{"id":9432,"date":"2023-11-30T17:10:51","date_gmt":"2023-11-30T17:10:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thestar.test\/2023\/11\/30\/working-out-the-working-dog-2\/"},"modified":"2023-11-30T17:10:51","modified_gmt":"2023-11-30T17:10:51","slug":"working-out-the-working-dog-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/blog\/working-out-the-working-dog-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Working out the working dog"},"content":{"rendered":"
\t\t\t\tTuesday, October 30th, 2012<\/span> | Posted by Simone Short<\/a><\/span> \t\t\t<\/div>\n

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Working out the working dog<\/h1>\n
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Good dog: Marian with little Alex and Patch the working dog, who is proving to be a bit of a handful at times. Luckily, Marian has Paul Macphail to give her a helping hand.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

MARIAN Macdonald from Jack Creek, author of dairy farming blog: The Milk Maid Marian, has recently gained a new addition to her family.<\/p>\n

At Easter, Patch was welcomed on to the farm.<\/p>\n

A dog of working bloodlines, Patch was rescued from St Albans in Melbourne, to become a new family pet.<\/p>\n

“We like working dogs, they are intelligent and seem to have a sense of humour almost,” Marian said.<\/p>\n

“However the working dog blood must run thick through his veins and a few weeks ago, he thought the yearlings looked like a good target.<\/p>\n

“It took me over half an hour to extricate him from the paddock. And on that same afternoon, he decided to round up my six-year-old on her bike, even having the odd nip at her.”<\/p>\n

It was then that Marian realised, Patch may not be a dog suitable to farm life with her and her family. But, as he was a rescue dog, saved from death row once already, it did not seem right to her to send him back there.<\/p>\n

“That afternoon, I decided to give Paul Macphail a call and 20 minutes later, we were down at his yards for a lesson,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Paul quickly gave an assessment of Patch, pronouncing him as a “tad arrogant” before swiftly putting him in his place.”<\/p>\n

“I realised then I may have been too easy on him.”<\/p>\n

After about 40 minutes with Mr Macphail, after not even knowing what a sheep was, Marian was surprised to see Patch in the yards, working like he had done it all before.<\/p>\n

“I was so impressed. After a few more training sessions at home, instead of tugging on the lead, he now sits happily and watches me walk away,” she said.<\/p>\n

“He has gone from being a dog in the dog house, to the golden dog.”<\/p>\n

Marian said that working dog training is not just about having a dog that is handy with the sheep or cattle, but that is safe for both the farm and family.<\/p>\n

“I have trained working dogs before, but this is the first time I have met this particular personality. All of the dogs I have met have been more human-centric and worked for the pleasure of pleasing people,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Patch is much more like a cat. He tends to come when he feels like it, and do his own thing, which is probably where Paul\u2019s assessment stemmed from.<\/p>\n

“I have gone from being petrified of him around my little people, to being completely confident with him.”<\/p>\n

Mr Macphail said Marian probably came to see him in what could be described as a desperate state.<\/p>\n

“Her main problem with Patch was with her children, he was getting a bit nippy,” Mr Macphail said.<\/p>\n

“So we went through a program on how to be a stronger, more assertive boss. Then we gave him a run on the sheep and were amazed at how quickly he took to it.<\/p>\n

“His natural ability really shone through. We now just need to establish a plan to get Patch working the dairy cows.”<\/p>\n

Mr Macphail said a good start for Patch is some quiet sheep, where he can then progress on to cattle in a controlled situation.<\/p>\n

“For now though, I am trying to persuade Marian to enter the encourager event at the dog trials this weekend,” he said.<\/p>\n

Short URL<\/strong>: \/?p=5408<\/small><\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPosted by Simone Short<\/a> \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\ton Oct 30 2012. Filed under Rural News<\/a>. \t\t\t\t\tYou can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0<\/a>. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tYou can leave a response or trackback to this entry\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, October 30th, 2012 | Posted by Simone Short Working out the working dog Good dog: Marian with little Alex and Patch the working dog, who is proving to be a bit of a handful at times. Luckily, Marian has Paul Macphail to give her a helping hand. MARIAN Macdonald from Jack Creek, author of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9432"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestar.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}