The dog whisperer - Gisborne Herald

A FORMER Gisborne woman with more than 35 years’ experience breeding, training and working farm dogs will be here for two training days next month.

Anna Holland spent three of her earliest years shepherding here at Manutuke and Matawai.

The farmer that employed her at Manutuke told her that she would have to go if he found a boy.

“He had been looking for a boy to help on the farm, couldn’t find one — I was staying with his sister helping on their farm — they talked him into taking me on. He said to me “Anna, if I find a boy, you’ll have to go”.

“I stayed for 2 years and he had no hesitation in replacing me with another girl.”

Anna says she was very fortunate in her introduction to farm dogs since she was born and raised in the heart of Auckland.

An uncle’s farm in Wairarapa was where she learned to ride a horse and saw first-hand how a well-trained and obedient dog handled stock.

“I cannot put a value on watching him with his dogs; it is who I am today.”

She left home at 17 to start a career working on the land — much to her parents’ horror.

Back in those days it was a definite handicap being a woman in the sheep farming industry.

“It was easy enough finding employment in the dairy or racing sector, but on a sheep property — nigh on impossible. Virtually all my jobs were the boss realising that I had a very capable team of dogs, and that I possessed stockmanship. This led to permanent work.”

She shepherded for 25 years before concentrating on training people with dogs.

Dogs and dog training have become her life. She wrote for Country-Wide for just over two years about the care and training of farm dogs and now writes similar articles for Young Country magazine and Rural News.

She also runs Teaching People Dog Training days throughout the country travelling with four to six quiet sheep in a horse-float, two to three dogs and a toy poodle called Fifi.

The training days are limited to 35 people so bookings are essential.

She encourages all ages and experience.

“I’ve had people as young as early teens through to a number of people 65-plus.”

People do not take their own dogs.

“I demonstrate with one or two untrained dogs and then with two trained dogs. I take people through all the stages from puppy to trained dog and encourage questions.”

She has run 28 Teaching People Dog Training days altogether and says they were all huge successes.

The Gisborne training days run from 9am to 4pm at Matawai on September 18 — contact Adriana (06) 862 1553) for details — and at Wairoa on September 20 —contact Kirby (06) 837 5627). The training includes a booklet that covers everything people have seen in the day.

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