Fancy learning a few Australian Cattle Dog facts? You’re in for a treat. But first, a quick note…
Here at TrustedHousesitters, we love almost anything fluffy that walks around on four legs, and probably has a tail. We’re only human: the mind wanders, and so do our Google searches. So when we can, we’re gazing at adorable images of other people’s pets, and of course, our own.
And while we take much pleasure in chewing our family’s ears off about new cute breeds we’ve learnt about, we thought we’d do something useful with it, i.e. share our knowledge with you, a community who loves pets just as much as we do. It turns out that this time, our online rabbit hole has travelled down under. So, put your feet up, grab a cuppa, and dive into these 11 fun facts about Australian Cattle Dogs.
3 Likes
I love this breed. I’m Australian and have had 3 Blue Heelers in my life. They don’t just nip at heels of cattle either. Our male used to do it to his humans sometimes as a “hurry up”. They are the smartest most faithful dogs. My father used to call Bozak our male the laziest dog as he would rather sit in the shade instead of working with the ither dog Kelly. That “lazy” dog died a hero saving his master’s life by taking a bite from a huge Taipan when the snake had cornered my dad. Sadly he was dead in 10 minutes as my dad would have been if he had been bitten. Here’s a photo of Bozak and Kelly with my parents - the “lazy” dog is on the right
6 Likes
I absolutely love this breed too and we have a repeat sit we do in the Alps in France for a part Aussie family who had 2 (Matilda and Ned “Kelly’”) when we started sitting for them, but elderly Matti very sadly passed earlier this year 
We felt so lucky to have had time with her and loved how Ned would come along for her very short morning stroll, all patient and sedate, like he understood. Then would be full of exuberance on his later one-to-one hike while Matti slept!
We are looking forward to seeing Ned again later in the summer. These dogs have amazing intelligence, and are fiercely loyal but do sometimes have a tendency to “herd” humans like Crookie says, with a light non invasive nip as this is how they herd cattle. Something to consider if sitting with kids. Younger dogs also require LOTS of exercise! We go hiking in the Alps with Neddie but after 3 or 4 hours we get back exhausted, and he’s like “why are we going home” 
For anyone interested in our house sit experience with these 2 dogs, here’s a piece I wrote last year that has some lovely pix of our 2 charges!
2 Likes
