Mustering with sheepdogs in New Zealand's Mackenzie Country
BY Margo Pfeiff
10th Jan 2024 Life
7 min read
In New Zealand's high country, the economy runs on four paws. We get up close with the sheepdogs who patrol the Mackenzie Country's perilous slopes
Grant Calder saddles up a
pair of horses in the stable of
his sheep station, Mount
Whitnow, 70 miles north-west of
Christchurch.
With his team of five
dogs in tow, we head into the high
country. The April sunshine warms
our backs as we work our way up a
long valley and over a series of ridges.
After an hour's hard ride, the sheep
farmer calls a halt on a windswept
hillside.
"Danny!" he shouts. His lead
dog, a Border Collie, bounds into the
distance, followed, upon orders, by
the others. "There are about 1,200
sheep in this block that we'll take
down to winter pasture," he explains.
The dogs are over a mile away
now. The only sound that rings
through the heights is their husky
barking. Then, one by one, sheep
begin trickling into sight, falling
into step along ruts on the precipitous slopes.
Watching through binoculars, Grant conducts the mustering
with a repertoire of ear-splitting
staccato whistles, a Morse code by
which each dog recognises his own
commands. Gradually the bleating
mob is gathered into a rippling sea
of pale-yellow wool, and we begin
moving downhill.
Just three hours after we had set off from the homestead, Grant shuts the
gate on the flock in the lower paddock. He ruffles the fur of his panting
canine companion. "Without these
dogs," he says, "it would have taken
100 men to do this morning's work."
The rough reality of sheep farming
The first sheepdogs in the Otago area were brought over by Scottish farmers
Nowhere is the sheepdog more
important than in New Zealand,
where in rural areas they say, "the economy runs on four paws." With 51
per cent of its land under pasture, the
country ranks second in the world in
wool production and tops the league
of sheep-meat exporters.
First brought to the Otago area of
the South Island by Scottish farmers
in the middle of last century, working
dogs now number more than 200,000
and muster 60 million sheep across
the nation.
In Britain farms are
usually easy-to-manage small parcels, and in Australia's flat outback,
motorbikes can be used for mustering.
"Take our dogs away, and we would be broke in 12 months"
But in New Zealand some of
the biggest stations reach up 8,000
feet into the clouds. Without sheepdogs, vast tracts of this barely
accessible high country would lie
idle.
"Take our dogs
away, and we would be broke in 12
months," agree Grant and his wife,
Robyn.
The hard-working couple run
8,000 head of merino sheep on
15,300 acres with only the aid of their
two teams of dogs. At least four times
a year they muster their entire flock—
bringing them down to the farm for
drenching and shearing—a week-long task they do on horseback.
"For the really high blocks," says
Grant, "we take the dogs up by
chopper."
Fording icy streams and
racing across sharp shale is hard on
dogs. "I've seen blood from their cut
pads on the snow and rocks, but you
never hear them so much as whim-per," Grant adds. "If you let them,
they'll work till they drop."
How to train a sheepdog
Credit: NatalieMaynor, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr. Every New Zealand sheepdog is fiercely obedient to their master's calls
Like most Kiwi farmers, the
Calders use two types of dogs. The
handsome black-and-white or black-and-tan Border Collie, hailing from
the Scottish highlands, works as the
silent "heading" or "eye" dog, controlling the flock with its mesmerising
stare, pushing it towards the shepherd, the run being called a "head."
The Huntaway, on the
other hand, is bred especially for the
hill country—with a bark that carries
for miles. Unique to New Zealand,
the Huntaway's exact origins are a
mystery, but include a bit of Irish
Setter and Foxhound and at least a
dash of Labrador.
The Huntaway's
skill lies in keeping the main flock
together and driving them forward
while the stragglers are deftly brought
into line by the nimble heading dogs.
The dogs' job isn't finished when
they bring in the last sheep. Keeping
the flock on the move into the shearing shed or through the dipping
chutes, especially in summer when
sheep are obstinate and refuse to
budge, is hot, dusty work.
This is when the dogs perform an
amazing feat of agility: they break
traffic jams by using the sheep's
backs as a footpath to scamper to the
front of the mob and get the flow
moving again.
"One year a blind Collie won an English sheepdog trial"
I follow Grant into a small paddock
beside the homestead where he is
training Tulloch, a frisky six-month-old heading dog, to handle four
sheep.
Like his father and grandfather, Grant is a champion dog
breeder and trainer, and trophies line
the Calders' living room walls.
From the day a litter is born, Grant scrutinises the pups to see which show a
natural enthusiasm for working stock:
choosing a dog with good potential is
crucial, since training can take a year
or more.
"Some pups will stalk anything
from chickens and ducks to goats,"
Grant says as he ties a long rope
around Tulloch's middle.
The rope
gives the dog a physical connection
with his master's instructions, so he
learns quickly to stop, sit, stand, walk
and run. Most farmers use a combination of whistles and verbal commands.
"Come by," Grant shouts,
and Tulloch dutifully circles clockwise round the sheep. "Keep out," his
master commands, and after a tug on
the rope, Tulloch eagerly reverses
direction.
"My dogs ignore
Grant's commands," Robyn tells me
as we look on, "and his dogs ignore
mine. They obey only one person—their master. Often, when a fully
trained sheepdog is sold, a recording
of the dog's commands is passed on
to the new owner."
So explicit are the
signals that one year a blind Collie
won an English sheepdog trial.
The great Mckenzie heist
Credit: Peter Kurdulija, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0, via Flickr. Mackenzie Country is so named for the sheep stealer who kept his wayward flock hidden in the mountains
From the Calders' I drive south
past Christchurch towards the wild
region of glaciers, raging rivers and
highlands that are the backbone of the
South Island. Turning inland, I climb
over Burke Pass, and suddenly the
rolling green countryside gives way
to a great tussock plain ringed by
barren brown mountains.
I am in Mackenzie Country, named after the notorious 19th-century sheep stealer whose escapades are now part of high-country
folklore. James McKenzie (as his
name was originally spelled) had a
dog named Friday who took commands only in Gaelic.
Legend has it that Friday was so
clever that she would single-handedly
muster sheep in the dark of night,
stealing them away to a prearranged
location while her master sipped
whisky in a local pub to create a
perfect alibi.
"Friday was so clever that she would single-handedly muster sheep in the dark of night"
McKenzie was finally
caught red-handed in March 1855
with 1,000 sheep on a pass into the
high basin that now bears his name.
He went to prison but was pardoned
after nine months and disappeared in
the direction of Australia.
Through McKenzie's exploits, the
unclaimed high country where he
stashed his filched flocks came to the
attention of settlers, and today supports three dozen of the country's
biggest sheep stations. There are no
higher, steeper or harsher sheep runs
in New Zealand.
At the village of
Tekapo, I board a Cessna for a flight
over the Mackenzie Basin. Jostled by
buffeting winds, we soar above the
pathway of Tasman Glacier, the glittering pyramid of Mount Cook
dwarfing a snow-capped skyline.
Down below sprawls Godley
Peaks Station's vast, mountainous
58,000 acres. "In the North Island
they count the number of sheep per
hectare," Robyn Calder had told
me. "In the South Island we count the number of hectares per sheep."
Man's best friend
At the station I meet Bruce Scott,
second-generation owner, just returned from his autumn muster. It's one
of the toughest in the country—14
days of walking for seven men and 36
dogs, combing near vertical slopes
for 11,000 sheep.
"We head out with
a couple of Jeeps and spend each
night in a different hut," says Scott.
On big runs
like Godley Peaks, dogs must often
work beyond the range of their master's commands. "A smart sheepdog
can be trusted to think for himself,"
says Scott, who, like every farmer I
met, has tales to tell of whistling in
vain for a dog, only to climb for an
hour and find him resolutely standing
by an injured sheep.
Dogs sometimes
mysteriously disappear on a muster,
and are found hours later shepherding
a flock missed by the musterers.
"A smart sheepdog can be trusted to think for himself"
Some of the finest working dogs
are fiercely loyal and will protect their
master at any cost. Elsie Westhead
owes her life to her Collie.
One morning, on her North Island
Manukau Heads property, she went
into a paddock to check on a cow that
had given birth prematurely. Enraged,
the cow charged, throwing Elsie to
the ground and trampling her.
"I had a
cracked skull, and half my hand was
missing, but somehow I managed to
whistle for Debbie," she recalls. Her
dog leaped between her and the cow,
and herded the beast to another paddock. "If it weren't for Debbie, I
wouldn't be here," says Westhead.
Sheepdog trials
Credit: Pam, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Farmers test out their four-legged helpers' skills at sheepdog trials
Although the need to maintain
strict discipline prevents farmers
from showing much outward affection towards their dogs, they can't
resist bragging about their talents.
The tests that sort the mutts from
the wonder dogs are the scores of
sheepdog trials that take place across
the country between February and the
national finals in June.
To see the
dogs in action, I attend the Mohaka
Dog Trials near Wairoa in the North
Island. The competition is already
under way when I arrive, a Huntaway
barking furiously as he guides three
sheep up a hill through pairs of markers arranged like a jagged lightning
flash.
At the far end of the paddock, the
dogs have attracted a crowd for the
highlight of the trials, the "Short
Head and Yard" event.
Top triallist
Kevin O'Connor and his dog Chum
stand within a 60-foot-long box,
marked at the corners by pegs, while
three sheep are released on a hillside.
When the judge calls "time", the
sleek sheepdog is sent out and speeds
effortlessly up the hillside. Chum has
14 minutes to pull the sheep straight
down the hill to the box, then drive
them another 600 feet and corral them
in a small pen.
Chum's sinuous body
language as she paces stealthily from
side to side, head lowered, eye contact never wavering even for a split
second, has both the sheep and the
crowd hypnotised.
I hear a whimpering at my elbow and turn to see two
sheepdogs, eyes glued to the action
like reserves on the bench at a
football match. Trialling measures not
only a dog's ability, but the bond
between a man and his beast as well.
"When your dog disregards your whistles out there, you have to trust that he knows better"
"When your dog disregards your
whistles out there, you have to trust
that he knows better," says John Haliburton, 84, who has been competing
in trials for 70 years. "There's little
point in over-commanding. You have
to bite your tongue and let the dog
work."
As Chum hustles her three unpredictable charges towards the pen,
O'Connor holds out his shepherd's
stick to extend the length of the gate
and prevent the sheep from going
behind him.
Just when it seems they are
home free, one sheep bolts. The
crowd gasps, but Chum is hard on its
heels, and with nearly a minute to
spare, O'Connor taps the gate shut.
"Good run," says the next contestant
as he moves into position and a panting Chum bolts into a nearby pond
for a cooling dip. When the competition is over, O'Connor and Chum
have been placed second.
After a five or six-year career of
hard mustering in the high country,
faithful heroes such as Chum and
Grant Calder's Danny deserve a dignified retirement.
Like most farmers,
Calder keeps his older dogs busy
around the farm with easy chores, for
he knows they won't be happy if they
aren't working.
"They are your partners in business, your loyal companions, and they willingly give their
life's service for a meal a day," he
told me. "If they aren't man's best
friends, I don't know who is."
This article is part of our archival collection and was originally published in March 1992. While we strive to present historical content accurately, please note that circumstances and information may have changed since the article's original publication. Some individuals mentioned in the article may no longer be alive, and events or details may have evolved. We encourage readers to consider the context of the original publication and to verify any current information independently
Banner credit: Trey Ratcliff, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0, via Flickr
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