Early breeders kept very little recorded information on their breeding programs, as their only interest was in developing the ideal Cattle Dog suited to Australian conditions. There is a marked divergence of opinion as to the breeds that were actually used to develop the purebred dog that we see today. I have read quite a few books and articles, where there was contradicting information, the opinion expressed by the majority of writers had to be assumed to be correct. Just as the early Australian sheepmen bred the Kelpie to move their sheep, the cattlemen developed by trial and error a dog that could work over vast distances in fierce heat. The Australian Cattle Dog was developed to assist with establishing the cattle industry in early Australian conditions. The principal requirement was a strong, biting dog, possessing great stamina and capable of mustering and moving wild cattle. Early imported breeds of working dogs did not possess these requirements. It is generally recognised though, that it resulted from the crossing of blue merle, smooth haired Collies with the Dingo, with a later injection of Dalmatian and black and tan Kelpie blood. Other crosses proved to be unsuccessful for the working of cattle. The Australian Cattle Dog was recognised some time between 1900 and 1905 as a new breed in its own right by the then Kennel Club of New South Wales. The purpose of the Australian Cattle Dog is to assist in the control and movement of cattle, in open and confined areas. The most popular dog used by the early drovers and cattle owners, was a working dog breed brought out from England known as the Smithfield. It was a big black, square bodied, bobtail dog. It had a long rough coat with a white frill around the neck. The head was shaped like a wedge, with long saddled flap ears, and it had a very cumbersome gait. Like the other working dogs of that time, the Smithfield found the high temperature, rough terrain and long distances to market, more that it could handle. These early working dogs all had a trait of barking and heading while working stock. This is desirable for working sheep and even acceptable with quiet cattle, but only made the wild stock on the big cattle stations stampede and run off their condition. It soon became obvious that a dog with more stamina, that would work quietly but more forcefully, was needed to get the wild cattle to the saleyards in Sydney. In 1930 a cattleman by the name of Timmins of the Bathurst area of New South Wales crossed the Smithfield with the Dingo. The progeny were red bob-tailed dogs known as Timmins Biters. They were silent workers though very severe healers. These dogs were the early ancestors of the Stumpy-Tailed Cattle Dog, which are an entirely separate breed and not just an Australian Cattle Dog with its tail cut off. In 1840 a land owner named Thomas Hall, imported a pair of smooth haired, blue merle, Highland Collies from Scotland. They were good workers, but barked and headed. Hall crossed progeny from this pair with the Dingo, which produced silent workers that became known as Hall's Heelers. The colour of the dogs from this cross were either red or blue merle, with most of them having pricked ears, and the Dingo shaped head with brown eyes and were generally of the Dingo type. As the dingo trait is to creep silently behind and bite, the pups followed this style of heeling, their stamina to travel great distances over all types of terrain, and their endurance in extremes of temperature. Hall's dogs were a big improvement on any other available working dogs, and became much sought after by cattle men. Hall continued his experimental breeding until his death in 1870. George Elliott, who owned a property in Queensland, was also experimenting with Dingo blue-merle Collie crosses. Elliott's dogs produced some excellent workers, and he recorded their abilities. He mated a quarter dingo bitch he called "Munya" (aboriginal word for silent) with a blue merle collie named "Jack" to produce a bitch named "Rust" He then mated "Rust" with a blue merle collie dog named "Steel". A pup resulting from this mating was traded with Richard Hall. Around the 1870's a butcher named Alex Davis, took a pair of these Dingo-blue merle Collie crosses to the cattle sale yards and proudly displayed the ability of a pair of Hall's Heelers. Cattle men that saw this pair were impressed with their working ability and purchased pups from them as they became available Two brothers, Jack and Harry Bagust purchased a couple of these dogs and set about improving on them. They crossed a bitch with an imported Dalmatian dog owned by Mr Stephen. Although later crosses with the Dalmatian are said to have been failures, this first one apparently made Hall�s Heelers more tractable with horses and changed the merle to a red or blue speckle. The pups were born white, developing their colouring at about three weeks of age. This cross was to instil the love of horses and faithfulness to the owner. This made these Bagust dogs useful for minding the drover's horse and gear. There were problems with this mating as the dogs lost some of the working ability. Admiring the working ability of the Black & Tan Kelpie, Bagust experimented in crossing with their speckle dogs. The result was a compact active dog, identical in type and build to the Dingo only thicker set, but with peculiar markings found on no other dog in the world. Only the pups closest to the ideal were kept. So with selective breeding, the Bagust's dogs became the forbearers of our present day Australian Cattle Dog. These cattle dogs became indispensable to the owners of the huge cattle runs in Queensland, where they were given the name tag of Queensland Heelers or Queensland Blue Heelers. In 1893 Robert Kaleski took up breeding the Blue Heelers and started showing them in 1897. Kaleski drew up his standard for the Cattle Dog in 1902. He based the Cattle Dog standard around the Dingo type, believing that this was the type naturally evolved to suit the conditions of this country. His standard was submitted to the Cattle and Sheep Dog Club of Australia, and the original Kennel Club of New South Wales for their approval. The standard was approved in 1903. Robert Kaleski's standard has been expanded over the years, but the essence of it is still very much a part of the official standard approved and adopted by the Australian National Kennel Council in 1963. Today the breed is renowned as one of the most efficient machines in the world for working cattle. The Australian Cattle Dog is used in places as different as Papua New Guinea, Argentina, Sweden, Canada, Hawaii, the United States, New Zealand, South Africa and, of course, all over Australia. They are red speckled,(inherited from the dingo), blue speckled or blue mottled (from the blue merle Collie) The blues have tan bars on their chests, eyebrows and front and back legs. Black ears and some have black masks on their faces, body patches are know but undesirable. Pups are born snow white except for their patches, they start to colour up from 3 weeks. |
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