The late Frank Scanlon has become very well known among sheepdog breeders and trainers. He was the epitome of an Australian stockman. He worked hard all his life, usually rose before dawn and was still riding his horse well into his 80's. Over the years there have been many articles and stories written about him. Monty Hamilton-Wilkes featured him in the popular 1970's book 'Kelpie and Cattle Dog'. Tony Parsons who worked as a wool classer for Frank often wrote articles in Australian and overseas newspapers as well as a number of books on the Kelpie that featured Frank Scanlon.

Frank Scanlon was a man that always needed good sheepdogs. He worked some very difficult scrubby country near Quirindi in NSW. Frank started with Kelpies when he was just a boy. He bred and trained them over a period of about 70 years.

He was well known in the Quirindi district as a good judge of dogs and horses and often got the best from Kelpies that came from other breeders. Some of the better known Kelpies that were at the Scanlon Stud and often appear on pedigrees were Scanlons Flash, Riana Kim, Scanlons Dell, Currawang Wilga, Scanlons Glen, Currawang Nap, Scanlons Flight, Inglewood Ned, Scanlons Butch, Porters Mick, Port Patrick Taj, Scanlons Fred, Porters Don, Karrawarra Sergeant, Artesian Bindi, Glenville Swanee and many others.

SCANLONS BUTCH

(Cudgee Banner and Karrawarra Zoe).

Black and tan. Born: 12th July 1967.

He became very well known as he was the major Stud sire in the Wyreema Kelpie Stud, under the management of Gordon McMaster for many years. He sired around 800 pups. He was originally sent to Bert Bromham's Glenville Kelpie Stud as a puppy. Mr. Bromham had used a number of Kelpies on Scanlon bloodlines for many years. Unfortunately, Butch picked up Distemper on the train trip down to the Glenville Stud and although he recovered we have been told he always had a twitch when he worked. He was sold to the Wyreema Stud in 1971. He was then 4 years old and sold for $500 plus two free services a year to Bert Bromham's own bitches.

Scanlons Butch sired Whites Dawn, the winner of 1972 National Kelpie Trial. Dawn was out of Whites Teena. Another of Butch's offspring, Glenville Rip, was the Riverina Open Champion in 1971.

SCANLONS DELL - SCANLONS DING - SCANLONS FLASH

Part of interview with Stephen & Mary Bilson in 1985. :- "The creamy bitch (Ding) was the best on the trial ground. Quite a bit the best. [Dell] she was a sheep bitch. She could put up a good trial and she could put sheep up in the shed and pen up and you could take her away into the mountains and pick them up. Old Dell, a great old bitch. She was a fawn bitch with a big white apron. Worked cattle, anything you liked. Good strong bitch. Yes, a great old bitch. I used to say one was a trial winner and one was a sheepdog and that summed them up.

Flash was out of Dell. Well, he was a very, very good dog, anywhere you like. In the bush I sold Flash to a man who was a manager on a place, way out in the west. He had this dog for quite a while and he was terribly pleased with him and no wonder. Look, I'd have a job to try and find a dog like him today. And that's not idle talk.

 

Frank helped out other breeders during his lifetime and in turn often got good Kelpies sent to him as well. In 1954 he made Scanlon Rover available to the Woodville - Karrawarra Stud of Ab Martin & Tony Parsons to mate to Woombi Mist and McGraths Judy. The Ab Martin, Tony Parsons partnership also got Porters Ding in 1955 and Scanlons Penny, who was said to be an outstanding allround worker who used eye and style on a few and would bark and force on a mob. She was mated to Porters Don a sire the partnership already had as they had earlier purchased him from the top sheepdog triallist, Athol Butler.

 His best trophy he told us was a beautiful mantle clock for winning at Moree. This was a Championship Sheepdog Trial in 1938. He won 25 pound. 20 pound for first and 5 pound for second place. Entry fees were about 10/-.

"No man since John Quinn has been so conspicuously successful as a breeder and trainer of Kelpies as Frank Scanlon. ....Frank Scanlon was endowed with many gifts. He had the inborn instinct, patience, attention to detail and determination to succeed which made him a master horseman, stockman and handler of sheepdogs. I knew Frank Scanlon for a period of about 24 years. He taught me more about Kelpies than all the other Kelpie men put together....." Tony Parsons. (Karrawarra Kelpie Stud) Weekly Times 1984

The most famous of the Scanlon Kelpies was Scanlons Dell, who surprisingly really wasn't bred by Frank at all. She was bred by the well known breeder, Stan Collins. Dell is famous not for her trial work but for the amount of top working Kelpies she produced to a number of different sires. Among them were Wilga, Scanlons Flash, Porters Don and Scanlons Warrigal, the sire of Butlers Johnny. Frank became a legend in his own lifetime and Kelpie breeders from all over Australia went to visit him for advice.

THE DINGO AND KELPIES

Part of an interview between Frank and Stephen & Mary Bilson (1985)

"There was Tom South and (Mervyn) South, his son. I was in Sydney at the trials with no dogs, just there as a spectator and I met Arthur Kemp and various others of the old time workers. Tom South always had a good team of dogs. They were horrible looking dogs up to a point. Peculiar colours, they were....... red dogs, nearly bridle dogs and an old black and tan bitch with quite a lot of tan on her. He had a team of four or five dogs, him and his son. And there were very few years that they went to Sydney trials that they didn't get worthy mention, I'll tell you. They were nearly always up in the money.

Tom South came over to me and he said "For goodness sake, can you get me a good Dingo pup. I said, What are you going to do with him Tom. He said I'm going to breed it into my dogs again. He said, see those dogs there, every one of them has Dingo breeding in them.

The people today they howl it down. I could quote instances of it (Dingo crossing) for the next hour. I had a red dog, a King and Mc Leod bred dog that had a fire-branded nose. In those days King and Mc Leod dogs were all fire-branded on the nose. And this red dog was definitely a King & Mc Leod bred dog and he was sent to me by people that lived near the Hanging Rock kennels and I broke him in. It wasn't long after we were married.

This dog, all the time I had him here, never looked at a sheep, never. If I let him off the chain when I was riding away in the morning he would be sulking around on the ground. If you looked back when you got half a mile out or a quarter of a mile, whatever, and he would be home. When you got off the horse at lunch time to boil the Quart ... after a while you could see him in the distance moving about and that's where he would stop. When you arrived home he would arrive home about the same time behind you every night.

That dog wouldn't bark, he would howl just like a Dingo. He wouldn't work. Never looked at a sheep. He could fight, he was an out and outer. I've seen big Cattle dogs take him on and he'd have them finished like that (clicked his fingers). If this dog didn't have Dingo in him then you can kick me. You can only rely on people as far as you can go.

There was an old gentleman I knew when I was a young fellow and he told me that he lived right near where those Rutherfords lived and he said there is no doubt in the world he said about the Kelpie having Dingo in them. He said the first cross was no good but the next cross they started to work. You got some workers out of them. They went on from there and he said they were really good dogs. Not only that particular dog but I can quote other dogs that I had.

What was the Attitude to Dingo blood then ?

Well, no one cared because they reckoned it was in them. They reckoned that was what made these dogs good. They had a ton of eye, all eye. A lot of them were better damn dogs than we get now.... It gives you food for thought when you see all the things I've seen. I've been about this country for as long as most men around today. And I have every reason to believe that the Kelpie had Australian Dingo in him. - Frank Scanlon interviewed by Stephen & Mary Bilson. 1985

"In 1988 Frank Scanlon told me that he was positive that Currawang Wilga, one of Australia's greatest trial Kelpies had Dingo blood in him. Wilga was an expert at working a few sheep. He would even work one - but he was not a good dog when it came to mob work. Jack Goodfellow (Currawang Kelpie Stud) had also told Frank Scanlon that the famous Currawang Nap also had Dingo in him. Frank said that by 1950 he was unable to get hold of a good pure dingo for breeding." - Stephen Bilson (Noonbarra Kelpie Stud)

Mrs Scanlon said; "The first time you went out, the dog was nine months old pup and you got second. It was the first time the dog had been away from the property and we lived just over there. It was the first time the dog had been off the property and the first time Frank had competed in a trial. It was 1933 or 1934, something like that. The next week Tamworth show followed Armidale. Armidale one week and Tamworth the next and he met them all there again and beat them, but now he had a bit of experience and so had the dog." - Mrs Scanlon interviewed with husband Frank by Stephen Bilson in 1988