• • Title • Kelpie: the legend. Uniform Title • Kelpie: the legend (Documentary television program) Also Titled • Kelpie the legend Other Creators • Stone, Ric, (narrator.) Distributed • Australia Distributed by Adele Video Production, ©2012. Physical Description • 1 DVD-video (54 minutes): sound, colour; 12 cm. Subjects • • • Target Audience • General Form • Documentary television program Summary • 'In 2002 Bill Robertson identified serious inconsistencies in the early history of the Kelpie breed. Being a determined character Bill proceeded to investigate that early history and now after years of following Kelpie’s ancestral path throughout Australia, he has obtained original facts from diaries and other primary sources that reveal how and where the Kelpie breed originated and their early genetic history. This is the most comprehensive video documentary ever produced on the Kelpie breed.

Simply titled “Kelpie the Legend” this definitive program is the last piece of the puzzle in the breeds early history; truly a collector’s item! Like the Kelpie, the program embraces the wool industry including comments by best selling Kelpie author, Tony Parson and long time Kelpie breeder Tim Austin'--Container. Performer • Narrated by Ric Stone. Notes • Catalogued from container.

• Originally produced as a documentary television program in 2012. • In English. Technical Details • DVD video, PAL, region 2, 4, 5, aspect ratio16:9. Language • English Dewey Number • 636.737 Libraries Australia ID • Contributed by Get this edition.

Apr 14, 2016. A comprehensive book on the Australia Kelpie uncovers the mystery behind the breed. KELPIE THE LEGEND music video From the DVD 'Kelpie The Legend' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFSehjkFNHw.

PIP COURTNEY, PRESENTER: The Australian kelpie is considered the best all-round stock dog on Earth with its abilities taking it from Australia's dusty Outback to even herding reindeer in the Arctic. But the kelpie's origins are shrouded in mystery. It's long been rumoured the breed even has a fair dash of dingo.

Now a new book claims to have finally uncovered the truth about our much-loved breed. TIM LEE, REPORTER: Somewhere in the heather-clad hills and snow-capped peaks of the Scottish Highlands, shrouded in the mists of time, lie some elusive answers about an almost mythical creature, the Australian kelpie. The kelpie takes its name from a water spirit of Scottish folklore and one man's quest to discover the origins of this famous Australian working dog in the land of his ancestors has taken him 12 years and halfway around the globe. BILL ROBERTSON, AUTHOR: That journey took us to the north of Scotland because the kelpie breed was supposedly bred by this aristocratic breed of dogs called Rutherford collies that came from Dunrobin Castle in the north of Scotland. MELANIE ROBERTSON, DAUGHTER-IN-LAW: Bill has certainly, you know, followed the kelpie trail, you know, wherever it has taken him and, you know, essentially dragged Kerry along in most instances on that journey.

TIM LEE: Kerry Robertson has for the most part been a willing accomplice. KERRY ROBERTSON, WIFE: That's the thing that I enjoy the most is going overseas and meeting different people and that is - to me, is the highlight.

I know he's gathering information and that, but I do like meeting all the different people that we've met. TIM LEE: There's no dispute that the kelpie is derived from Scottish collies in Australia in the 1870s, but precisely how the breed came about has remained a much murkier mystery. BILL ROBERTSON: There was 26 versions of - that we had counted of how the kelpie dog originated and where it came from. TIM LEE: Discovering, gathering and dissecting all the evidence, sorting likely fact from probable fiction, has been a huge undertaking. BILL ROBERTSON: That was probably the most expensive thing I did in my life was say that I'm going to find out just what really did happen. TIM LEE: The result: an impressive, recently published 300-page book, Origins of the Australian Kelpie, is being well-received. TONY PARSONS, AUTHOR/KELPIE BREEDER: He's produced a humdinger of a book.

Um, great credit to him, great credit to him, you know? It's a lovely book. TIM LEE: Tony Parsons is the best-qualified person in Australia to make that observation. He's owned and bred kelpies since the mid-1940s, gathered a lifetime of information and written extensively about them. So what is it that people find so captivating about the kelpie?

TONY PARSONS: Well, his willingness to work under all conditions, his willingness to be adapted. For example, from a paddock dog, he's been developed so that now he works in the yards and works to a high standard. The substance of the fact is that we've produced the best all-round stock dog in the world. TIM LEE: Tony Parsons goes as far to say that without such a capable dog, Australia's spectacular path to prosperity from wool would not have been so.

TONY PARSONS: The kelpie was providentially - like a gift from heaven, sort of thing - given to the sheepmen of Australia, and from that time on, he's occupied a tremendous place. It just would have been virtually impossible in some places to run sheep without the kelpie. BILL ROBERTSON: I've seen them so sore, they didn't know which foot to put down because they've got bindies in every foot. And you've gotta say, 'Wow, that's a courageous dog.'

And that's where my passion come from, seeing them work in the back country. MELANIE ROBERTSON: Bill was just adamant right from the very beginning that this story was so critical to Australia's prosperity, that we had this wonderful, well-recognised story of, you know, the wool industry supporting Australia's prosperity, but underneath that was the dog. And so he was really determined that that dog could share in the limelight of the wool industry and basically Australia's riding on the sheep's back. TIM LEE: The kelpie may be the most common working dog in Australia, but the breed has some rare qualities. SCOTT YOUNG, FARMER: He's about 14 years old now, so a magnificent dog, yeah. And I'm not quite a 100 per cent kelpie trainer and he knew it all himself, so he just - I just had to guide him a little bit. TIM LEE: Mitch is indispensable to Scott Young.

So useful in fact that Mitch is one of just two kelpies that help manage a large livestock operation at Ballan, west of Melbourne. SCOTT YOUNG: Two dogs is a lot cheaper than two people and they don't complain and you look after 'em and they look after you. BILL ROBERTSON: Never say die, never give in. They have tonne of grit. They're a great dog. SCOTT YOUNG: Mine work until they fall over, virtually.

They just won't stop. BILL ROBERTSON: The Australian kelpie is a great icon. Whether you know dog types or you're a city person, if you've heard of a kelpie, straight away you think of it as an Australian working dog and they are an Australian icon. TIM LEE: It's always been rumoured that the dingo was crucial to the breed's development. Walton Violin Concerto Pdf To Excel on this page. Bill Robertson believes that science now proves it so. BILL ROBERTSON: I decided that I'd get the University of New South Wales to do DNA testing on some foundation bloodlines.

TIM LEE: Bill Robertson paid for the tests and the chief geneticist Alan Wilton conducted them. BILL ROBERTSON: The final analysis was that there was between three and four per cent dingo markers in the kelpie strain.

And those dingoes were both from Fraser Island and mainland Australia. TIM LEE: So when did the dingo genes come in?

BILL ROBERTSON: The dingo infusion happened right at the very beginning with the first bitch, called Kelpie, on Warrock Homestead in Casterton in 1870. Her mother, a bitch called Bess - this has never been mentioned - but a bitch called Bess was mated to a dingo. NARRATOR (Kelpie The Legend): In 1860, the western Victorian newspaper, the Hamilton Spectator, encouraged settlers to poison dingoes. The method required a female sheepdog on heat to be tethered to a tree at night.

She would lure dingoes to poison baits placed just out of her reach. The menacing dingoes would eat the baits, to deadly effect. But sometimes, the sheepdog proved to be more attractive. As a consequence, she would be mated to a dingo. TIM LEE: Warrock Station in western Victoria is acknowledged as the breed's birthplace.

The property was renowned for its fine collie sheepdogs derived from Scottish bloodlines. But why has there never been any mention of a dingo? BILL ROBERTSON: In those early days, to own a dingo, to have anything complimentary about a dingo, it was treason and there's authors who have actually stated that. TIM LEE: Seen as the scourge of sheepmen, most states had serious penalties for possessing a crossbred dingo.

And so, says Bill Robertson, the real kelpie origins were a much-guarded secret, though the imprint of the dingo is unmistakable. BILL ROBERTSON: It was the spirit, the grit, the ability to handle the heat and the never-say-die characteristic. TIM LEE: The legend runs that Irish-born stockman Jack Gleeson, who worked on Warrock Station, secretly swapped a fine horse for a pup called Kelpie, had her mated with a collie called Moss and the bloodlines of those highly-prized pups soon spread near and far. Kelpie is commemorated in bronze in Casterton, but Tony Parsons says parts of the story still don't add up. TONY PARSONS: How the kelpie came to be short-coated and prick-eared so quickly, it's not because of the dingo, because they weren't - there were no dingoes in Scotland. But they came out here, a lot of them prick-eared and slick-coated, so there had to be some dog responsible for them, which was different from the ordinary collie.

I mean, I'm not saying that dingoes weren't used subsequently, and the DNA proves that they were, but a lot of those dingo crosses didn't occur until 50 years later in the 1930s. So - and not all the kelpies would show dingo in their DNA. TIM LEE: Tony Parsons believes there's another mystery ancestor, perhaps a German shepherd, somewhere in those Scottish collies, that has yet to come to light. Bill Robertson says he's happy to follow any new leads his book might throw up. Besides, he's used to proving people wrong. His early working life was spent as a shearer, in the footsteps of his father. Some declared he'd never do much good, but determination and skill took him to the top of the trade.

In 1974, he was named Australian Shearer of the Year and set a world record for the number of Merino sheep shorn in an eight-hour day. BILL ROBERTSON: I shore 421 in seven hours, 48 minutes. And, uh, the previous record was 411. KERRY ROBERTSON: He said he would like to do it in the shearing shed under normal working conditions. TIM LEE: Several years later, a serious workplace accident ended his shearing career. KERRY ROBERTSON: The handpiece locked, a piece of steel went in between the comb and the cutter and it broke his scaphoid bone.

The scaphoid takes a long time to heal. I think it was some nine months while it was in plaster. So that virtually ended his shearing career. TIM LEE: By then, Australian shearers had adopted the wider shearing comb. Some were struggling with it, so Bill Robertson made a training film. It was a bestseller and it launched him into video production. Then, after making a documentary about the kelpie, the next logical step was a book.

MELANIE ROBERTSON: He's an extremely tenacious character, he's extremely determined and he shows that not just in what he's achieved in the past, but how he's gone about this process and also then now, his battle with cancer as well. KERRY ROBERTSON: He had his stomach removed a few years ago 'cause of cancer and now it's in his liver. Um, because of his health and the fact that he's never drank, he's never smoked, the - his chemo results are very good. The cancer is - um, it's going down and he's putting on weight, which is wonderful. And, um, I'm sure he will be around for quite a while. He has to be! I've been - I've been with him for over 50 years, every day, so we've worked together, so this is another - just another one of our journeys.

TIM LEE: Bill Robertson makes light of his ill health. BILL ROBERTSON: I've had health problems that have been distracting, but apart from that, I am a reasonably determined person. TONY PARSONS: Well, I s'pose a fellow who can shear over 400 sheep in a day would have to be a very determined, very capable fellow and I think he's put a lot of that endurance ability into the book because it's a - there is a lot of work in it, there's a lot of referencing in it.

And, uh - and under the circumstances, I think, you know, it's a tremendous book, a tremendous book for Australia and it should endure through the ages. TIM LEE: Dog breeding has forever been a highly secretive world of intense commercial rivalry. But Bill Robertson is confident he has shed some new light on one of the great Australian mysteries: the real origins of this much-loved breed. The Planescape Sketchbook Pdf To Word there. BILL ROBERTSON: It's now considered the definitive version of the kelpie history and I'm quite excited by that, yes.