Mick Hudson M
ick Hudson has been around working dogs his whole life, one of seven children, born and raised on a 100,000 acre station between Cobar and Wilcannia, western NSW. Growing up, Mick spent a lot of time with his father mustering, marking lambs, draughting, crutching etc. and in this period he decided he would like to have his own dogs to be able to do the jobs his father was doing with his working dogs. Just prior to leaving school Mick’s father, Pip Hudson, bred a litter of pups out of a very good bitch called Windeyer Pippy, who he had joined to Morillo Nick Webb. Within this litter there was one red and white Border Collie female which Mick begged his father to give to him. Mick can remember at the time his father saying, “I will give her to you but I don’t know how we got a red and white pup,” as he had not bred that colouring of the Border Collie before. Long story short, Mick trained the bitch, that he named Hudsons Yhana, with the help of his father and went to a few trials with his Dad. By the time he was 18 he had placed second in the Supreme Australian Championships with her.
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Article and Photos provided by Carolyn Hudson
After going shearing, Mick realised that he couldn’t be doing dog trialling as the competitions did not fit in with his work commitments, so he set on his way to make enough money for a deposit on a farm. That was his dream, to work dogs and livestock on his own property one day. Mick then bred pups out of Yhana, trained them and on weekends and weeks off would muster feral goats on a share basis for farmers that he was shearing for, as they did not have their dogs educated to the same standard as his. This goat income, along with his shearing income, allowed him to finally purchase his first property. Often the goats were very wild as they had been chased with poor dogs and stockmen, who had allowed them to get away, making them more cunning for next time. Mick had to teach himself to be smarter than the goats and realised that timing, balance and distance were the three most crucial elements of yarding the feral goats. Another crucial element was the natural ability of the dogs he had and set about breeding dogs that were trainable, to him that meant they had to take commands easily and move and do exactly as they were told without
