or a German Shepherd, which barks and shows aggression. You don't even know they're there until you [00:36:00] actually hop the fence. This can be a problem with visitors to someone's home.
[00:36:05] That can be a bit of a problem if someone sort of comes in the side gate as a visitor, and they get bailed up by the Cattle Dog. That can happen . It can be embarrassing, but it can happen if the Cattle Dog doesn't know them. And I normally recommend, if people are having parties, barbecues, various other things like that with a whole heap of strange people that they put the Cattle Dog away.
[00:36:27] Narelle Hammond: I always recommend to my puppy people that they buy a wire fold up crate. at an adult size wire, fold up crate. I always recommend that they buy that for their puppy because that's their little house. That's their little room. In the laundry or in the bathroom or in the lounge room or whatever, and they learn to have that.
[00:36:49] So it's important to crate train the dog so that you can put it into the crate, and you can leave it there if you've got visitors and things like that. So I always recommend to all of [00:37:00] my puppy people before they actually come to pick up their puppy to buy. A wire crate, that's sort of like their bedroom. You know, and that's their own personal space. I have one in the house. I've got one of those ones that's like a furniture, and it's a crate with the furniture around it. Well, I've got one in my bedroom. and my old girl goes to bed of a night, I just leave the door open, and she goes and puts herself to bed of a night.
[00:37:25] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: That is their safe space. I think for anybody not used to crate training from when they're young. I have three sizes. One's in the car, one’s for travelling, one’s for, you know if I need it here for any reason. So yeah, crates are the best, really.
[00:37:40] Narelle Hammond: They've got to have their own space. They've got to have their own little area that they can go and curl up in and feel comfortable in. It's their little safe house, you know? And that's what I suggest to people, and you've got visitors, and they don't know the visitors.
[00:37:55] You just tell the dog, “Freddy, go to bed”. They put himself to bed and, and [00:38:00] they're happy. Simple as that. You don't have any problems.
[00:38:02] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: Well, Narelle we're just about out of time, but the one thing I did want to touch on, because you mentioned it earlier, was you said you've written two books, one specifically on the Australian Cattle Dog.
[00:38:13] Can you tell me a little bit more about that? I'll put a link in the show notes so people know where to get it.
[00:38:18] Narelle Hammond: The two books that I've written were actually back in the nineties, so they're quite old now. And I wrote the manuscripts for a company, one of them was just the Australian Cattle Dog, and it's actually in my maiden name, Narelle Robertson.
[00:38:33] And the other one was the New Owner's Guide to the Australian Cattle Dog by Narelle Robertson. They're still available on eBay. I specifically wrote it for the new owner.
[00:38:42] In 1996. My husband Ken, who is a Doberman man, well known Doberman person, although we don't have any Dobermans anymore, I wrote a book on the Doberman. I wrote a 400-plus page book on the Doberman called The Australian Doberman. It's the only book that's been written about the Australian New [00:39:00] Zealand Doberman.
[00:39:01] I've actually settled on the genre that I'm actually doing this new book in. It's going to be my journey in the breed, my journey in the Australian Cattle Dog called, this is the Cattle Dog.
[00:39:11] It'll be talking about both breeds. Talking about the history of both breeds, and how I learnt and, studied, and I lecture
[00:39:20] on this breed, on the passion of both breeds. “This is the Cattle Dog” will be out this year, later this year. I lecture literally all over the world in various countries, on both breeds on the Australian Cattle Dog and the Australian stumpy tail. And I talk about the comparisons and the differences of both breeds.
[00:39:39] I'm just about to do, a Zoom meeting, next month for Dogs Western Australia. I do dogs West, I do Dogs Victoria, I do Dogs New South Wales, Dogs Queensland. I've also done New Zealand, and I've done several countries in South America, America, Canada, and several countries in Europe. I do a Zoom presentation on the two breeds, and I love doing that.
[00:39:58] I love [00:40:00] teaching people about the passion of my life. And I enjoy it thoroughly, and I love talking about it.
[00:40:06] Suellen - Host of The DogPod: And I've loved talking to you today, Narelle. I've learned so much about the Australian Cattle Dog. I had no idea. So that's why I love this podcast and love talking to people like you.
[00:40:16] So on that note, I'd like to say a very big thank you for your time, and I'll say bye for now.
[00:40:23] Narelle Hammond: Thank you, Suellen, and I appreciate it very much and I look forward to hearing the podcast.