Magnet's Arrival

Hello and welcome to my koolie’s column!  His name is Magnet, he is blue merle with one blue, one brown eye and is nearly five year’s old.  Now I know that everybody’s dog – especially if you are lucky enough to live with a koolie – is the best and smartest dog in the world.  Magnet, at least in my mind, is no exception, so I thought I would chronicle some of his exploits, hopefully to raise a smile but even more importantly to encourage you, koolie companions of Australia and the world, to share your own stories with this Club.  I know there are hundreds of “tail tales” out there because I’ve never met a boring koolie – crazy, genius, athletic, the best workers, sensitive and caring, even just good looking (OK and sometimes not) – yes to all of these, but never boring.

So let me start off with the “acquisition.”  We have a 90 acre property of bush at Wollombi (lower Hunter Valley).  The area is cattle country, but we wanted goats – they are supposed to eat almost anything and, believe me, we had almost everything.  In my own mind, I had settled on a working border to work these goats.  My partner, Peter, didn’t want a border collie – he commented that he didn’t want a dog that was smarter than he was.  So he agreed to get a koolie.  He now tells everyone he was conned ….. He considers that the only “down time” Magnet takes is to work out what he will get Peter to do for him next.  I have even overheard a conversation between him and Magnet where he was laying down the law:  “Now listen, I need you to understand that you are the number three dog in this household and I am number two, OK?  One bark for yes, two barks for no.”  I am sure you can guess the reply ….

 

 

 

So, back to the acquisition – we contacted the Koolie Club and asked if there were any litters coming up.  Yes!  A litter was almost ready for adoption so we took off at the weekend to inspect.  Peter had his mind set on a blue merle and there was a male available.   In the days preceding our visit we put together a list of possible names.  The most likely one, as we knew the pup had one blue eye, was Bowie, after David Bowie.  As soon as we set eyes on him, however, it became very obvious that his favourite chew item was metal, so he instantly became Magnet.

Magnet became the perfectly trained dog (seriously, I think little to do with my influence).  He was house-trained in a matter of days (just as well, as I was speaking at a Sales Conference for four days at the end of the first week we got him), didn’t chew anything unless we gave it to him, stopped digging his way to China as soon as we caught him doing it, and would never jump on the bed unless invited to do so.  This is still the bane of my life as he will wake me up in the middle of the night to “be invited” – that furry face under my hand, or worse, the cold nose pressed against other parts of my anatomy is a brave awakener!  I have never taken him to Obedience training but had it suggested by Chief Instructors at my local Club that he could teach me a thing or two, or even run a class, which would be beyond me (their words, not mine!).  Some of my herding compatriots have suggested that he is a circus dog rather than a real working dog.   Well, I admit he is a show-off but he is still a sensitive koolie.  He fears the man or woman who hits him with a stick (yes, sorry to say that happens) but never fears the bad-tempered ewe or usually the bull in a herd of cattle.  That brings me to the story of his first encounter with cattle ….

He loved his first visit to our property at Wollombi – this was what he was born to, not the city-slicker life.  He was ten weeks old, headed for his first creek (lovely!), first dam (wonderful!), first goanna (pretty scary but easy to bark at from a distance), first horses (soooo big, but they surely needed herding?  Nayyyy ……).  And then he shot off up a gully and found a herd of cattle.  He was a very proud dog and brought them down to me.  I was standing in the middle of a paddock.  Out of their midst, a very large and belligerent bull showed his face - then his body, then the stumps of his horns – oh dear, not a friendly character.  Magnet had (in his own mind and I would have been quite impressed as he was such a young pup) brought me the herd.  But one look at the bull and he ran to “mama” – me, standing out in the middle of a paddock with not a tree, not a rock to hide behind.  And Magnet promptly hid behind me.  What a brave pup!  Not that I was much better – you have never seen me make such a slow, backwards walk for 300 metres towards safety!  And I am sure you will be pleased to learn that the bull is affectionately known as Sugar Plum ……

On that same first visit, Magnet was introduced to his first eastern brown snake.  Although heart-stopping stuff at the time for me, the new mother, it was a lesson he has learned well and remembered:  don’t bother those things!  He rushed in to investigate – as any young pup would – the snake struck at him and I yelled.  Magnet was fast – he didn’t like being yelled at – and ran behind me immediately.  Quite often these days in the bush he will indicate a snake by doing “snake face”, which is not unlike a snake charmer’s moves, mixed in with that working dog stance that we all know so well.  This gives me every opportunity to give it a wide berth!  Mind you, despite such assurances that Magnet will point out any snakes on our path, I find fewer and fewer people want to walk with me in the bush …….

Despite being of good working stock – his grandparents had worked both sheep and cattle and had ridden on the backs of horses and as pillions on motorcycles – Magnet had yet to meet sheep.  As city-slickers most of the year with only weekend visits to the bush, his opportunity to meet sheep hadn’t yet happened.  But we had started Agility training.  So off we trotted to a summer Agility camp in the far west of Sydney one very hot January, visiting the local store/café/petrol station only to find that they had a herd of sheep and goats in their yard.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained:  I asked the owners if they would mind if I tried my dog on herding.  I assured them he was a koolie, so definitely wouldn’t hurt the sheep (how can you make such promises, unless you’ve got a koolie?) and they not only said go for it, but the entire shop – owners, workers and customers alike – came out to watch.  So I let Magnet into the yard.  His eyes lit up.  He looked at me and I nodded, and he was away.  He balanced the entire mob of sheep, rounded them up and brought them to me first go.  What a proud koolie mum!  But there was one problem – the goats wouldn’t play (and remember, Magnet first came to us to herd goats).  He went round and round those goats, intermittently coming over to make sure I still had “his” sheep, he closed in on the goats until they butted him, then backed out.  Remember, I didn’t have a clue about herding – I thought the dog did it all (and to tell you the truth I still think the same in my heart of hearts), so I just sat on the fence and watched.  When he finally moved one of those goats, the crowd cheered and Magnet came over to accept his praise.  No, he hadn’t finished the job, but obviously he had decided himself that it is best to finish on a good note.  From that first inauspicious occasion, I realised I had to learn something about herding, even in the city, so we were off on our next mission.  Just the beginning, as it turned out!  I had no idea at that time just how many dog sports you can enjoy.  Not to mention the fully city-based activities, even for a working dog.

In fact, he’ll even give his working roots a go in the city.  There is an ice cream shop in Manly that hates him – not exactly sure why, as he definitely brings in the tourist crowds.   They have a fibreglass cow proudly standing out at the front of the shop and Magnet feels that it is imperative to round it up and bring it in.  And that cow is so stubborn, she just won’t move.  The store workers usually run out to shoo Magnet off while the tourists stand clapping his antics.  This has now become a favourite game – I haven’t quite worked out why – is it annoying the shop workers or just the attention he gets?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I will expand on Magnet’s activities and adventures over the next months in Magnet’s Chronicles and hope they will encourage you to share your koolie moments (and photographs) with us. 

Better go – I always forget the amazing vocabulary our koolies have under their belt.  I just made the mistake of asking Peter what he cooked at Chef’s School today.  As he said Lemon Sole, Magnet was out the back looking for his mate Sol (an American Staffy).  Loves barking across the fence at him…… not sure the neighbours enjoy it quite so much.

 

 

16 March 2006

Lorna Miller

0418 404 218