I am a "show" Kelpie owner and have done a lot of research in the area of the breed. Some of you may recall a website I had posted a few years ago called Australian Kelpie Outpost. What I am about to say may irritate some of you, so be forewarned. If you look at the earliest known photographs of the Kelpie breed, they appear as the "show Kelpie" and not the working kelpie line. I think many have the history reversed. The working Kelpies continue to look less and less like the original early Kelpies in the earliest historical records and to me personally, look nothing like the original early kelpie. They are not built the same, the breech is different, the face and ears are different. I have looked at many breeder pages (primarily in Australia), and the show kelpie is fading from the lines which to me is alarming. The working kelpies, I am sure, are great animals and are great herders, but don't discount the "show" kelpie as not capable of being a working dog, too. My dog was never trained to herd, but did it instinctively when I visited a friend's ranch in South Texas. I hate to see what I consider to be the best companion breed and one of the most intelligent breeds (what you call the show Kelpie" ) to be vanishing from the planet and breeding programs.

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These are great dogs! We've had a Kelpie for many years. She was the easiest dog to train and was house broke in a matter of, what seemed like, hours (instead of days or weeks). We taught her all sorts of tricks and she never ceases to amaze us at her intelligence.

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