15/01/2023
The importance of a working dog TEAM!
Whether your team consists of 3 dogs, 6 dogs or 12 dogs, it is always important to have enough depth in your team to be able to cover for injuries, litters, work accidents or if you’re selling one or two.
Without that depth, the whole team can be thrown out of balance. For example you need 5 dogs to do your day to day work, 1 gets injured and 1 gets in pup, then there’s more pressure and a higher workload on the other 3. Increasing the risk of injury, overheating, the length of the dogs working life and importantly your ability to do your job!
We so often look for the “all-rounder”, the once in a lifetime dog, and for some reason this can overshadow the team aspect of our dogs. Even if we are one of the lucky ones that finds that “perfect” dog, is that dog going to do all our work it’s whole life?
All our dogs have their own strengths and weaknesses and it is up to us to use their own unique abilities to get the most out of them, and the most out of our TEAM.
If we solely look for that one dog that will do everything, we open ourselves up to having to rebuild time and time again.
As an example here is my team roughly 18 months ago. Since then, two of them have been sold, two died, one retired, another is part time, and another is recovering from cruciate surgery.
Depth is one thing that is sometimes greatly underrated. Just a reminder how quickly things can happen!
Back row: Myamba Moss, Jindi Chuck, Jindi Groot, Wilshaw Diesel
Front Row: Yarrabee Scout, Jindi Jodi, Wyanbah Abbey, Tundabardi Buster, Lokabe Ace