Australian Working Stock Dog Magazine - June 2018

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ome of my memories of Jim, a wonderful person, a great

dog handler and stockman. Jim was a quiet, tall rangy

man of Scottish decent who owned one of the steepest

farms in South Gippsland. He had just over 900 acres of very

productive land where good dogs where imperative. A lot of

Jim’s place was so steep you had to lead your horse around

the cattle tracks as there was no room for your leg against the

bank if you rode. Jim rated his country by how far apart the

cattle tracks were; a 30cm track then a metre vertical to the

next track was easy country but where there was a 30cm track

and almost three metres vertical to the next track was what

Jim called steep!

Jim ran about 2000 irst cross ewes and about 300 Angus cows

keeping some steers on to two year old 800kg bullocks. He had

a little river lat of about eight acres at the far end of his farm

where he could fatten bullocks. Jim didn’t own a tractor or a

motor bike and where he drove his Landrover was scary to say

the least. He invited Toyota salesmen, to follow his Landrover,

telling them he would happily buy a Toyota, if they could fol-

low him. hey never followed him.

Stock had to be walked in this country because if they tried

to run they were in danger of falling of a track and ending up

dead in the bottom of the gully. Jim only ever had nine dogs

he believed that was all he could handle at a time, when he got

a new pup if there was no vacancy then someone had to vacate

their kennel for the new addition.

When I met Jim he had a team of mostly Border Collie/Kel-

pie cross dogs and over the years he also worked pure Border

Collies, Kelpies and surprisingly some Cattle Dog cross dogs.

hese were by a good red speckle dog that had a good natural

cast. Jim trained these dogs to nose and front foot bite cattle

but would not let them heel. He said if an animal is pointed in

the right direction leave it alone. He also worked these Cattle

Dog cross dogs on sheep even in the yards and I never saw

them bite a sheep.

Jim conversed with his dogs rather than giving them orders. I

was with him one day mustering, I had three dogs behind my

horse and Jim had six behind his horse. He noted a cow on her

own across the other side of a very steep gully, he turned to his

team and said “Darkie can you go and stand that cow up?”, to

which Darkie took of down the hill and up the other side and

stood the cow up but she didn’t want to travel so Jim decided

he wanted her brought along to where we could check on her,

so he turned again to his team and said “Sadie go over and

help Darkie bring that cow along” which she did, meanwhile

the rest of the team just stayed behind his horse happily.

On another occasion we went out mustering and as we went

over the point of a ridge Jim said “Toby can you stay there we

might need you there later”. Some three hours later as the 500

ewes were breasting the ridge Jim called on Toby to “wake up

and block them”. He hadn’t moved from where Jim asked him

to stay three hours earlier!

Jim and I were out mustering for shearing one day when Jim

said “I think we can get three mobs home today”. So we mus-

tered one mob into a holding yard at the end of the only lan-

eway on his farm, a dozed track around the side of a hill and

along a ridge. I then mustered another mob while Jim mus-

tered the third mob. I started my mob on the track home with

a lead dog and two dogs droving in front of my horse. Jim

had the second mob with two lead dogs that were only a few

metres behind my horse and he was droving the second mob

with a dog in front of his horse and he had opened the gate for

the third mob so he had two lead dogs on the third mob which

were actually behind his horse and another dog droving the

3rd mob. We travelled over 2km like this back to his shearing

shed where we put them in three separate yards. here was

never any thought they might get boxed, I believe Jim oen

drove two mobs on his own along this track.

Jim didn’t ask much of his young dogs they might follow his

horse for nearly 12 months before being asked to do any work.

Gloria a vivacious pommy redhead was Jim’s wife it’s hard to

think of people more opposite but they were a great couple

who reared 3 lovely daughters.

Gloria would sometimes complain about the dogs barking

and Jim in his very dry manner would tell her that “there has

been Campbell dogs under those Pine trees for 115 years and

you have only been here for 25 so put up with it.”

Jim did very little formal pup training, certainly no round yard

work. He achieved such a great bond with his dogs that they

just wanted to please him and most of their learning was on

the job. He looked for dogs with a good wide natural cast and

distance of their stock. In todays language he needed dogs

that worked on the edge of the light zone. He needed his dogs

to take all the pressure of when he said so, this was much

more important than having dogs that had heaps of power. If

dogs were too pushy they didn’t last long as stock had to be let

ind their own way around the steep hills.

Had Jim competed in sheepdog trials I have no doubt he

would have been very successful. he control and mateship he

had with his dogs was really something special.

In his inal weeks battling cancer Jim would oen ask for Bill,

the family thought he was asking for me but I’m sure he was

asking for the last top dog he had that he got from me as a pup

and he called him Bill. His dogs were a very big part of his life.

Memoirs of Bill Scott - Stockman Kelpie Stud

TJ Campbell: The Best Stockman I ever met.

http://www.stockdogs.com.au AWSDM 67