We have known Bruce Browning for many years and have always been impressed with his dogs and his handling skills. Bruce is a very unassuming man and therefore in many respects his Stud and breeding program has often been overlooked and under-rated.

His Stud is situated in the New England district of New South Wales (NSW) at Wollombi near Armidale. The area is hilly, timbered and has a fair amount of low scrub. Bruce and many of the properties in the area, works both sheep and cattle.

Bill Davis, a veterinary surgeon and Kelpie breeder from California in the USA has made a number of trips to Australia visiting Kelpie breeders. In 1992 he visited Bruce Browning's Clovaville stud and later wrote this on a computer message board:

"From Bruce Browning: Art is in the work. Elegance and calm seem to be the key. There is no shouting, there is no running about and waving arms; there is calm, observation and a keen desire to make each moment of work/training seem confluent. His dogs work beautifully and he is not constantly telling them what to do!

After he worked his dogs for me we went to his daughter's for lunch. She gave him a videotape of sheepdog trials and we sat on the sofa and he answered my questions about the dogs we were watching. One thing really stood out: I asked him about a certain male dog he had used over a really great bitch he had. He told me very directly what he liked about the dog, and added that if he were to criticize it he would say the dog had a lack of strength. Stupid innocent that I was, I asked him "If he wasn't very strong, then why did you breed your great bitch to him?" He looked at me for about thirty seconds, wondering if I really was stupid as all that, then said calmly and with the wisdom of a Buddha, "Because I liked the way he worked."

Zen and the art of stockmanship. " - Bill Davis DMV.

I think it was in 1990 or thereabouts I travelled up to Bruce Browning's Stud along with Eric Smyth of the Tarana Stud. Bruce had been quite sick and hospitalised not long before we arrived. We basically only wanted to have a talk with him about his breeding but he insisted on showing off his dogs.

Now, if I remember correctly, his dogs had not been worked for nearly three months and Bruce was still a bit unsteady on his feet. But did the dogs let him down? No way! They worked like champions. He cast them out onto unseen sheep in timbered country and the dogs bought sheep right up to us and then showed us all the class and style you could ever hope to see. In the few months leading up to our visit, I had been to see more then fifteen Kelpie Studs, most of them major players and I can honestly say that along with Greg Carmody's Phils Creek Kelpies the Clovaville Kelpies were the best workers I had encountered. They were a credit to him.

Since that time I have seen and heard a lot about other people with Clovaville Kelpies and it is without doubt that Bruce has made an important contribution to the breed. He may not have won the big money sheepdog trials but in the end that is not that important. What we need is great working dogs and it seems Bruce has done that.