Working Aussies Homestead

Today I'm talking with Jordyn at Working Aussies Homestead.

You can purchase Jordyn's book at https://sawdustpublishing.com/product/herding-on-the-homestead-start-where-you-are/

And you can listen to Jordyn and Jill Winger's chat here .

If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee -

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00:00
This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Jordyn Kelly in North Carolina at Working Aussies Homestead. Good morning, Jordyn. How are you? Good morning. I'm good. How are you? I'm great. I am going to preface this entire episode by saying if you don't want to hear about

00:29
Stop listening now because I am so excited to talk to Jordyn about what she does. Do you want to tell me about yourself and what you do, Jordyn? Yeah, absolutely. So we operate on an acre and a quarter in North Carolina between Raleigh and Fayetteville. And we raise working Australian shepherds. We use our dogs on our homestead to rotation and graze our small flock of Gulf Coast native sheep, as well as our chickens.

00:57
But over the past few years, we've also had pigs and we still have rabbits. We've had goats before we had ducks. So a little bit of everything, but primarily our focus is working with our Australian shepherds. I wrote a book this past year. So herding on the homestead, start where you are. And I do public speaking and give herding demonstrations across the country to really help inspire.

01:26
anybody to get started where they are with what they have using a working dog on their small homestead or farm or even a large farm. But just to really help showcase the versatility, all the ways that you can use a good working dog and how they're probably the best addition you can make for your homestead or farm. Fantastic. I'm so excited to talk to you. My first question is, can you tell me what

01:56
that an Australian Shepherd puppy is gonna be good for herding right off the bat. And the reason I ask is because when we got Maggie, ours, she's a mini. And the lady that we got her from, who's a good friend, said that she was, that the breed is very people oriented, like they wanna be with their people, they wanna please their people, they want to love their people. And...

02:23
Maggie was trying to herd us by walking behind our ankles and doing the diagonal walk from three days after we brought her home. So can you tell that they're going to be a good herding dog from the get go?

02:38
I'm going to say yes and no. So with our puppies, we actually do instinct testing at five weeks old. So I will put them in with our stock. We've used turkeys in the past, and then we've also used our sheep and goats. And we do this to really help us determine which puppies need to go to a working home versus puppies that can go to more of just like an active family. Um, so yes, you can tell. But.

03:07
There's a couple other factors that come into play to say, yes, this is going to be a working dog versus no. That's where the Australian Shepherd breed has started to become a lot more popular, but people want to breed them to be more like your golden retriever, where they just are like good in a family home versus the workability.

03:32
Kind of a big controversial topic with some of the old timers and people who have been in the breed since the breed began 30 years ago is a lot of people want them to be watered down in terms of their workability. And so you don't see working Aussies as much anymore as you do like more pet Aussies that don't have that drive. So yes, you can tell. But I think.

04:01
that it's important to.

04:05
to especially like find breeders that are focusing on maintaining the workability and the breed if that makes sense.

04:14
Sure, yeah. We did not get her to be a herding dog. We got her to be a watchdog. And as I've said on the podcast episodes many times, she is an excellent watchdog. She is the weirdest Australian Shepherd I've ever seen, met, hung out with. She's very calm in the house. And the minute she's outside, she's all go. So.

04:41
We lucked out huge because we didn't want a crazy dog in the house all the time. And I know that you can train them to not be crazy, but we were a little concerned when our friend told us they could be kind of problematic with being bored. That they, that they would chew or they would destroy things. And she has been really good. And I listened to the podcast that you did with Jill Winger this morning. And.

05:10
You are so incredibly knowledgeable about all of this. I really enjoyed it. So if you get all the way through this podcast, guys, go listen to that one too. I'll put it in the show notes because it's really, really great. So do you consider yourself an expert on the Australian shepherd breed? Because I have a couple of questions about the breed itself.

05:36
I am a super humble person when it comes to dog knowledge. I've tried to make myself as knowledgeable as I possibly can. I don't know if I would label myself as expert. I have not been in the breed for 30 plus years. So that would just be my main downfall with that. But I have tried to really research and be knowledgeable in every aspect of.

06:05
the breed itself and dog. So you're more than welcome to ask questions. I'm sure I have an answer for you. Okay. So the Australian Shepherd breed, what, how did it come to be? Do you know what, what dogs they're, they're from? Yes. So the Australian Shepherd breed is newer. And even though the, the name is Australian, it is a breed that was founded in the United States.

06:35
In terms of the breed itself compared to other breeds, it's a very young breed. And it's only been around, you know, between 30 and 40 years. It's very young in comparison to like your German Shepherd that's been around for centuries. The Australian Shepherd is relatively new. And the name came from using these dogs to herd Australian sheep.

07:05
The dogs themselves are comprised of several different breeds. That's how any breed of dog is really formed is they take qualities that they like of this breed, qualities that they like of this breed, and combine them together. And then breeding those dogs together, initially you have a lot of line breeding and inbreeding to create the standard for the breed, the characteristics that you want to stick.

07:35
You have a little bit of collies, you have a little bit of cattle dogs in there for the bite inhibition that you want in these dogs because they do need to have a bite in their back pocket if needed. But there are certain traits that were bred into the breed for the purpose of the climate and conditions that they were used in. So these dogs were primarily used out in the Western United States.

08:05
So you have, you know, big, open, you have a lot of open land out there. And so one quality, one characteristic that these dogs were bred for was to have taller in height than length in body because they needed to cover ground. So that's part of the breed standard is ability to cover ground.

08:35
the length of their body. The natural bobtail was also bred into the breed because when you're out in that environment, you have a lot of thick brush and cacti. And typically the Australian Shepherd, if their tails are full in length and they're not docked within the first few days of birth, they are long and thick.

09:03
And so can easily get caught, can easily get stepped on. And so that's why that was a part of the breed standard was docking tails or breeding dogs for natural bobtail gene. So there's just a lot of things that were bred into them for the purpose to be a nice versatile dog. So can cover ground, has a natural bobtail so that the tail's not getting caught in brush or stepped on.

09:33
but then also has the ability to read the stock and use a bite when needed, but not, like that's not their first go-to when it comes to moving stock. So having that little bit of healer, but not so much that their first instinct is to go and bite the livestock in order to move them. Now the difference between like how collies work versus Australian shepherds is really the eye

10:02
the use of the eye for moving the stock. The Australian Shepherd is referred to a loose-eyed, upright working breed. So they don't typically crouch when they're moving the livestock and they're not going to stare their stock and apply that pressure that way, which I find very useful on our small homestead because my dogs can get right up next to the livestock if I need them to.

10:28
without applying so much pressure that it pushes my livestock through the fence. So really just kind of a little combination of all things good and put into this form of beautiful dogs with different colored eyes that come in four different colors. And then their coat is meant to be a medium length and so that they have that double coat, that undercoat.

10:54
Um, a lot of times they're referred to as a wash and wear breed. So they're meant to be able to go out and work in the rain and then come in and be dry within a matter of minutes. Um, and I find that a lot more with my working line bred dogs versus like some of our dogs that have more of the show lines in them, um, that have the longer coat takes them longer to dry out versus. My shorter coat dogs, they, you know, dry out.

11:24
very quickly, which is nice. You know, if they go out and get money, they come in and it all just falls off. So I can just vacuum it up. Um, so it's, it's really cool how the breed was founded and then how it's kind of transitioned into like this really cool working dog.

11:47
Okay, that was a lot. Thank you. I'm sorry. No, that's great. I just didn't know when to jump in, so I just figured I'd let you tell me exactly what you needed to share about the dogs. So our dog has the fluffy curly coat on the top of her back, and then along her ribs she's got the short coat, so she looks really funny a lot of the time. And she dries off probably in...

12:16
half the time that your working dogs dry off. The other thing I was gonna ask you about is these dogs are really athletic and they can be shown doing like tricks and stuff, yes? Yes. Yes, Maggie is terribly athletic and it confuses me sometimes because she's such a loaf in the house but her favorite thing to play is frisbee.

12:45
And she catches the frisbee out of the air like she's been doing it her whole life, like somebody taught her how to do it. And so is there, I don't know what the right way to say this is, is there a market for show Aussies? Like is it a thing that people are very into because I don't know? Yes. So that's kind of where we see, especially recently, there's a huge breed.

13:15
lit. And, you know, of course, being an Australian Shepherd enthusiast, I'm a part of a lot of different like groups on Facebook and whatnot. And we're a part of the Australian Shepherd Club of America, so ASCA. And they're just, there's a lot of controversial conversations, especially recently. There's kind of a lot of drama going on with

13:44
the Australian Shepherd Club of America as of the last two to three years, but especially recently they've had a lot of issues with the board. But with that, there's been a big focus on should there be different classifications within the breed? So the working Australian Shepherd versus the Australian Shepherd in terms of like a show dog specifically. So that's, there's some breeders.

14:14
pedigrees, that's where there's so much that we can dive into just focusing on the breed itself is there are breeders who specifically breed for dogs that are going to win in the show ring, but not necessarily ever step foot out at a field trial. And so the controversial thing is you should have a dog that should be able to do both go and win in the ring, but then also go and win high and fast.

14:44
a herding dog triangle. So there are people who specifically want the fluffier, cuter looking Australian Shepherd. And there's a lot of people who look at my dogs and go, what breed is that? Because I have more of the working line bred. So I have the shorter coat dogs that maybe look a little lankier. And it just, it really is where I encourage people if you're wanting to.

15:14
um, has a working dog, that dog needs to come from working farms. And there's really just that, that difference. There is a market for the show or fluffier puppies, but those are really going more to like pet companion homes, uh, versus going to working farms. Yup, exactly. Um, Maggie's parents are both working dogs. They work the farm or

15:40
Her dad actually passed away a year or so ago, which we're very sad about, but mom is still kicking, still around. She just had puppies Monday morning at 4 a.m. so Maggie's a big sister again. And yeah, oh pictures, oh just kills me. I want another one, but I really don't want another one. Maggie's perfect. We're sticking with her for now. I understand. But her dad was

16:07
He would have heard the sheep that they have. He would have heard the cattle they have. And he was a really thick, stocky, mini Australian shepherd. He probably weighed 35 to 40 pounds. And that's on the high end of a mini. And he did a great job. And mom does the same thing, but in a slightly different way. It's really interesting. You can have two working dogs that are a basically mated pair. And they will.

16:36
they will do their jobs differently. They will have their own style from what I saw. Yeah, and that's another thing is like, there's a lot of controversy over the Mini Aussie is really supposed to be the miniature American Shepherd because it's like a different breed. Whereas the Australian Shepherd is not supposed to come in a size variance. So there were some breeders

17:06
breeding for larger Australian chakras, who have 65, 75, 70, 80 pound dogs. They're not meant to be that large, but they're also not meant to be smaller than 30 pounds. They're meant to be a medium breed. And so that, you know, it's so interesting to watch those conversations take place because there are people out there who are like, oh, my Aussies are bigger boned, they're taller. There's, you know,

17:34
There's a breed standard that says they're not meant to be smaller or bigger than a certain height or a certain weight. But the thing is, part of the standard too is size. If you have a quality dog, then the size variation is kind of not considered as much. Right. Yeah. We keep saying that Maggie is probably just a small standard.

18:03
Australian Shepherd because she weighs 35 pounds and she's just below my knee and I'm five foot nine so if she's a mini American Shepherd, she's a big mini and My girls are 35 pounds. Yeah, I have 36 pounds. Yeah, so she's she's right in the right weight to be a smaller standard and I Know that my friends have the papers from Maggie's

18:33
grandparents. They didn't parent, they didn't paper Maggie's parents, but they have the papers from the parents of Maggie's parents. Wow, that was a lot. Sorry. And they are, they are certified or officially called on the paperwork, many Australian shepherds. So it gets real weird with the American versus Australian shepherds. Yeah. And that's where like there are some

19:02
not as, um, not as consistent with their record keeping. And so there's some registries that are, um, like not just not taken seriously. If that makes sense. And so there's a lot of controversy in the dog world with that as well as, um,

19:26
you know, if the dogs are not registered through the parent club, like the Australian Shepherd Club of America, then is the registry valid? If that makes sense. Does it mean anything? Yeah. Right. Whereas, so like the Australian Shepherd Club of America, in order to have your dog registered with them, your dog must be DNA genetically verified to be a purebred Australian Shepherd.

19:52
Which is different than any other registry because they don't always require that. And the other thing is it just depends on whether it matters to the person who is going to take care of that dog for the rest of its life. For us it didn't matter. We just wanted a puppy. Our friends happened to have these dogs who we had met who had great temperaments, who were healthy, who were strong.

20:20
When I found out that Daisy was pregnant with Maggie's first litter, which was Maggie's litter, I put my hat in the ring and said, I would love to be the owner of one of the pups when they're ready. And will you trust me, basically, to take this dog on? And my friend was like, of course, of course. And we had no idea how to raise a dog from puppy. My husband and I had never had a puppy. So it was very much a learning experience for us.

20:50
if you're looking for that papering or certification or classification or whatever, I guess you just have to do your research. Yes. And some of that, really, a lot of people will say, well, the registration doesn't matter, the papers don't matter. It costs $25 to register a dog. So it's not...

21:15
necessarily the cost that's involved. It's more of like you are breeding to register dogs that adhere to the breed standard to maintain the breed standard. That's a big thing with a lot of puppies that come in and people will say, oh, I have an Australian Fepard and looking at it, you're like, I'm not so sure that that's what you actually have.

21:46
And the purpose of going through a breeder who has their dogs registered, has done genetic health testing, has done ORFAs, they have done everything to ensure that those dogs are absolutely sound so that the puppies are not born into automatically having issues later on in life. And that's where just kind of the...

22:15
the mindset is of, it's not necessarily does it matter, but it's what quality of puppies are you producing? If that makes sense. Yes, and when I say the way I'm using matters is to us, it was important that we knew Maggie's parents and what kind of dogs they were, but Maggie is never going to reproduce. She's not going to show.

22:44
any of those things where that would be required. And so I guess what I'm saying is if you're going to show your dog or you need them to have that clout of being papered and that I'm not using the right words. You said it's more record keeping is really what the registration is. It's the record keeping. These two dogs had these puppies.

23:14
issues come up later on, like that is where that you can track through a pedigree, you know, dogs that had specific genetic issues or genetic markers for whatever. And so that's really just the importance of the pedigree is that record keeping that ability to look back and go, these characteristics came from this dog or, you know, especially like in border collies, it's really important to know which lines carry epilepsy.

23:43
So that you aren't breeding those lines into your program. So that later on you're not having issues with two and three year old dogs getting epilepsy because that's a huge issue in the breed. So that's really just the primary importance of the pedigree and registration is just more of the record keeping. Okay, yes, exactly. Thank you. I was getting way, way in the weeds there. Sorry.

24:10
I'm, it's terrible because I have done a lot of research on my dog because I love her beyond measure. But she's a quote unquote mini Australian shepherd. So I haven't really looked into the Australian shepherd stuff as far as I probably should considering she's probably actually a standard and just on the smaller end. So I need to do some more research on Australian shepherds. But my parents have a border collie.

24:40
It's really interesting to me how much the border collie faces and the Australian shepherd faces look almost identical. The shape of their nose, the look in their eyes, the shape of their ears, their head, they look very much alike and they are not the same breed. Yeah, and that's really where it just comes down to the characteristics too. Yeah.

25:10
Um, like a lot of people think one of my dogs looks like a Britney, uh, just primarily because of her coloring and she has the little ticking on her nose. But you know, a lot of times, like one of our younger puppies that we have, she, both of her ears go fully forward and a lot of people ask if she's a Labrador mix. And just because of her ear set. And so it's just.

25:39
It's so interesting how similar different breeds look alike for sure. Yeah, absolutely. Um, our dog, basically I have been with his dog since she was one day shy of eight weeks because I'm an at home person. So I have been the one with her the entire time. And as I've watched her grow and change, I have seen like hints of beagle.

26:07
to her the way she looks. I've seen Corgi, I've seen Lab. So you know it's just how you see other breeds and then you you sort of superimpose that on your dog if they show any any likeness to that other breed. And I told my husband I said we should have named her Bandit not Maggie after she'd been Maggie for like six months. And he said why and I said because she's got this thing about her face where if you see her 30 feet away

26:36
she looks like she has a mask. We should have named her Bandit. And he says she's not a raccoon. And I had not seen raccoon in her, but the minute he said it, I was like, oh yeah, I could see her. I could see raccoon in her and hadn't even thought of it. So it's all perception and perspective, and they look different to you when they're up close. Like, I don't think she's a big dog.

27:05
When she's next to me, she seems small. But if she's out in the yard running around, she looks twice her size. And I'm like, why does she look so big outside? It's just weird, I don't know. Anyway, we've been talking for 27 minutes, Jordan. I haven't even asked you about your book. Tell me about the book. Yes, so the book I really wrote, because of course I've read a lot of different hurting books, but...

27:32
Getting into hurting can seem really intimidating. There's a lot of gatekeeping when it comes to getting started. A lot of times if you're wanting to get into it, you know, there's this advice given over here, this advice given over here, there's online series, but there's also, you know, we live in the day and age where you can access anything at any time, the roofing or chips. The thing with hurting is you

27:59
to put the miles on. It has to be something you do in person. You can't just read about it. You can't just watch a video, go out and be good. And the thing with that is it can be very intimidating because you don't, you know, you're taking this dog out that is technically a predator and teaching it how to move prey. And so it can be very intimidating, especially like if you are a failure person like myself.

28:29
And so I really wrote the book in order to help inspire people to just start that, you know, I was that fear of failure person where I waited until I had a one year old dog. And then I went to a very well known trainer in our area. We attended, you know, hurting lessons once a week, we would go and it, you know, it was a two hour drive one way. And so it was a whole day thing for us to go to a hurting lesson.

29:00
And so, but I did that with her. I did everything the right way. I took her to trials, you know, she did great. And then with her daughter, I started when she was 10 weeks old, working on stock. And a lot of times people say, Oh, well, you know, don't touch a dog until it's at least a year old. So that way it's mentally and physically mature enough to work with stock correctly. But I wanted to just share my experiences.

29:28
and say, you don't necessarily have to do that. If you have somebody in your area that does herding training, that is worth what you pay them, absolutely do that. But if you don't have that, that's okay too. So my book is titled Herding on the Homestead Start Where You Are, and I share a lot of experiences, but I also tried to kind of cover all of the bases of this is why different breeds matter.

29:55
This is why and what you would look for in a puppy. This is what your foundational training looks like. This is what teaching working manners looks like. This is what life's junk introduction looks like. And then this is what your initial lessons that you're gonna do with your dog looks like, but then also how animal husbandry plays into that. So it's really like a great book for anybody who wants to get into herding someday.

30:23
or even if they have a dog or even if they're ready to do it now. So is it like a primer sort of? Somewhat but then also, you know, for somebody who's already getting into it to just help to just help really be encouragement. You know, I share a lot of instances where things did not go well with my dogs and how I worked around that.

30:52
A lot of times, if you are working with your own livestock, you've got a lot on the line. There's a big risk because you're working with a dog that could potentially kill one of your animals just if the situation was wrong in any capacity. There's always that risk. But also, if it seems like too much.

31:22
That's where I wanted to be encouraging and say, this is what you can do to help with a lot of these different behaviors. And you heard me talk about some of that on Jill's podcast of, you know, there's a lot of tools in your tool belt that can help with a variety of things. Yes, exactly. I feel like the puppies in this breed are very much like...

31:47
toddlers, they are like sponges. They want to learn, they want to do what you're teaching them and asking of them. And so why is it a bad idea to start training them as puppies? I mean, that's what I keep hearing. And I'm like, we taught Maggie to sit and lay down in like three minutes with a couple of treats when she was nine weeks old. Like it took no time at all.

32:17
So if you have stock that can be rougher on a dog, like that's where you could put a puppy in with, you know, the wrong goat and that puppy loses all confidence to work because it gets head butted by the goat. And so that's really like when you're working with a puppy of herding breed, I'm not putting them in a ring and expecting them to go do anything.

32:44
I'm going to walk around the ring with the livestock, with the puppy, and just be there to help ensure a smooth interaction. But I'm not putting a puppy in with a bunch of goats and letting my goats just invite the puppy to the greenhouse. So that's kind of like where that comes with is it takes a lot of management to work with a puppy that is one day going to work with livestock.

33:15
A good example of this, last week I had my sheep out, they were just kind of free ranging. And my husband and I were working in the garden. And so we had our two youngest puppies out there, three and a half months and four months old. And they were just hanging out watching us work in the garden. And so I was like, you know, the sheep are fine to be out. They didn't know where the sheep were. Well, we hear a commotion and I look over and my sheep are just running to the barn. And I was like, what in the world?

33:45
And I look and Snips, the youngest, who's three and a half months old, is just over there hurting them by herself. And I was like, okay, girlfriend, come here, come here. We don't need to work them. Like the sheep are being fine, out grazing by themselves. But that is where she has watched her mom and her big sister Rogue put the sheep in the barn. And so she has learned that behavior from watching the other dogs do it. But I'm not.

34:14
expecting her to be able to do that by herself. Not at this point at the age that she is. Yes and the one thing that I tell everybody who's considering getting this particular breed of dog, whether it's a mini or a standard, is these dogs are incredibly intelligent and they really do learn fast and whatever they see they will they will try to copy it.

34:45
Oh yeah, absolutely. Sometimes we, uh, we'll, we'll share our experiences raising puppies is like, we want them to be problem solvers. So we encourage that a lot, but sometimes we have to really get creative on how we think ahead of them of if we even have one little inkling of, Hmm, they might get into that, odds are they probably will.

35:10
And that is one thing that we really like vouch for with new puppy parents too, is they'll complain, oh my gosh, they chewed up another pair of shoes. Well, were the shoes out in a place that your puppy had access to them? Okay, then they were not set up for success. And it's really, you have to set those puppies up for success because they're going to be smart, they're going to check things out, they're going to figure out, ooh, this is really fun to chew on and pretty tasty.

35:38
But if you don't give them access to that, then they're not going to learn that behavior. Right. We say Maggie's too smart for her own good all the time. And we try not to set her up to fail. And we were really lucky because we got her very shortly after we moved into our new home. And we hadn't really gotten settled into the new home yet. So there was no clutter around for her to get in the middle of and chew on and get in trouble with.

36:08
So I tell people if they're gonna get a puppy, make sure they have a space that the puppy can be in and set them up for success. Don't leave your shoes where the dog can chew them up. Don't have cords from your computer or your cell phone hanging around because they will eat them. And it's not- And if you have a destructive puppy and you're like, man, I've tried everything, try a kennel. Try just a crate. It works wonders.

36:38
I will always be an advocate for crate training. If you're anybody but Maggie, it works great. We did that. We did that for six days in a row when we brought her home. What has been the issue there? Well now she loves her crate. She's three years and a month or so old. But we basically would sit down with her and let her go in and out. And she liked her kennel as long as the door wasn't shut.

37:07
And then we would put her in the kennel at night and she would cry and bark and whine all night long. And then you would let her out, wouldn't you? No, we did not let her out. Didn't even go check on her, which was probably part of the problem. But after six nights of no sleep, we were like, never mind, she can just sleep with us because we were walking zombies. Now, she trains you well. Yeah. Now she loves her crate and she actually has the run of the house at night. And she

37:35
She sleeps on her kennel or she sleeps on the chair downstairs. She's totally fine having the run of the house, but she's also, like I said, three years old. She's not a puppy anymore. But we didn't have much luck with crate training at all with her. Yeah. With puppies, you have to kind of get some thick skin with it and say, nope, we're going to do this. We're going to go in there. That's where...

38:01
You know, a lot of times these dogs are so smart, they'll train you. And sometimes you don't realize it. And, you know, until they, they do something specific that gets a specific reaction or a specific response from you. And that is a great example of those dogs have learned if they do this, they get that response and that was the response they wanted.

38:27
Uh-huh and we tried not to do that and we failed. I don't know what we did wrong, but we failed And i'm not gonna lie not gonna lie having a five pound cute little fluffball In you know on your shoulder when you wake up is is not the most horrible experience. So we weren't upset about it But the only issue then is if you have a pushy dog that does that then when it's 50 pounds And it's not as cute and fun anymore

38:56
So my advice is always if you don't want them to do that as an adult, don't let them do it as a puppy. Yeah, we lucked out because she's very good now about not jumping on us on our bed in the morning. She doesn't have to. She's asleep when I get up at 5 a.m. So she doesn't have to come yell at me. If she's yelling at me, if she's jumping on me in the middle of the night, something is very wrong. Yeah, well good. I'm glad that she's worked out for you.

39:27
Yeah, she's fantastic. Like, the minute I found out what you do, I was like, oh my god, another person who loves Australian Shepherds probably more than I do. We have 10, so it's a little bit of a bias at this point. Uh-huh. If I could have 10, I would have 10, but number one, that's a lot of dogs, and number two, I can't afford to feed them.

39:53
So we don't have that. We feed them partially from the homestead. So that helps a lot. Yeah. Yup. I can't imagine having 10. Like, Maggie is one. And she's so loud when she's watchdogging that I can't imagine having five of them barking at the same time. It would kill me. Yeah. It does take a lot of training.

40:19
And it takes a lot of management, but that's where, like, especially with having 10, if I, and these dogs are smart enough. So if I say, Hey, if you do that one more time, you're going up. That's, that's all I need to say in order for them to be like, okay, I'll stop doing that. Um, and we will board friends and families dogs. And so we might have 15, 16 dogs at a time, but

40:46
Honestly, like having 10 feels like most people's five. Like if we had different breeds of dogs and we had five dogs, that's what our 10 Australian shepherds feel like because they just, you know, like you said, they want to be wherever their people are. And so we have 10 dogs that love to be wherever we are. So it doesn't seem like a lot of dogs. Yeah. The, the friend that we got Maggie from warned us that they are Velcro dogs.

41:13
And I didn't quite understand how serious she meant that because Maggie hates not being with us. Like, we'll let her out of the house on her lead. We live on a very busy road, so she does not have the run of the property without being tied because she would end up dead and that is not a good ending for her. But if she's outside by herself, she kind of goes and checks out the cats if they're out there. She goes potty.

41:39
She's out for maybe five ten minutes by herself and she is right back up on the steps doing the bark that lets us know That she misses us and wants to come in because we're in the house So yeah, they're very Their people centered. They don't want to be with other people. They want to be with their family

42:00
or at least in our case. So what do you love best about these dogs? Because clearly you love them, but what's your favorite thing about the Australian Shepherd? Honestly, their goofiness and the companionship that they give. They just, there's not a single day that goes by where they don't make us laugh. But then also like their intuition.

42:28
with us in different situations. You know, that's one of the things I talk about in my book is just how smart these dogs are that they learn the routine of everything. So that's what makes them such a great working dog is they go, well, that's out of place, that needs to go back up. And you know, being so in tune with their people, you know, when we have like a sad day.

42:57
they give us a lot more attention and they really want to help cheer us up. Obviously, having livestock, you have dead stock sometimes and I'm the emotional person and so all of our dogs will come and just push themselves under my arm so that I am focused more on them and give them more attention. But then also just...

43:25
if there's something going wrong, like they try their hardest to figure out how they can help make it better. And I just, I really appreciate that, you know, and when, when you're homesteading, when you're farming, it can be a very lonely thing. It's hard to find people that have the same interests, have the same passions as you that live next door, you know? So most of our friends are at least an hour, hour and a half away. And

43:56
it can get kind of lonely. And so it's nice to have such smart dogs that want to be wherever we are doing what we're doing and have just that companionship. Because you know, they're smart enough dogs, you can have a full conversation with them and they understand. Yes, and they will have conversations with you too. I did not know that dogs can actually talk to you with their body language and their faces and their movements.

44:26
until we got Maggie. Oh yeah. And Austrian Shepherd, they're not subtle about it. She... No, no, and she... I keep trying to explain this to people, and people who don't know this breed do not quite understand it, but Maggie has these head tilts that she does when we are talking to her, where you can just see she's trying to pick out the words that she knows, and the minute she hears one that she

44:55
the head comes back up because you're like, oh, that's not an important word. But if she hears treat or she hears frisbee or she hears dad, because she loves my husband, my husband is dead. Her head just goes aside like, yes, I'm listening. And there's a routine at dinnertime because we refused to have a dog that begged for people food. And so the routine at dinnertime is that she gets her food, she gets water.

45:21
And then we eat our dinner, she eats her dinner, so she's not interested in what we're eating. And then when we're done, our vet recommended we put her on a joint support supplement because her legs are short, because she's small. And these dogs have issues with their joints. And it's all good stuff, it's all natural. And I've read the label, I'm very cool with giving her this stuff. And so she gets half. Which is so interesting, because for a three-year-old dog, I wouldn't.

45:49
anticipate putting her on a joint supplement at that age? She had, she hurt herself at like nine, ten months. I do not know how it happened but she was holding her back leg up and we of course panicked and took her to the vet because you know we're new puppy owners and the vet said that because she's, she's got short legs and a fairly substantial body and she's not fat.

46:16
but she's real solid that she was concerned about a joint issue or a congenital joint issue I guess and that these joint support supplements tend to help. And I was like, is it going to hurt her to give them to her? She said no. I said, is it going to hurt her to not give them to her? And she said no. And I said, okay, well, let's give these to her and see if it helps. And she was back to normal in a week. So she was fine.

46:46
But I figured that the ingredients aren't gonna hurt her and they're actually gonna help her because I know what they are and know what they do. So she gets half of one of these tablets after dinner and she gets her dental life for her teeth to keep her teeth clean. Because she's not chewing on bones, she's not doing that. And so she knows that she gets these things after she eats her dinner. And if we are busy, she is right under the cabinet where her joint support supplement tablets are.

47:15
and she's just sitting there prettily waiting. And then as soon as she gets that, she goes right to the pantry closet door and sits and waits so she gets her dental aid. They are so directed by routine, it is crazy. And obviously you have a routine on your farm, they are working dogs, but they are just in general, routine driven animals.

47:37
Yeah. Definitely. And with as many as we have, I always say that dogs are also better not knowing the true routine. So like being unpredictable can also be beneficial for dogs like this. Like the routine is the same with the chores. But life in general, you know, my dogs don't know what the usual routine is because our life is not the same routine every day.

48:06
Yeah, but if you do have a routine, they pick it up really quickly. It's frightening. So anyway, I could literally talk with you all day about your dogs and about Maggie. I, we could be here till midnight tonight, but that's not going to happen. Jordan, I am so happy that you took the time to talk with me. And I know we didn't get real in depth, but I mostly just wanted to, to talk about the

48:32
how great it is to have these dogs because they are fabulous and I think we covered that. So absolutely. All right. And if you guys want more information about the actual ins and outs and the details of the working dog part, go listen to Jordan's interview with Jill, what is Jill Winger because it is really good. I'll put it in the show notes.

49:00
If there's anything else that you have questions about, you can go to our website. It's just work We also have a YouTube channel and then we're on Facebook and Instagram as well. Awesome. I will put that in the show notes too and that way people don't have to try to remember it from the last part of the interview. All right, Jordyn, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. Yes. Thank you so much for having me. Have a great day. You too.