The Kelpie Chronicles
A Kelpie is an athletic and hardy dog, that is a great choice for active people who want a canine companion to keep up with them. They possess keen intelligence with the drive of a true working dog.
The Kelpie loves activity and enjoys flyball, agility, obedience and is known to be great at herding the sheep on the farm. They’ll need to be obedience-trained from a young age but will learn things pretty quickly. The Kelpie is a true working dog and will thrive on a large property, but they’ll adapt to a large backyard as long as they have plenty of mental stimulation, such as daily walks and games. They won’t take kindly to being left in the backyard and will quickly become destructive if bored or ignored. While the Kelpie is a friendly breed, he can be protective of his family and property and will bark at strangers or any unusual happenings on his property.
- Kelpies are able to travel more than 50 kilometres in a single day.
- The word ‘Kelpie’ is Gaelic and means “water sprite”
- Height – 43 – 51cm
- Weight – 11 – 20kg
- Average Lifespan – 10 – 14 years
Here are some stories from some of our lovely Kelpie’s that have attended our puppy classes or good manners classes over the last couple of months!
MY NAME IS REEF. I’m a Kelpie and I’m 6 months old. It’s time for me to learn the skills needed to be a more mature boy on the lead. This means I’m going to learn how to keep the leash loose and how to share the footpath with other dogs and humans. Apparently that means I’m going to learn how to walk past them and resist the temptation to pounce on them. I’m determined now to show my humans “who’s a good boy, then”.
MY NAME IS BUCKY. I’m a Kelpie x Staffie and I’m 2 years old. I came from a rescue organisation in June 2020 to my forever home. Because of my unknown early history no-one really knows why I’m so reactive to other dogs on the lead. My human wants to be able to practise some new strategies to desensitise, redirect and reassure me, in a controlled situation. For this reason we have started with a private session to learn some new happy strategies to help with this. We’ll be good students and practise at home in quiet locations until we feel confident enough to take these skills to a Growly class. In the Growly class there will be just a small number of dogs who will be working at their own levels to adapt to seeing other dogs and not panicking. Can’t wait to start to feel better and make my human proud!
MY NAME IS OCCY. I’m a Kelpie x and I’m 13 weeks old. The best humans in the world adopted me. Not only did they book me into puppy school, they booked a private consultation beforehand to sort out a few questions they already had. You see, they’ve never had a dog before and they wanted to do all the right things to help me live my best life. I’ve been a bit over-stimulated around moving vehicles, I’ve been worried about getting into a car, along with using my teeth on human skin a little too much and worrying when my humans leave me. All of these things were covered In my private lesson. My humans have found that I like having a little cubby house under a lounge room side table so they’re going to give me a room of my very own. It’s going to be called a crate. They tell me I’m going to feel safe and relaxed in there. I told you they were the best humans in the world!
