Australias kelpie challenges collie

29 March 1999

Australia’s kelpie challenges collie

THE Australian “kelpie” is making a challenge to the collie as the preferred dog of farmers, reports The Times.

The rival breed is reputed to have more strength and stamina than the traditional collie.

Until now the cost of importing a kelpie and the time in quarantine stopped it being widely adopted as a working dog. But now scientists at Edinburgh Genetics, part of the Scottish Agricultural College, have for the first time successfully bred kelpies from frozen semen flown to Scotland from Australia.

The project was the brainchild of John Brown, a stockman from Fife.

• The Times 29/03/02/99 page 11