On a very serious note : Australia drought now extreme

Australia's lingering drought, one of the worst on record, has produced a first-ever official declaration that all agricultural land in the southeastern state of Victoria is in drought. Federal Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran said that government drought assistance to farmers and farm-dependent small businesses in the state had increased by "an extraordinary" 83%.

Victoria and New South Wales, the adjacent state, have been hardest hit by Australia's worst drought in a century, which began in 2002. More than 90% of New South Wales is still officially in drought.

Australia's weather bureau last month declared an end to the drought-triggering El Nino weather condition and forecast a return to more normal weather, but dry conditions have continued to decimate summer crops and raise new fears about big winter crops as the wheat planting season approaches.

The photos below were taken from a photo competition run by ABC news in Australia to try and make city dwellers aware of how the terrible drought conditions were affecting farmers.

KELPIE IMPORTS 2006 - 2007

Woolstone Kelpie Stud

Steve & Jenny Andrews have recently imported a dog and a bitch from Australia. The dog is a three year old black and tan from the Milburn stud and is called Okara Max. Max is a son of the National Champion and proven quality sire Boanong Buster and Max competed in trials while owned by Michael Johnston. The bitch, Falcon Storm is an unrelated young red and tan dog who has recently arrived in utero to Keswick Larry. For more details, pedigrees and photos see Steve and Jenny's website Woolstone Kelpie Stud

Cories Stud

Ann Jordan's dogs arrived safe and well during the summer of 2006. Both dogs are from Joe Spicer's Gogetta stud. The first is a 15 month old black dog called Gogetta Captain Midnight and the second is a 5 month old red and tan bitch called Gogetta Cocoa.

UK KELPIE TRAINING CLINIC

The first ever UK kelpie training clinic was held at Steve and Jenny Andrews' beautiful hill farm at Woolstone, near Cheltenham at the start of September. On a scorching hot weekend approximately 20 kelpie owners plus spectators gathered to put their dogs through their paces under the critical gaze of Michael Johnston, one of Australia's top kelpie trainers. Michael has won many trials in Australia including the National Kelpie Trial which he won in 2004 - in fact he had automatically qualified for the final of this year's National Kelpie Trial but missed it so that he could come over to the Netherlands and England and show owners' and their dogs in these far-flung outposts of the world how it's done back in the land of Aus.

With a real mixture of dogs - from beginners through to fully-trained farm-dogs - being challenged by some good, tough texel-cross lambs it proved a really interesting weekend. Michael's ability to read both dog and handler was excellent and he worked really hard to bring out the natural ability in the dogs. We were also able to watch a DVD of Michael's own dogs working at home on his Milburn stud in New south Wales, including footage of his top dog Boanong Buster and some really exciting looking youngsters. As most of us are fairly new to training kelpies the weekend was a pretty sharp learning curve, especially the race-work and backing, but hopefully most people were able to go away with a better understanding of what goes on inside the head's of this wonderful Australian sheepdog.

I've done my best with the pictures, but if I've put the wrong dog's name or misspelled your name, please let me know.

FINALS OF THE WKC NATIONAL FIELD TRIALS, TASMANIA 2003 ON VIDEO / DVD / CD

The Working Kelpie Council have released a professionally produced video covering the runs of the finalists, with commentary by 2 experienced sheepdog workers.

The cost is $55 (Aust) which is £23.17p for the CD and DVD, slightly more for the video to cover postage.

Contact the Working Kelpie Coucil for more details Working Kelpie Council, P.O. 306 Castle Hill, NSW. 1765. Australia. or e-mail Admin@WKC.org.au

WKC can process Bankcard, Mastercard, Visa or American Express. If you are going to order by e-mail contact the society first as they do not have secure e-mail.