The Working Kelpie Council of Australia

Another good bitch from Jean and Glen was Dinah, a bitch I used for a while and she won a novice at Yass, second at Wagga Open, second at Tumbarumba and fourth in NSW Improvers at Molong. I gave her to a good friend to look after and breed a few pups. I bred two pups from her by Frank Scanlon’s Riana Kim, one of these was Glenville Tim, the father of Glenville Swanee. Jean had some very good pups by Port Patrick Taj, one of them Glenville Tammy a beautiful black and tan bitch I liked a lot. She was going well and then at about 9 or 10 months I let Peter Austin have her to start his Kircaldi stud with. She breeds a lot of good pups for Peter. Glenville ‘Winnie the Poo’, I sold to Mary McCrabb. She did well for Mary. Glenville Blue, a blue dog pup I gave to Frank Scanlon who later sold him to Bob Seehusen in Victoria. Bob thought a lot of this dog and he did well with him. There were a lot more, all turned out good dogs.

In 1966 I purchased Rocky Bar Dulcie from Frank Scanlon. She was a very good casting bitch and had nice cover. I tried her in a few trials but she was not suitable for the sheep in this area. I bred a litter from her by Sargeant, Tex, Butch and Taj and then in 1970 I sold her to Gordon McMaster as she didn’t fit into my program for working cross bred sheep and cattle.

In 1967 Frank Scanlon sent me down two small pups from Karrawarra Zoe by Cudgee Banner. I named them Butch and Gift. It was unfortunate that they contracted distemper on the train coming down. I saved them both and Butch turned out a very good sire for me. He was a very good casting dog, easy to handle and a very good type of Kelpie with plenty of leg under him. I used him with a couple of bitches and took quite a few outside bitches to him. As I mentioned Dot had some very good pups by him and Pattie also. In January 1971 I sold him to Gordon McMaster for a very good price at that time. His litter sister, Gift was affected by the distemper and never came into season. I gave her to a neighbour to work, unfortunately she died later of snake bite.

In December 1969 I took Dot up to mate her to a young dog Frank had there, Port Patrick Taj. Frank said, for a young dog Taj was well above the average, and this coming from Frank was a very big complement. When we got there, he would not serve the bitch and Frank insisted that I bring him home. I said I would bring him home and spend a couple of weeks on him and enter him in the Canberra National Trial in Frank’s name. I entered him in Gundagai in February. He ran second in the Novice and then a couple of weeks later he won the Kelpie Trophy at Canberra in the Novice and Sargeant won the Kelpie Trophy in the Open. To my delight we were presented to the Queen. I took Taj back to Frank but he wouldn’t take him back, he wanted me to have him to run in trials. To make it all legal he only charged me a token price for him. It was only a few weeks after this, Taj won the Riverina Maiden Trial at Cootamundra for me. I considered Taj the best trial dog I ever worked, the smoothest and best balancing dog of all dogs working then. He won 11 Open Championships, 12 seconds, 6 thirds, 5 fourths and 1 sixth, from a limited Trial career as I could not afford to travel around to some of the more distant trials. He won the coveted Quinn Memorial Trophy at Cootamundra in 1976 and 77. This trophy had to be won two years running or 3 times in all. It has some top workers names on it. Also, in 1976 he won the National Bob Martin Kelpie trial at Jindabyne and the same Trial again in 1977, to win a trip to New Zealand to compete in the World Expo. At this same Trial Scanlons Glen was fourth and Glen’s son Glenville Jed sixth. The one family winning three of the six trophies for me. Taj also won Wagga twice as well as Gundagai, Coolamon, Tumbarumba and others.

In the 1977 Riverina Championships at Cootamundra Taj and his offspring dominated the placings in all categories. In the Open Championship Taj won, Jed his grandson was second, Mary McCrabb was third with Avenpart Earl another grandson and fifth was Flipper (a son). In the Improver Championship Glenville Jed came first, with Avenpart Earl second.

In the Novice Trial earlier in the day Glenville Jed was third. Glenville Jean was fourth in the Encourage Trial with Ron Harris first with Wyvelloe Badge another grandson. Taj also won the Trophy for the highest score in one run for the whole trial. A very good result for one dog and his progeny considering there were 72 entries with some of the best dogs in the state.

Tony Parsons mentioned Taj in his book The Working Kelpie writing, “One of the best covering dogs of recent times was Port Patrick Taj. There has been criticism of Taj as he was not a really strong dog on the trial ground and because some of his progeny were not very strong either, but this dog had the foot work and the cover of some of the old dogs. There have been others but he was the most recent to exhibit it. Instead of criticising him, Kelpie breeders should have tried to maintain this cover by blending Taj’s blood with stronger blood.” With due respect to Tony, he only ever saw Taj work once and that was at Canberra in 1970 when he won the Kelpie Trophy in the Canberra Novice. Scanlons Glen by Taj was the strongest dog I ever had. I would like to state here and now, how this criticism of Taj all started.

We were working in the Wagga Trials on big Western wethers freshly shorn, full of ropel and just brought out of the Wagga Sale yards. They gave trouble all day. In the first run Taj was the only dog to pen his sheep. In the final they were worse. Taj was having trouble at the bridge, when one wether charged, hitting him and then raced out of the wings. He covered him and ran him up onto the bridge and followed him right up giving a couple of barks right at the tail of the sheep pushing them off the bridge. He then went on to pen again. He was the only dog to get his sheep over the bridge in the final run. One of the competitors rushed up to Clare Butt, who was the judge (considered the best judge in the country of his time) and said how many points did you take off Taj for barking, as that showed he was a weak dog. Clare just looked at him and said, none and if it was in my power, I would have given him 10 points extra as that showed he was a real sheep dog. This competitor, who at that time I considered a friend, spread it around the trials that Taj was a terribly weak dog because he barked on the bridge. I think all his results and his progeny speak for themselves. It took a few years for people to work it out. Even now I still have people ringing up wanting to know where they can get some Taj blood.

Early in the piece in the 1960’s Tony Parsons sent me down quite a few pups and young dogs for me to try and work in trials. Some of these were Karrawarra Coil, a brother to Pattie. I won two or three placings with him and won the Novice at Wangaratta and then sent him back to Tony to breed by. Karrawarra Darby won 2 second placings then I won the novice at Cootamundra Riverina Championship with him and then sent him back to Tony as I had some more young dogs to work. Karrawarra Scout won the novice at Holbrook. He won the Kelpie trophy at Canberra for highest scoring Kelpie and was equal third in the Canberra Open Championship and third in the Gundagai Open. I sent him back to Tony to breed by. Some of the others turned out to be handy dogs too, that I returned to Tony.

In 1973 we called in to see Frank and Essie Scanlon. He had a litter of pups about 5 weeks old by Glen from his very good bitch McCormacks Gloria. He insisted on me taking one and I brought home this little cream bitch that I called Scanlons Goldie. I considered her the best farm or station dog I ever had. She would work any number of sheep or cattle day or night. I never worked her in a trial as she was always too busy doing something and getting on with the job. She bred some very good station type dogs. She was very good with cows and calves, would push them then get out and leave them alone while they were going OK. She was very good at holding three or four sheep while training a pup, and would stay out of the way until needed. It was a sad day when she died with cancer in the stomach.