The Dogs That Made Australia by Guy Hull

Author:Guy Hull
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-05-22T04:00:00+00:00

He tried several times to purchase one of the puppies, a bitch named Kelpie, after a mythical Gaelic water spirit. George Robertson repeatedly refused him, but his nephew was taken by a striking stock horse Gleeson owned.

The Irishman, not one to take no for an answer, saw his opportunity. A surreptitious deal was struck between him and Patterson. One night in early 1869, against his uncle’s express wishes, George Patterson swapped Kelpie for Jack Gleeson’s stock horse on the bank of the Glenelg River, opposite Warrock Station.

Jack Gleeson wasted no time in making off with his new prize. George Robertson was a powerful man who would not have taken the loss of Kelpie with good humour. So, leaving George Patterson to explain the absence of Kelpie and the sudden appearance of his impressive new mount, Gleeson and Kelpie cut their own tracks north towards Edenhope. They then travelled through the Little Desert region of western Victoria, eventually finding work on Launcelot Ryan’s Ballerook Station, 20 kilometres northwest of Kaniva.

It was during the shearing at Ballerook that year that Jack Gleeson broke Kelpie in to sheep work, and she caught the attention of another Ballerook stockman, Mark Tully. It’s a small world. Mark Tully was from Sutherlandshire in Scotland, and the Tullys were neighbours of the Rutherfords. Two of Mark’s brothers, Walter and Robert, worked on Illillawa Station in southwest New South Wales, owned by John Rutherford and Company. There was obviously a close relationship between both families.

The Tullys were talented stock and dog men. Their own line of highly regarded working collies, known locally as Tullies, had been drawn from Rutherford dogs. The Tullys’ contribution to the development of kelpies in Australia has been undervalued. Their dogs were much admired for their working ability and, being of the same stock and type, must have made a huge contribution to the ‘kelpie-type gene pool’. The kelpie could just as easily have become known as the Tully.

True dog men and women, no matter what breed they are involved with, know potential and good breeding when they see it. The meeting of Jack Gleeson and Mark Tully might have been coincidental, but their common interest in working collies would be the catalyst for the development of perhaps the greatest working dog the world will ever see.

* * *

At the same time as Kelpie caught Mark Tully’s eye, one of Launcelot Ryan’s daughters, Mary, caught Jack Gleeson’s eye, and he hers. Jack and Mary began to court, but the budding romance was put on hold in early 1871, when Launcelot Ryan and family relocated to Wallandool Station in the Riverina region of New South Wales.

Mark Tully also departed Ballerook and took up a position as overseer on Illillawa, reuniting with his brothers. Jack Gleeson decided to follow Mary Ryan, and did so via Illillawa, taking Kelpie with him.

Mark Tully, with whom he had struck up a friendship, may have invited him, and the visit was probably dog-related. Mark Tully knew his dogs, and he may have told Jack Gleeson about a dog his brother had that he thought would suit Kelpie as a sire.

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