Australian Working Stock Dog Magazine - June 2018

T

here have been many great dogs over the years and

many more will come in the future, however few will

come with such a tragic back history as Somerville Nell.

Bred in the picturesque countryside of Tasmania by renown

sheep dog trialler Malcolm Taylor. Nell almost didn’t begin

life at all. Aer a few attempts to mate her Mother Moccara

Floss to one of his own dogs, Malcolm discovered the male

was sterile. He approached Bernard McGlashan about it.

At the time Bernard had a young, upcoming but unprov-

en dog by the name of Grassvalley Spud. he mating was a

success, however Floss went into labour prematurely and

was rushed to the vet where an emergency caesarean was

performed. Sadly during the procedure Floss died on the

table and Nell was the sole survivor of the entire litter.

A friend of Malcolm’s took Nell and nursed her through the

night and as fortune would have it, there was a Stafordshire

Bull Terrier bitch with a new litter at that time and so Nell

was placed with the litter and raised by this surrogate bitch.

Floss had been a very special, very clever bitch and a bit of a

natural freak and Nell inherited all of these traits. Nell won

her very irst big trial around the age of 18 months with Mal-

colm. She had an extremely successful career with the high-

light being winning the Australian Supreme in Northam W.A.

in 2016, while Malcolm himself was extremely ill with Cancer.

Around ive years ago when Malcolm irst began his long

battle with cancer, Bernard took Nell on temporarily. Mal-

colm and Bernard have very diferent methods of working

their dogs. Malcolm predominantly uses voice commands,

whereas Bernard uses whistle commands. As Nell was only

with him temporarily until Malcolm recovered, Bernard had

to work her using Malcolm’s voice commands. his is not an

easy task when you have a diferent method you have used

automatically for many years. Despite this handicap and to

A DOG’S LIFEA DOG’S LIFE

A Freak of Nature

Story and Photos

by Janice DeGennaro

SOMERVILLE

NELL

http://www.stockdogs.com.au AWSDM 17