THE KELPIE STORY

 MASKED AND SADDLED KELPIES

This is something we don't see much these days. In the 1950's and 1960's they were fairly common but people have moved away from some of these strains. Personally, we like the colouring and in the past we had a number of Kelpies that had these markings.

The mask is when a Kelpie has the tan colouring over most of the face instead of just around the lower part and the eye pips. We found the dogs were born with fairly standard markings but within weeks they would have more tan. Within a few months they would be completely masked. We quite like this colouring and it seems to bring out the dog's facial features a bit more. I have noticed that a number of dogs today although they are not regarded as masked, they do have a lot of tan on the face and rather large tan pips above the eyes.

A saddled Kelpie is really the same as a masked Kelpie but has even more tan on them so that the body looks like it has a saddle of dark colouring with the rest being Tan. I can only remember seeing Black & Tan Kelpies with the full saddle but we did have a number of fully masked Red & Tan Kelpies in our own Stud.

There have been a lot of excellent masked and saddled Kelpies. They include the famous Kalari Basil, Rockybar Buff, Bullenbong Parra, Rockybar Judyrose, Karrawarra Maid, Wyvelloe Pam and many more.

THE AGOUTI GENE AND BANDED MARKINGS

Banded hair in Kelpies is very common and seems to be becoming even more pronounced as breeders get onto particular strains of Kelpies. It is very rarely mentioned by breeders and as far as I am aware never listed in descriptions as part of the colouring of their Kelpies.

Banded markings occur when an individual hair has more than one colour. In a Red and Tan Kelpie the tip of the hair will be a normal reddish brown colour while the middle of the hair will be very light in colour, usually a cream or a silver/Grey colouring. The base of the hair on most dogs is back to the darker red-brown colour. These hairs are often not over the entire dog but may be found around the neck, stomach and back legs. The colouring is caused by the agouti gene mixing with the standard hair colour. Some people even refer to it as agouti markings.

Some dogs have a lot of the brown colouring on each hair and you have to part the hair to see it is different coloured. On other dogs, only the very tip is brown so the lighter colour shows through and gives an unusual, but pleasing appearance. I have known a lot of breeders to mistakenly say that it is the undercoat showing through. The black and Tan Kelpies are exactly the same, except the red-brown colouring is black.

We haven't done any intense study of these markings but in the Working Kelpies we have observed in Tasmania, South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland it would seem to be well established and is very likely to have always been a part of the Kelpie markings.

CLICK HERE FOR ANOTHER WEBSITE ON AGOUTI AND HAIR COLOURS

BLUE COLOURING

Without a doubt, the most famous blue coloured Kelpie of all time was the legend, Quinns Coil of the late 1800's. He was said to be a slate blue colouring. He became so famous that everyone wanted to buy blue Kelpies from the breeder, John Quinn. (You can read more about him under the Quinn section). Today it is not common to see a blue & tan coloured Kelpie.

The blue colouring is a black coat gene combined with a dilution gene. Some owners, especially those overseas who don't see a lot of Kelpies have trouble recognising this colour. They often get the blue colouring mixed up with the fawn colouring. They are different. The fawn is a red diluted gene. The skin colour of the dog is a good indication. Although most of the pups are born with the normal pinkish skin the blues (and blacks) often have the skin go darker with a bluish tint. In older Black, Black & Tans, Blues etc it is very difficult to read tattoo numbers in the ears because the skin colour has darkened so much.

Quinns Boy Blue, bred in the 1930's is another famous Kelpie of the blue colour. He is said to be one of the last great dogs bred by John Quinn. He made his name with Jack Goodfellow of the Currawang working Kelpie Stud.

 

BLUE & TAN KELPIES

There are still quite a few Blue & Tan Kelpies working around Australia. However, it is not a very common colour and some breeders would call them Black & Tans anyway. This is reasonable as the blue colouring is just a diluted black colouring. The colour is also referred to as Smoke, Slate and Grey. Because of that, there are a lot of Blue & Tan Kelpies called 'Smokey' working around Australia. Sometimes people mistakenly call them fawns. The skin on blues and blue & tan kelpies is usually has a darker pigment that looks something like a greyish colour. This often makes Stud tattoos very difficult to see. The hair has a slight greyish look to it rather than a brownish look of a fawn Kelpie.

Kalari Joker was a well known Blue & Tan Kelpie. He was owned by Les Tarrant of the Rockybar Stud and was an excellent Arena Sheepdog trial winner in the 1950's. Chondo Chance, a son of Kalari Joker was also a Blue & Tan Kelpie and became quite famous in Queensland. He was owned by Mick Doughty and was sometimes referred to as Doughty's Chance. Woombi Silver was another famous Blue and Tan Kelpie and had very light eyes. He was bred by Paddy Noakes. Silver was later bought by the partnership of Tony Parsons and Ab Martin for the record price at the time of 190 guineas. That was in 1954. Silver was a highly regarded trial Kelpie of that period.

This is Noonbarra Judyrose. Born July 1987. She is a black & tan kelpie with a full masked face and almost saddled. The first photo was taken in August 1987. The second photo was April 1988. The dark markings have given way to a completely light head. This is a completely purebred Kelpie with a long pedigree and the colouring was once quite common.

CREAM COLOURING IN KELPIES

Cream is a colour that is liked by some and hated by others. We have found it to be very popular.

To make it even more confusing, the dogs that are commonly called Cream are not always the same colour. They range from very pale almost white to a very dark golden tan. Many have two shades on them just like a Red & Tan or a Black & Tan Kelpie.

They are also known as Gold, Yellow, Cream, or Tan. The gene for cream Kelpies, like the fawn has for some time been thought to be a diluted variation of the gene for red (brown) colouring in Kelpies. This theory however does not work out because a number of Cream Kelpies have been mated to Red & Tan Kelpies and produced Black & Tan offspring. Some people now feel the Cream colouring is caused by a masking gene so that a cream dog is really a Black & Tan, Blue & Tan, Red & Tan etc. but looks Cream. The Cream Kelpie is not an Albino. So far no Albino Kelpie has ever been recorded.

Dr. Chris Walker of Sydney Australia wrote an 8 page article in 1986, titled ' Observations on the Inheritance of Coat colour in Australian Kelpies'. It was published in the Canine Journal, the official publication of the NSW dog showing fraternity (ANKC). He wrote: " In practice fawn Kelpies can be and are any shade from cream through red or mid fawn to dark silver .." This also explains why some very pale Cream Show Kelpies are able to be shown under the term 'Fawn' because officially the colour 'Cream' is not an acceptable colour for the showring. In the same article, Dr. Walker says;" Cream is most easily bred from dilute carrying red and tans. .. Cream being homozygously recessive for all four colour genes represents a unique, valuable colour genotype, i.e., it is the genotype fully recessive for colour and thus fully stabilised for colour."

Noonbarra Daisy III

Dr. William Davis DVM, of California USA is a breeder of Working Kelpies:

"I have always thought that the cream is a recessive MASKING gene, that when two copies show up in a dog regardless of its other color genotype, would be expressed as cream. For instance, take the dog Riana Don. Don is a cream who has a blue nose and lips, and is for all intents and purposes, a Blue and Tan dog who happens to have two copies of the cream gene, hence is cream. He was bred to a bitch named Steadfast Bell, owned by Glenn Morris. Every pup in the litter was a black and tan despite Bell being a red and tan bitch. If Cream were a red dilute, the pups would have been red and tan."

"It is my belief that the Cream is really a masking gene carried recessively with varying degrees of penetrance (*hence the light to dark, just as in tan markings). A phenotypically cream dog might be ANY COLOR genetically, but carrying the cream gene."

Riana Don, a cream Kelpie, has produced black & tan coated Kelpies over at least three red & tan bitches. These were, Riana Jade, Steadfast Bell and Riana Tess. He also produced Blue & Tan offspring from Riana Sally. We have observed the same with the UD Stud breeding. UD The Slug, a red & tan male was mated over Capree Zap, a cream bitch but produced both red & tans as well as black & tan Kelpie pups. If the original theory was correct, then that could not happen.

Some people think the cream colouring only occurs in a few Kelpie Studs but Cream Kelpies have occurred over many years and in many breeding Studs such as Scanlons, Karrawarra, Rockybar, Avenpart, Whites, Glenville, Buchanan, Cana, Koonawarra, Riana, Elgovers, Koomalah, Kalari, McMasters, Alinta, Wyreema, Koriki, UD, Kirbenvale, Old Station, Nyngana, Puds, Scoriochre, Warila, Capree, Milburn, Porters, Bonorong, Karana, Aufrere, Binnowong, Boanong, Boxcamp, Boolimba, Wyalong, Karmulga, Karrobar, Canyonleigh, Chobi, Fairview, Glendon, Jerralong, Winona, Le Cliff, Breaboon, Alanaleigh, Bellwood, Barrys, Bullenbong, Meadow, Kintyre, Montana, Woombi, Reedycreek, Ballanda, and many, many others. As you can see, the Cream colour is very widespread in Kelpies. Even so, it has never been a very common colour in Kelpies and very few Studs breed them regularly.

The legendary late Frank Scanlon once told us that he liked the Cream colour a lot in his Kelpies and that many of the best Kelpies he ever owned were that colour. One of the last good Kelpies he ever had was Glenville Swanee. This was a cream Kelpie with white markings on his face. Today many of the prominent Kelpie Studs have Glenville Swanee in their pedigrees.

Porters Don was another famous Cream Kelpie. He was bred around 1947. He was brilliant on the trial field and was known to beat the famous Newton Nap as well as the wonder dog, Walker's Johnny. He was an extremely strong walk in dog and wasn't frightened of anything.

One of the best cream Kelpies we ever knew was owned by Geoff and Sandy Meller's UD Stud. This was Capree Zap. She too is found in many pedigrees today. This lovely bitch was selected by The Working Kelpie Council of Australia in 1987 as 'The Best Type Working Kelpie' That alone speaks volumes for the acceptance of the Cream colour. She was later sold for the then good price of $8000.

Some breeders won't believe the Cream Kelpie is an acceptable colour as they feel it looks too much like a Dingo. This may be true and they are certainly entitled to their opinion and taste but no matter what anyone says, the creams are still a purebred Kelpie colour.

Another well known cream Kelpie was Woombi Mist. She was bought from Paddy Noakes and owned by Tom Magrath but mostly worked in trials by the well known handler, Stan Mc Master. She was also later used by the partnership of Ab Martin and Tony Parsons. She was beaten out of first place at the renowned 1953 Canberra National by just one point. She won and placed in many trials.

Noonbarra Frankie

 FAWN & TAN KELPIES

We like this colour and think the Fawn & tan Kelpies are some of the most striking. This is a fairly rare colour these days. They are often called Silver-Fawns. They are a very noticeable dog and get a lot of comments from the public. They are in strong demand and whenever we have any for sale they are always the first to go.  We don't breed specifically to get the colour but when they crop up, we often sell them at a $50 premium due to their scarcity. We have had customers wait for up to three years to be able to secure one from us.

The Fawn colouring is a result of both the sire and the dam carrying the gene and even then you might not get any Fawns. At present we have Noonbarra Jackaroo as one of our main sires and he carries the gene so we expect more Fawn & Tans over the next couple of years. Our other major sires, Noonbarra Flash, Noonbarra Dusty III and Noonbarra Max, unfortunately don't seem to carry the gene. We are not sure about Noonbarra Mick II yet but are hoping he does. We have recently mated him over Noonbarra Nicky who we think does carry the gene.

A lot of new breeders have trouble identifying this Fawn colour. It can look a bit like a light blue but if you look closely, you will notice that the hair has a slight brown or reddish tinge to it and not a grey - blue look. The skin of the dog is a pinkish colour, the same as with cream, red and chocolate coloured Kelpies. Personally, we like this colour a lot. We have always found our Fawn & tan Kelpies have some of the softest coats of any colour.

There have been a number of top Kelpies of the fawn colour. Newton Fawn was one, Born 1945. She won a number of trials and was later owned by the Karrawarra Stud. Another famous fawn & tan Kelpie was Scanlons Dell, bred in the 1930's. Dell was considered by some to be the best Kelpie brood bitch of all time. Although he carries the Scanlon prefix, she was bred by Stan Collins, one of the greatest breeders of the early 1900's. A newspaper report on Scanlon's Dell once wrote; " Scanlon's Dell is dead now, but to this fawn Kelpie must go supreme place among the Kelpies of the past 20 years. Kelpie breeders should erect a monument to the memory of Scanlon's Dell."

(Read more about Dell under the Scanlon section).

 One of the best known fawn Kelpies was Woombi Zinc. Bred in the 1950's, Athol Butler bought her in 1953 for the very high price then of £250 pounds. Athol was one of Australia's best sheepdog trainers. Paddy Noakes of the Woombi Kelpie Stud thought he was the best dog he ever bred. Another very famous Fawn & Tan was Scanlons Flash , a son of Scanlons Dell. Another famous Fawn Kelpie was Glenville Dot.