For the second year running, the leading South Gippsland Beloka Kelpie Stud, Welshpool, is putting up a Kelpie to be won in a Stock & Land reader competition.
This year stud principal and dog trainer Paul Macphail is offering as a prize a red, four-month-old male kelpie to be won by a lucky reader this month.
The competition starts in Stock & Land on April 9.
The pup, named Dusty and worth about $1100, began working with sheep only last month and is progressing well working with sheep.
According to Mr Macphail he is demonstrating all the necessary attributes of a good sheep dog and is also doing well with his obedience lessons.
Mr Macphail said Dusty was developing into a good all-rounder that would work in the yards, paddock and with cattle and sheep.
"He is very keen, alert, bold, strong and super obedient already," he said.
Dusty is by Beloka Scooter, one of the stud’s main sires, who has bred some outstanding dogs, according to Mr Macphail.
Two pups that featured with Mr Macphail on Channel Seven’s Australia’s Got Talent in February were by Scooter.
One of Scooter’s progeny also sold at Casteron three years ago for $5000.
Dusty is out of Beloka Spook, a hard working, tough paddock and yard bitch, whose father Beloka Jack also sold at Casteron two years ago for $4400.
Also on offer in the Stock & Land reader competition is a two-day dog training course.
Worth $275, the monthly courses are conducted on the Welshpool farm where dog owners are shown how to start their dogs and fix working and obedience problems.
Mr Machphail began breeding kelpies on his hilly 93-hectare farm 20 years ago where he runs crossbred sheep and a vealer producing beef herd.
Over the years he has developed an eye for breeding an all-round dog that will muster sheep bring them down from the hills, doing yard work and working cattle as well.
For the past eight years he has sold dogs at the annual Australian Kelpie Muster at Casterton in June.
Mr Macphail also sells a few dogs at Agfest in Tasmania in early May where he takes a team.
Dogs have been sold to all states including Queensland and overseas.
The kelpie stud sells 40-50 starter and trained dogs a year.
The breeding nucleus consists of about 10 stud dogs consisting of five or six bitches and three sire dogs.
His dogs mainly come from the old Capri and Lisscanna lines.
