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NOONBARRA MASSEY (South Australia)

"An update on Massey. He has earned his JDX, JDO, ADX and ADO titles this year. He already has a couple of masters passes"  - Jane Lawrence South Australia.  [ Jane has recently purchased a second Noonbarra Kelpie called Noonbarra Mikki ].

NOONBARRA SHEENA (Japan)

Sheena was sold to Japan to compete in Frisbee competition. Her owner Shinji Yasuda already has a champion Frisbee dog. We made sure he got a puppy that was compliant and outgoing and good with people.

"Hi, Sheena is growing well . She is friendly pup...Now I just play with her using a ball and a mini frisbee. She is enjoying the play very much . After a few days I will start 'leader walk' . Yes she is perfect dog for me." Shinji Yasuda

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First of all, I have to say, he is a very special dog to us and as always said, we can't thank you enough for him. Since we have him, we can't imagine our life without a kelpie, and we are sure that our next dog will be a kelpie too. He is talented in every dog sport that we try out with him. 

He knows now every obstacle in agility, we will now improve his contact zones. I love to do agility with him. He reacts to my movement in a fracture of a minute. Sometimes my teammates ask me if they can run with him. Everyone is amazed by his turnings, he can turn around in the air.

NOONBARRA HUNTER (NSW)

Hunter was sold to Julie in Sydney. Julie is a Vet who does some obedience training with her Noonbarra Kelpie.

"Hi Mary and Stephen, I wanted to let you know how Hunter was going as he has now just celebrated his first birthday! He received a new soft toy which has taken the position of favourite very quickly and is already looking slightly worse for wear and in need of a wash."

"He is just beautiful and I feel very lucky to have such a great dog. He is going very well at obedience and I have recently had a number of comments from other participants and a couple of trainers about how fixatedly he looks at me, ready for the next command or praise! (I think he's just after the liver treats but I'm happy to believe that maybe he is just very attentive). He is by far the sweetest, gentlest and most affectionate dog I have ever seen and is winning the heart of even my least doggy friends and all the local children particularly our neighbours children who are very shy but love to take Hunter and our other dog out for extra walks in the park. "

"I have also started going running with him which he seems to enjoy and no doubt will keep his natural kelpie endurance up to scratch. Hope all is well with your dogs, particularly Flash who I owe a thank you to for fathering such lovely puppies. " Take care, regards Julie van Bavel

Noonbarra Scamper doing Agility (USA)

NOONBARRA SCAMPER (USA)

Re training: we have done several obedience sessions and are currently repeating the advanced class, both as a refresher and to get Scamper around more dogs.  We like the classes as they are in a large Petsmart store, so there are a lot of distractions, etc. 

We previously took a "Click a Trick" class, which teaches behaviors via a clicker.  Some tricks Scamp picks up after a couple of demos, others she can't quite get the hang of (or doesn't want to do).  Let's see, she can spin both directions, roll over, crawl, back, etc.  She is real good at "leave it", which is really more obedience than a trick.  We worked on teaching her to bow, but she didn't quite get that one. 

We got second place in a little competition where we had to introduce an original trick to the group--we had Scamper pushing (herding) around a black stuffed sheep (shows up good against her light fur), with her nose.  It was cute, but we haven't really followed up on that one lately. 
 

"The Frisbee is her favorite toy, she will drop it at my feet while working in the garden and even drops it in front of the lawn mower (cheeky) so I have to pick it up and throw it for her. Bronte will chase it all day, sometimes I have to take it off her so she will eat her dinner and she is not much better with the tennis ball."

Noonbarra Oscar springs in the air to catch frisbee

NOONBARRA KRYPTO

I do not mean to imply that Krypto is not without challenges. She does like intelligent play, and she has started frisbee. Krypto tells me what she wants to do, for example, she gets the leash from the  closet or brings the frisbee to me. When she does that, it is I who must be obedient (or be stared down by a stubborn Kelpie). She is a "larrakin" and a sprite at the same time.

NOONBARRA ATILLA

Indy has just gone past 7 months and his training is going very well. I am off food rewards now as I have found a new love of his.. the tennis ball and frisbee. He absolutely frets over me throwing the ball or frisbee for him so it's a good way to motivate him out on walks or to get him to perfect his downs in situations were he definitely wants to be doing other things (like chasing the frisbee).

NOONBARRA SKY and NOONBARRA KRYPTO  (USA)
Big agility news! The stats for the Top Ten/2010 agility dogs in our league (across North America) have been tabulated and announced. The summation is made across all height levels, and compares the quantity of my dogs are in the Top Ten/2010, even though they all jump in three different height classes and thus compete against each other for Top Ten spots:

Handling Krypto the "mind-reading kelpie"  in agility is a dreamy, serene time where I scarcely say anything except sometimes a whispered "out" (lateral distance) or "go" (forward distance) or offer a verbal discrimination by quietly naming an obstacle if the field of view seems confusing.

Both dogs (Noonbarra Will & Noonbarra Brynn) are doing agility, and Brynn also does search and rescue.  She was probably the first kelpie doing avalanche search and rescue, as far as I know it. She enjoyed herself very much.  I really love working with her, she is so smart and learns so quickly, I have never seen that before in a dog. I only need to show her once and she knows it, and even better, she doesn't forget, like ever. She can be reminded at everything I ever taught her in few seconds. Will is also doing great. He enjoys agility so much and is really fast and extremely motivated. I will try to make some videos of him doing agility soon so I can send it to you. Maybe you can upload it on your web site. Thank you again for those wonderful dogs. 

P.S. We started going to Hungary on agility competitions on regular basis, so we met Noonbarra Elmo and Anna. He is lovely. Fawn and tan! I was so jelaous. He seems to be doing great to, and growing fast.  

Rose loves it when I throw balls, sticks...whatever into the water and she leaps in and swims to get them...BUT she will never bring the object out of the water. She lets go of it about a meter or so from the edge and then looks at me and waits for me to throw it back in....which is sometimes very hard if I don't want to get wet feet and we've lost a few things as a result......

NOONBARRA ATILLA

Later this year I will start him in beginner's Agility class. I'm not in a huge hurry to do this as there is so much foundation training that he can do that doesn't involve equipment , have also seen a lot of people ruin very young dogs from starting too early and expecting too much from them, an easy trap to fall into with him, because he's just so good ! The agility training he's been doing here (uprights with poles on ground, tyre on ground, tunnels, small A frame, ) has been amazing. I can already put him on a stay and get a 2 jump lead out - I can't even do that with my titled dog !

Noonbarra Atilla

Just wanted to update you on Atilla - we entered our first agility trial yesterday, a NADAC trial at Bacchus Marsh. Did this one more as a test as I wanted to see where we were at and what I needed to focus on in training. 

We had six runs, three passes, two first places (agility) and one second place (jumping) so I was certainly pleased with the outcome! 

Nearly had our jumping title in a day, but on the jumping run that he didn't qualify on, he got to the last jump and saw people/dogs he knows outside the ring in direct line with the finish so he bypassed the last jump and ran off to socialise with them instead, ran beautiful up to that point, I actually consider that a better run than the one we qualified on.

I am so proud of him, he never broke one stay at the start line and got every single contact (colours he has to touch at the bottom of dog walk, seesaw and A frame, without jumping off early, a common problem with 'high drive' dogs) and weaved perfectly in every agility run.

Hope everything is going well at Noonbarra, would LOVE another puppy but I have to talk Liam into it first, maybe next year some time ???????

Noonbarra Oscar and Frisbee

Noonbarra Ruthless in the U.S.A.

"I have nothing but absolutely wonderful things to say about this dog! She has really done a lot of maturing in these past months. I can not even begin to tell you how wonderful she is and how much I love her. ..

"She and I have just become the best of friends. She sleeps against my side every night and follows me everywhere I go. She is just the happiest and sweetest dog I have ever known. I don't think there is a bad bone in her body. She always does as told and she always seems to have a big smile on her face while doing it. She has really grown into an amazing companion.

"She and I have really started to do a lot more agility work now that she is almost 18 months. I got her x-rayed and her growth plates were closed so it is safe to do a bit harder of work now. I have mostly been working her contacts and she is just now learning how to weave. We do some sequences as well. Those are a bit harder for her though. She has a lot of drive and a huge stride and she is not quite sure what to do with it all yet. We are working on that though. I have had a lot of kelpie people tell me that they are a very difficult dog to train in that they can be stubborn but I have not seen any of this in Ruth. She is so eager to please me and she tries so hard for me. She wants nothing more than to do the right thing which makes her an absolute joy to work with."

I get a lot of questions about where she came from and I tell everyone what a great job you guys did for me in picking my perfect dog. I really don't know how to thank you both for such a wonderful dog. She is more than I could have hoped for. After having Ruth, I'm not sure if I can have anything but a Kelpie from now on!!

NOONBARRA LADY COMPETING IN JAPAN

More on Noonbarra Atilla...

He finished both his Novice titles (Agility and Jumping) over the Easter weekend. We had a great day on Saturday, 4 runs, 4 passes, plus the club member's sashes for fastest qualifying Agility run and fastest qualifying Jumping run.... At the end of the day we also won the club member's sash for 'Best Performing Dog at Trial', without even competing on the 2nd day.

The Open is harder (for me - not him) but he got his first Agility pass last weekend and 2nd place (0.03 seconds off 1st). He also has a new 'best friend' at trials - little Noonbarra Bob. It's funny to see them together, they seem to understand they're part of the big 'Noonbarra family' and seek each other out.

NOONBARRA SESSHOMARU (USA)

He earned his first two agility titles with very limited showing. He earned three Novice herding titles, on goats and ducks, and has been worked on sheep and cattle too.... "Here are some pictures of Sessho in an agility fun match, a tune-up for some shows I was planning for next month. I tell people I'm having to learn to handle a Ferrari after driving a pick-up truck, as Sessho is so fast and responsive to my cues. Which means I can also send him off course just by twitching at the wrong time! But most of the time we get it right. Then we're usually first as he's so fast."

Noonbarra Scott (and Noonbarra Mate) (Germany)

"I have a lot of work for Mate to do, he is such a big help. When I get around I take Scott to the cows too. The cows have a lot of respect of him. The more work he gets the better it works. If he had some time off he is still quite fast and tight. I still take him to agility if there is spare time and everyone is impressed about his jumping ability and speed."

Noonbarra Elmo in Hungary

Noonbarra Billee in full flight

NOONBARRA WILL IN CROATIA

Noonbarra Will is doing extremely well at Agility competition in Europe and he now is so muscled that Nina says the other competitors joke that she must be giving him steroids and he should do a doping test. A look at the photo will show you why.

You know how smart the kelpies are. Sky taught himself something new in the agility  arena last month, and I face retraining him – more likely I won't bother because our primary mission is sheepdog work. Here's what Sky figured out. The matches use electronic timing to ensure accurate run-times for the dogs. The start/end posts have electronic eyes nested around the start/finish jumps.  Further, the electronic control box is managed by a human "timer" who oversees that all is functioning, e.g., the clock is running when the dog crosses the first set of eyes. However, the posts are visually noticeable to the dogs -- I have often seen Krypto figure the last arc of a course when she spies the timing/eye posts. 

At the beginning of a run, I walk Sky to the start line with leash/collar (required in our league), remove the leash/collar (dogs run without any collar, for safety), place Sky in LieDown/Wait while I walk to the center of the arena. The timer/manager, signaled by the judge that the judge is in position to monitor the run, presses a button on the electronic control box that emits in a mechanical voice, "Go," which signals me to begin the test, and with the Go voice, I release Sky. You are already imagining what a smart dog will do when it hears the mechanical Go voice. 

Of course Sky has learned that the Go-voice means we are beginning the agility course. Sky is highly enthusiastic about agility, especially during the first run of the morning. Last month I was at the start line with Sky for his first run of the day -- Sky was all exuberance -- and was removing his collar when the human timer pressed the "Go" button (well before I had been able to settle near the center of the arena). As for the Go voice, that was Sky's cue to begin to jump the first jump and  run, no matter that I was still holding his leash/collar,  behind him, at the Start line!

Our league's agility rules say that with the dog's crossing the plane of the start line, the test has begun. I decided to see what SKy did on his own, as the class is one where the path is free-form, chosen by the handler/dog team, and requires specific obstacles to be performed and points collected within 30 seconds. At the end of the time period for point collection, a buzzer sounds and the dog has 5 seconds to reach and touch the Pause Table, which is always located at the exit gate.

Rather than run after Sky, or reprimand him during the test with a hearty LieDownYou (frowned upon in our agility league), I experimented to see what Sky would do on his own -- so what if we did not earn the Qually, the entertainment value of Sky's self-test was high.

Sky ran around the arena three times, doing whatever he saw fit to do, and the judge, trying hard to contain laughter, smiled as he called out the points, "Five, three, one, three, one, one, five..." Then the buzzer rang. I'm still at the entry gate/start line, wondering what Sky will do next. No worries -- Sky heard the buzzer, ran to the exit gate, bouncing on the mandatory Pause Table along the way. Sky finally skidded to a Lie Down while I walked over with his leash/collar so we could exit the arena. Yes, Sky was grinning with wide tail wags.

Immediately following, my colleagues asked if Sky had qualified, and I replied that I had no idea, and we waited for the scores to be posted. No worry -- Sky not only earned the Qually, he earned First Place.

That was the onset of Sky's breaking his Start Line stay, which, as I mentioned, I ought to fix with training, although agility is low priority for us this year. To retrain, I will need to borrow the electronic gear box, the posts with the "eyes" and work with the Go voice -- as Sky is happily anticipating the start with the sequence of events/visual and verbal cues. 

In the interim, without retraining, the handler decided to retrain herself. Sky is launching himself from the Start LIne, so be it -- it doesn't seem fair to recall him from a test without retraining for the electronic gadgetry on which he is cuing. Ergo, I have been running Sky not from the center of the arena, but from the Start LIne, an even greater challenge for me. Apparently not a big challenge for Sky. Releasing a dog to run a sequenced course from the start line is a happy compromise while I ponder the retraining. Meantime, my colleagues laugh, "More parlour tricks for Sky!"  - Sallie

"We graduated from puppy school last night....and she won the encouragement award...thanks mostly to dad who has taught her to high 5, shake and has almost got speak on command happening. She is bringing balls etc back now (in the backyard) and by running our hand down her nose (not touching her) and saying drop, she will let go of the toy and wait till we throw it again for her...."Fiona. Melbourne Victoria.

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"Just wanted to drop you a line and let you know things are coming along perfectly. Indy is a gem. Best dog I've ever seen. He picks things up so easily it astounds me and challenges me to try and teach him more complex tricks and commands. - Greg Payne NSW.

NOONBARRA DAISY AND NOONBARRA TALLY

WITH MORGAN IN MELBOURNE

NOONBARRA PHOENIX

"Miss Nix is growing up into a fine young Kelpie!! ... Still has the sweetest nature and makes friends where ever she goes. I had her in our club Members Obedience comp last week. She did extremely well, we finished with the highest points but unfortunately came Second as she moved in her sit stay. Still a fantastic job though and I was very proud of her. She is up in the 'big kids' classes now which will be good. Will let you know how she goes."

NOONBARRA ATILLA

He has started puppy playgroup at the local Vet Clinic and will start puppy classes at our Obedience Club in about 3 weeks. He goes down to socialise when we take our other two to Obedience and everyone loves him and can't believe what he has learned so far. (I've had two instructors ask if I will take their puppies for a week and train them, although I suspect it's him, not my training!!) He gets lots of pats from people when I take him into town and reacts well to the attention.

The 'old timer' at the local stockfeed store has also had a good look at him and pronounced him 'the best bred Kelpie I've ever seen'. Our Vet was very impressed with the folder that you sent with Atilla and his wife couldn't wait to check out your website. They are now planning on getting a Kelpie some time in the next 12 months or so as they have a small number of sheep and are looking to expand.

I have noticed a slight change in him just over the past week,  he seems to have become a lot more attentive (not that he wasn't before) and is following me everywhere. He is doing really well in Obedience class, I'm sure he would be doing even better if I wasn't off trialling most weekends so that he actually got to go more regularly ! I feel really bad about this.

He is becoming less fixated with the other dogs at training and much more on me, this is what I have been working at, keeping his attention in really distracting situations (group training classes - ultimate distractions!)

NOONBARRA KRYPTO

Krypto graduated from Puppy Kindergarten with great grace and aplomb. She complies with her commands extremely well, including "down" and "come." Krypto is a splendid dog. She is so intelligent that I expect her to get out the frying pan from the cabinet and cook eggs one morning for breakfast.
 

NOONBARRA HUNTER

"Hi Mary and Stephen, thought I'd update you on how Hunter is going. We just started obedience last weekend which he loved! He is very interested in watching everything that is going on and meeting all the other dogs. At the park near our home he insists on going on the play equipment and often races off to go down the slide without any encouragement at all.. perhaps some agility is what he would be good at. "

"I'm not sure of Jill has contacted you, but much to my amazement, at the obedience class, I saw a pup that have lovely markings ,very similar to Hunter, went to speak to his owner and was delighted to find out that it was "Lucy", Hunters sister. "

"I had a similar experience over summer when we were in Melbourne at the beach and saw a pup also with lovely markings and got speaking to her owner only to discover that she too was a Noonbarra pup. Her name was "Daisy". It seems that not only do you produce very striking dogs but the people you sell them to have an uncanny knack of bumping into each other miles away from where the pups originated. "

"Hunter is growing to look so much like Flash now he is a little older, and like Flash loves to be inside and is very well behaved there." Julie Van Bavel (A Sydney Veterinarian)

 NOONBARRA SCAMPER

Scamper has turned out to be a wonderful dog.  She is super friendly, and pretty much loves all people and other dogs.  Whenever there was a "shy" dog in our obedience classes, Scamper would always be chosen as the safe, friendly dog to help socialize the timid ones.  Speaking of obedience, she has passed the advanced level, and earned her Canine Good Citizen award. "

"I can't express how thrilled we are with Chance. I have been smitten with him since I brought him home from the airport and still can't believe how lucky we are to have been sent a wonderful dog like Chance.

Chance's vocabulary is growing daily. He totally understands when he is asked to do something and he will not only comply but will also wait for his release word to go back to doing whatever he wants to do. At times I forget how young he really is.

The little daily things we do like automatically sitting at doors or for me to take his lead on or off, sitting and waiting for release word. Wait is a command I use frequently, wait when the door is open for permission to go out, solves the problem of rushing through the door. Wait is also used in the truck for the same thing. When I open the door and get out he has to wait till I release him to come out of the truck." - Alabama USA

"Well, we've had Lilly now for two and a half weeks and are really pleased with her. Of course, she is very cute, so it's hard not to like her, but she also has a really nice personality."

"Lilly has learned "sit", "down" (the formal kind), "leave it", "come" (she needs more work on this), "off" (mostly), and we just started work on "stay" tonight. There should be an obedience class starting in a couple of weeks, and I will take her to that. Also, as soon as we can schedule it, we will be taking the dogs for a stockdog training session with a professional trainer.

We have been taking Lilly to the Saturday Farmer's Market, and she has gotten compliments on how well socialized she is, including from the veterinarian/animal behaviorist who has been helping us with Daisy.

Noonbarra Tammi

"At Stephen's request I've attached some recent pictures of Tammi.  They're all taken during a couple of training sessions.  As you can see I haven't exaggerated.  Tammi is quite wonderful."

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