The formation of the WASDA

Article by Chris Wyhoon

The cliché that said that ‘all in good time’ certainly resonates with the formation of the Western Australian Working Stock Dog Association, which held WA’s first cattle dog trial recently. The idea for the new association was born nearly seven years ago. Passionate working dog owner and breeder Chris Wyhoon kicked the idea off, following several visits to NSW and being inspired at the Scone Working Dog Futurity.

“I travel regularly to Tamworth (Chris is a Director of the Australian Bushmen’s Campdraft and Rodeo Association) and anywhere I can take an opportunity to visit a trial, I will” Chris said.

Chris took great inspiration from the likes of Tony McCallum, who advocated the value of the stock dog challenges he had run. He has also spent a lot of time in the US and Canada in the past watching stock dog events.

“I love the principles around making the competition as real and practical as possible and wanted to do something similar in Western Australia”.

Chris kicked off a group with good friend Aticia Grey, of Pilbara Working Dogs fame, who invited a few others including stock managers Tim Bending, Lee Warrington, Darryn Browne and Courtney Robinson. A meeting was held, and all went on from there. The six in the group all agreed that trials alone were not their key ambition. They wanted to incorporate a range of events and practice sessions, ensuring they were handling stock in a low-stress way and mimicking real working conditions.

“That was eight or so years ago – then before we could get something happening, they pretty much all took off up north with various jobs, and the whole group sat in hiatus”.

Unfortunately, with a 200-hectare livestock operation in the Avon Valley, a growing rural training business, a couple of part-time jobs, and several Boards, Chris just never could muster the time to keep it going by himself.

“The sheepdog triallers over here laughed at me; they thought it was a great joke to think that we wanted to start another association that included all types of stock, but in a more practical, real-life working stock dog context’.

Chris purchased a bitch called Craiglea Tess from Jamie Sturrock in 2014, a daughter of Beacons Rees. Tess would help with his cattle operation and be a decent trial dog.

“The moment of clarity that I finally needed to do something about this ambition came after we tragically lost Tess to an accident a couple of years ago, without ever coming close to using her potential”.

Whilst Chris has loads of passion, and was making room to make the time, it was time to bring in someone with youth and energy, and access to large volumes of cattle, as Chris

– who has a relatively small stud herd of cattle – lives in a predominantly sheep breeding area.

“We had a couple of false starts to get something going, but you need a team of good people, and close to where the cattle are”.

Enter Tim Bending – one of the original six – who had returned to Southwest Western Australia and was now based at Coolup in the Peel region. He swung things into action, and with Chris’s assistance and guidance, kicked off what would be the first cattle dog trial.

“They say that there are three types of people – the ideas people, the doers and the watchers –and whilst I may have provided the drive and ideas to get something started, it’s impressive young guys like Tim that just get on and do it, build a good team, and make it happen”.

Chris re-started the Association and gave Tim the job of being President with himself as Vice-President, to help guide Tim along the way.

Both Chris and Tim have been involved in running associations and committees in rodeo and campdraft respectively for many years. This meant that in terms of structure, growing membership, event management and dealing with sponsors, and issues such as procuring cattle, it was just a case of swapping from western horse sports to dogs.

“I’ve been Chair and President of so many things over 30 years, and was really keen to have a young person drive things – I see young handlers in the eastern states associations doing wonderful things, and yet in WA Sheepdog Associations, I rarely see anyone under fifty”. Veteran trialler Dave Lacey won the first round with ‘Blondie’, scoring 89, with WASDA secretary and sheepdog trialler Jenny Whitelock taking second with an 88 score with ‘Jensown Microchip’.

Dave won the aggregate with 180 points with ‘Blondie’, whilst WA-born but NSW-experienced cattle trialler Bec Martin came a close second with ‘Yarabee Tom’ with a 174, certainly helped by Tom’s final run of a staggering 97 points.

The following day Simon Leaning held a working stock dog training school for the inexperienced participants, rounding off the trial to be a huge success.

“We were stoked at how it went, and for me, it was really pleasing to see how after all these years of trying to get it off the ground, we finally did it”.

Chris, Tim and the WAWSDA committee including the hardworking secretary Jenny Whitelock, are already organising more trials and practice sessions for the year, following a few enquiries from potential committees. Membership is growing quickly.

“One day we will get to hold our stock dog challenges, reflecting the ambitions emanating from those discussions with Tony McCallum years ago. Who knows, maybe one day eastern states competitors might end up over here at some big, sponsored event - the sky’s the limit really!”.

The first PurePro sponsored cattle trial – which followed Queensland rules - was held at Leigh McLarty’s Boar Swamp campdraft ground, with cattle donated by Tim’s employer Plunkett Holdings. They were beautiful sappy young Angus heifers who had been dog-broke by Tim.

Well-known trainer and sheep trial judge Simon Leaning judged the event and fifteen triallers competed. Some of whom their dog, and even themselves, had never worked cattle before.