Addy's Border Collie pups average $15,666 at Rockhampton Working Dog Sale

Addy's Working Dogs breeders' Marty Addy and Emma Sutherland of Rolleston, trading under Addy Sutherland Partnership, sold three Border Collie pups from the first Australian AI litter by Welsh Border Collie dog, Red Spot, and out of Addy's Skye.

All three pups, aged four and half months, were progeny of a full sister to last year's Rockhampton Working Dog Sale top priced dog, Addy's Lucy, which fetched $23,000.

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First to sell under the hammer was male pup, Addy's Mac, which sold for $15,000 to the Wippell family of Biloela.

Addy's Jazz was next in the ring, with the female pup, bought for $16,000 by Rick and Sally Seeds of Morven.

Repeat buyer of the Addy's genetics and New South Wales buyer Peta Bauer of Bauer's Working Dogs, North of Cassilis, secured female pup, Addy's Hope, for $16,000.

The Bauer family have been selecting and breeding Border Collies from bloodlines across Australia and the UK for the last 15 years.

Ray White Livestock's and sale coordinator Gary Wendt, Gracemere, said the Red Spot litter were desirable to buyers wanting dogs with that natural herding ability.

"The bloodlines aren't simply here in Australia and these types of dogs have just got that steady approach around stock," Mr Wendt said.

"Working dogs, with bloodlines from places such as Europe, just travel around stock so calm and in my opinion, I think that's a trait we can use in our dogs."

Marty Addy has been handling and breeding dogs for over 16 years, whilst he's worked as a stockhand.

He described the three Addy's pups as "beautifully natured, well grown pups, with good bone."

"All three pups showed a pleasing attitude heading into the sale, as well as a lot natural herding and heading ability," Mr Addy said.

His passion for breeding and handling working dogs began when he first started out as station hand over 16 years ago.

Mr Addy now works as a lead station hand at Bunderra Cattle Company's Bandana Station at Carnarvon Gorge, near Rolleston.

"We run mostly Border Collies and the odd Kelpie, but we also cross them as well," he said.

"First and foremost, they've got to be work dog for me, but in recent years, I've started to get involved in trial work. I haven't done a lot but I'm just keen to learn and do more.

"We mostly use our working dogs on breaking in the weaners and when we muster.

"A lot of time, there might be only one or two of us working the cattle, but you can still go and do a job by yourself with a team of working dogs. Also with labour shortages, these dogs come in handy."

Following the sale of Addy's Lucy in 2022, Marty and Emma invested that money back into the working dog breeding program.

Mr Addy said they're thrilled with the progress so far.

"Originally, I bought a bitch called, Biles Billie, and the mother of Addy's Lucy, was Addy's Skye, which was out of Billie," he said.

"We had success with that litter and we still kept a few and there's a few trailing.

"Money that we made from Lucy's sale, we invested it back into our dogs just to improve our genetics, improve our work dogs and keep improving our genetics and down the track, we'll have a pretty strong female line."

Mr Addy purchased Billie eight years ago from Steven Biles and purchased semen from Red Spot about nine years ago.

"We originally did the first AI litter a couple of years ago and Addy's Skye was inseminated back in September last year," he said.

"We've been watching the Red Spot genetics for a quite a few years now and we've always liked how they worked sheep.

"A lot of the Red Spot pups just work the same and showed a lot of natural ability."

Mr Addy said it was a gamble to bring the first Australia semen of Red Spot into Australia, but said it was paying off.

"It's a gamble because they're sheep dogs and obviously Addy's Skye works cattle, but you just never know how strong they're going to be when you put them on cattle," he said.

"Being the first Red Spot litter in Australia, you can't talk to someone and ask how the genetics perform in the paddock.

"We retained some Red Spot semen for ourselves, but we do have another Red Spot pup on the market at a Working Dog sale near Blackall in May."

Mr Addy said a lot of operations were chasing working dogs with natural herding ability.

"A lot of people chase hard dogs, but there's a fine line between softer dogs keeping cattle more settled and their natural herding ability and finding a lot of people are interested in that track," he said.

"On the bitch side, they're strong enough to work cattle and I can't see why these pups won't work cattle and hopefully they're soft enough, got enough stock sense and hopefully a bit of bite if needed.

"At this stage, we have no plans to produce more litters from Red Spot. We do however, have two other semen packages stored here in Brisbane, of an American dog, called 7JI, from Slash D Stock Dogs.

"We're going to cross his semen with an Australian bitch we've got called Tomana Spice."

They also have semen from a UK dog, called Pat Burns Jim.

"We'll probably cross his genetics with a female dog called McDonald Rowdy," Mr Addy said.

"We'll breed from them and then we'll probably cross their litter with a few other Australian dogs just to see how they go."