Hi all koolie-owners! I joined your group for interest in your experiences of this lovely race. I´m living in Finland and waiting for my first puppy from Tjukurpa; at the same time we receive two puppies to start their career here.

I`m working with sheeps and the other puppy goes for cattlefarmer.
I also work as a trainer for almost 200 dogs from different herding-races during summerseasons.I have two border collies and two Serra de Aires- sheperds as a working dogs at home, but I also breed Giant Schnautzers (bred them almost 19 years now).

Hopefully I get to known as many from you as possible:)

Sinikka from Kuttukuu´s goat and sheepfarm, Finland

Hello Sinikka, I'm so excited to see you here on the forum.
to lots of new friends and hope to share many chats with you.
Very friendly people here.

A big welcome to you. I am sure you will enjoy this forum and learn lots about this wonderful breed. Sounds like you are really busy with the farm and training and we look forward to hearing all about Finland and all your animals.

yes also a big welcome from me and my dogs, maybe you can give us training tips from time to time hehehe i am very good at looseing sheep thank god that i have a couple handy dogs to bring them home for me well we never found six of them dingo food by now i would say, but anyway a big welcome i can't wait to see your new puppy's when you get them.

Hi and Welcome Please post picures of your new pups. We love pictures! Great to see the Koolie breed travelling around the world. I'm sure you will be very happy with your new Koolies.

Certainly you see photos until you get enough.
In Finland we live in quite different climate from you and our farms are so small that most of the work during the winterseason is indoors, so it gives different kind of work to dogs (we also have moster-goats which like to eat dogs for their breakfast:)).
I really do hope that I can introduce finnish farmers a new working race; in our country they always prefer Border Collies and Working Kelpies but never the less BC:s from working-lines are starting to be too fanatic and loose their nervs when nothing happens..and for cattlethey want only the tough-ones and end in situation where they have no skills to train their dogs as well as needed.
Koolie is my "daydream", I really do hope I can be worth it:)

Sinikka

Welcome kuttukuu

You will NOT be disapointed by Koolies in that case. I know what you mean about BC's. The thing about Koolies is they are 100% soul and personality. Great workers but not machines. I'd love to see pictures of your Monster Goats too! Some of our members here say their cows are man eaters.......but I don't know about that

A big welcome. Koolies are getting all over the place now. And I know what you mean by Border Collies I was looking at that breed and wasn't happy in what I saw. And then I saw the Koolie well that was that for me. I am sure you will enjoy all the discussions on here.

to the forum! Lots of ideas and friendly discussions happen here so please join in and give us your point of view. Looking forward to lots of pics of pups having fun and working in Finland!

One of those main reasons why I preferred koolie was that it has no show-background that could turn it some day too popular by their exotic looks and we could remain it as a worker.
In Finland BC an Kelpie are in two lines; show and work. Even I see both in my herding-courses and they both still have abilities in work, we have strong opinions that dogs are herding with their registerpapers. People who get showlined dogs are not welcome to herdinglessons in other places and they are concidered as a "pets". Also competitive opinions think that olny herding-competitive dogs can do their jobs well. I think that usually dogs real value is measured in the long run, basic on farmwork, and the competition is "obedience", fun and hobby for owners.
This same way of thinking makes herding with other races difficult here.
If you cannot compete with pumis, australian dheperds ect. (because rules and competitions are made for BC-style) you can´t convince that other races still can work. (Even farmwork is similar to all races.)
Usually farmwork here does not include long runs and fetches from open fields- that´s because we usually don´t have big, open areas. Finnish farms are small, usually max 30 ha, and we have lots of small field-areas and lots of moves between them. We also keep cattle and sheeps in the forests (Which we have a lot!). Because of the climate most of the fields are needed for grain, haye ect if we want to survive from winterseasons indoors-fooding and all the difficult places are for graze.
So in my experience and opinion you should train your dog based on your needs more than you think if this race is fetcher, rounder, stopper ect. Smart dog from any race can change it´s methods by the work we need to be done!
And this is what bothers Finnish herding-people most!
BC came to Finland 1978 and now it´s the only answer for farmers:)
I told people when they ask my permission to join my courses with other races that it´s sad that here we cannot see the truth: how did sheperds in early days in France, Spain ect. survive and got jobs done in very hard conditions (mountains ect.) if their dogs did not work well!? And they never had heard from bC those days:)
As you can see, this subject really turns me on:)

Sinikka

Hi Sinikka,

I picked up my puppy from Tjukurpa a week and a bit ago. We saw you little puppies there in the yard when Kerrie was telling us where they were all heading to. When she said Finland I was shocked! We were worried about the 3 hour trip home, hope the little guys go ok on the plane trip over :o)

All my best wishes in your new venture. We're finding our little 'Brick' (yup, that's his name) to be quite a personality. Very bossy, very cuddly and very clever.

Cheers,
Naomi

Wau, nice to hear news from "relatives". We´rewaiting our puppies like Santa Claus at Christmas time, so exiting this is:)
I´m also worried about journey, but I also got friends which have import other race-puppies from your country and there´has never been any difficulties. It´s also good to know that there´s two puppies travelling so they have company from each other. We also will drive 4 hours to Helsinki which is our capital-city to fetch the puppies as soon as possible even there´s also airport near us.
I´m sure everything goes just fine:)

Sinikka

Arranging transport anywhere has always been a great concern to us.
And when we first exported back in 2002 we took every measure to locate the best in the field to care for the safety and well being of our Koolie’s no matter where they went.

And we were so fortunate to find Charles of Pet Movers, he has been in the business of caring for all types of animals for over forty years.
He may be a tad slow as Sinikka knows but he is so thorough, checking and rechecking to assure that all goes well and that our precious cargo arrives in the exact terrific health as when they left us and he has this wonderful network all over the world where lovely people watch over our babies, feeding and watering and when they land sometime even staying over at their own homes.

Every pup we have sent, the owners have always remarked how surprised they are when they expect to pick up a scared, tired even possibly an airsick puppy but what they meet is a very healthy and excited puppy who jumps into their waiting arms as though they recognised their new owners.
Thanks to Charles excellent care.

And then we receive such wonderful emails and photos of our little ones so far away in places we dream of visiting one day, and the new owners become part of our extended family, just like we hope those here in Australia feel.

But all this does not stop me worrying the moment they lift off, till the new owner contacts us to say they have indeed arrived safely.

Hi,
I'm sure it'll go off without a hitch :o) Great news for you though, our boy slept the entire drive home. We were wrapped! Hope yours do the same for you.
Naomi

Welcome - it's great to have ppl with such broad experience to contribute here.