Kelpie Earl wins 2023 working dog Cobber Challenge

Voice of Real Australia is a regular newsletter from ACM, which has more than 100 mastheads across Australia. Today's is written by ACM national agriculture writer Chris McLennan.

A three-year-old Kelpie has covered an incredible 1343km by foot in 21 days.

That works out to 63km a day.

Oh, and that Tasmanian marathoner called Earl, is also blind in one eye.

Makes you want to put away your "steps" calculator on your phone or watch doesn't it?

Each year I cast an eye over the working dog challenge which is run (so to speak) by a dog food manufacturer called Cobber.

A dog might be a man (or woman"s) best friend, but they are indispensable to a farm operation

Earl and his human Alex Johns won this year's competition between select dogs from across Australia and New Zealand.

The gruelling competition saw working dogs cover more than 6000km across mountain ranges, lush green paddocks and dusty deserts.

Selected dogs wore a GPS collar to track how far, how fast and for how long they worked.

Data was collected over three months, with the three busiest weeks on farm counting towards each dog's final score.

Alex and Earl were also the speediest duo in the competition, hitting an average top speed of 14.1km/h , making Earl the fastest ever challenge competitor - even though Earl is blind in one eye.

The duo outclassed the field to take home the title, the trophy, $3000 cash, 12 bags of Cobber food and also a brand-new puppy apprentice for Earl, courtesy of Pandara Kelpies.

These are the elite, it must be said.

The dogs on my family farm were handy in short spurts when called upon but were often lured away by a close-by dam for a swim and drink.

We didn't have tracking collars on them, but I doubt they would have gone a tenth of Earl's daily distance.

But we couldn't have lived without them.

Their work in the yards for crutching and shearing was just remarkable.

Without dogs it would have been us kids who would've somehow had to fill in I suspect.

Helping a single operator hold a flock of sheep into the corner of a paddock while one of their number was extracted with fly-strike or some such ailment seemed to involve a lot of swearing.

Farm workers went the way of the dodo bird as mechanisation crept over the farm and labor costs became more and more expensive.

One person is now in charge of most farms.

They simply could not do it without dogs.

Many croppers like to have a dog in the cab to keep them company for the long hours doing ever increasing smaller squares.

Tasmania's Mr Johns said he was rapt to take home the win and he couldn't be prouder of his best mate Earl.

"I knew we were in with a chance because we've had a seriously busy few months down here with a new shearing crew coming on board, so Earl has been working harder than ever," he said.

"It's an even bigger achievement for Earl because he's blind in one eye but that doesn't stop him on the farm. His quality of work is top notch."

Former winner Brad McDonald was working on the same farm as Alex when he took out the title and says he's proud to see another winner from Tasmania.

"When I won the Cobber Challenge in 2017 with my dog Flo, Alex was working alongside us so to see him and Earl bring it home this year, it's a really special moment," he said.

In second place was Dan and Jack from Victoria who covered a total distance of 1263.4km,.

Third place went Jackson and Rose from the NT, who covered 822km.

A friend of mine once bought a dog for his kids as a pet.

It was a Kelpie.

We warned him it wouldn't work, his family lived on a suburban block.

On weekends they drove into the bush and let the dog outside to run alongside their vehicle "to take some of the sting out of him".

It wasn't enough and soon they had to make the difficult decision to find a new home for their dog.

Kelpies are running machines.

You're a champion Earl.

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