LES Old with his star trialling dog ‘Bronc’ at Te Kūiti.
WITH an extensive business career behind him, Les Old understands that indoor dog trialling makes sense promotionally, but it’s not something he wants to participate in himself. Les, who has worked dogs on and off for more than 60 years, has paid close attention to the rise of the Taranaki Indoor Sheep Dog Trial, which held its 13th annual event in the TSB Stadium at the Egmont A and P Showgrounds, in Stratford in July. “It’s not weather-dependent, it can be staged in town closer to where people live and it might even introduce trialling to a whole new generation,” he concedes. “But it’s not my cup of tea; for me you can’t beat being out there on a hillside with traces of morning mist in the valleys, and a huntaway running up the hill like an arrow shot from a bow. “You can’t beat working dogs out in the open – it’s the way I’ve always participated (in trialling) and the way I want to in future.” The former shepherd and farmer also has a 20-year real estate career behind him and even got to work as a riding trainer, stunt coordinator and extra in The Hobbit movies. But after retiring in Te Kūiti three years ago, Les has rekindled a lifelong passion for dog trialling, which he fears could be classed a dying sport.
LITTLE TIME Primarily he said the downward trend had been caused by the fact that, unlike in his days working on farms as a young professional shepherd in the 1960s and 1970s, modern farmers had just too little spare time to locate suitable dogs, then train them up. And though he admits many gifted young people have gotten into trialling, and that this looks promising, he said the jury was still out on whether it is enough to arrest a slide in trialling over many years. “Of course, I hope it will. “But trialling is such a specialist thing and so time consuming – you put so many hours into training these dogs. “Personally, these days I have nothing much else to do, so I can get involved. “It’s my hobby and passion but a young person, they wouldn’t have the same amount of time to invest.” Les was raised on a King Country farm and married his late wife Barbara in the early 1960s. He started his married life working as a professional shepherd and went on to become a head shepherd and manager roles on big stations in the Waikato and near Thames. “I was first introduced to it by the late Les Knight, who was a master in the field, with his daughter Robyn Stephens now following in his footsteps. “Other trialists he learnt from included Bill Donaldson, Paul Sorenson, the late Gary Murphy and the Childs family.
KEPT UP INVOLVEMENT “I needed good dogs to do my job well and so I naturally got interested in trials and when I came back to farm at Te Kūiti in 1973 I kept the involvement going.” Les eventually left farming to work as a stock agent for Wrightsons for about 10 years, before going out on his own as a private agent for a similar period of time. His introduction to movie work came via his son Stephen Old, who has had a career managing horses on 14 movie sets. Knowing he was an experienced horseman, Stephen sought out his dad to support him in one of Peter Jackson’s Rings movies. And among other roles, Les got to appear as a mounted warrior in the Lord of The Rings and as a stunt double for the dwarf named Dori (Mark Hadlow), in The Hobbit. He was eventually promoted to manage and train horses during the filming of the latter. “It was a great experience and very interesting to see first hand what a perfectionist Peter Jackson can be,” Les said. But after retiring three years ago, Les couldn’t wait to get back to his first love, which was dog trialling and last year he said he got to run a dog, “for first time in ages.” “It gets you up on the morning, it’s vital to have something to do at my time of life, a reason to get out of bed.”
GOOD DOGS SCARCE However, finding a suitable dog was difficult. “A trial dog is a very special animal – it must have the X factor or it won’t ever make the grade. The competition in New Zealand is so great today,” he said. “There are young fellows (men in their mid-40s) from big stations dominating things. “They’ve got it over us in some ways because they are doing it every day on a big scale and they can choose the runs for their dogs. “I only have access to 30 acres to work with but my dogs are adapting to it, and we’ll see how we go,” he said. “Dogs must have it in their make-up. If I get a pup or young dog that I realise is not going to make it in my book, I’ll leave it for somebody else to rear. “Truly good dogs are so hard to find these days and the biggest problem now is not only picking the right ones but even getting access to them. People just don’t breed them like they did a few years ago.” Les said the last two years in particular have been tough on trialling, just as they have been tough on everyone.
CLOSURES “We’ve have had to close a lot of dog trialling courses down because of Covid restrictions and droughts. I don’t know how long it can keep going because we need the younger people coming on to help do these operations. “ You get some, but it’s not easy, though I admit some of today’s competitors are still very keen and still very interested.” But the problem, he said, is the lack of clubs, many of which have folded in recent years. “And not everyone wants a dog trial on their farm because it’s quite a big hassle really. So now we must somehow create new grounds and that’s going to be a big challenge. “While us older fellows are alive to push it along, hopefully it will keep going but we’re up against it. “Right across New Zealand the Government has allowed people to sell good pasture land for trees. A lot of big stations have gone into pine trees. “Sure, its not all doom and gloom. They’re recruiting some excellent cadets and they have a some good managers in the industry too. That’s great and I just hope they get the opportunities to get ahead and do what they want to do. “But as for the art of working dogs – that’s another matter. The average farmer today doesn’t have the time to perfect this; they’re just too busy doing everything at 100 miles-an-hour. They have so much on their plate to accomplish that the dogs are secondary, and they miss out on training. “And with motorbikes a lot stock is moved without dogs today and paddocks fenced up a lot smaller. Sure, when they shift the stock they go to the gate and the stock will follow them through. But it’s when you get to main shear and have to punch a big mob of lambs and ewes back to the wool shed that things get hard and then they have to get their rattles out. “So more farmers today want the dogs that are natural learners, can sort of train themselves and that tends to be the kind they have. In my day, we could go to so many experienced breeders to find a dog – but people are not breeding them same now. “I recall getting dogs from the likes of Vic Cook at Inglewood. Farmers would just go down there and easily grab a good pup or dog – he always seemed to have between about 100 to 200 suitable dogs to choose from. But he’s gone now. Les purchased his three-and-a-half-year-old huntaway, ‘Bronc’, from a station about two years ago. “’Bronc’, who has impressive breeding behind him, was give four or five starts last year. He wasn’t exactly free but did settle down eventually. “I am hoping I can keep hold of him going in trials next year and that he doesn’t get away from me. There’s a lot of serendipity involved. When I purchased ‘Bronc’ I didn’t know he had a genetics to make a good trialling dog – but it turned out that he did. And it can just as easily turn out the other way. “But I’ll stick with it as long as I can. It’s one of those things you’re born with. My grandfather was a drover and my father was a drover and shearer too, so I guess its in my DNA. You need to have passion for it, its got to be in your blood – otherwise it just doesn’t happen.”
