STOCKMAN PROFILE - Tim Hall

Growing up in the small town of Fingal, located near the East Coast of Tasmania, at the young age of sixteen Tim Hall moved an hour and a half away to Launceston to gain employment. Tim underwent his butchers trade, partly due to accessibility but also due to him always enjoying cutting animals up in the back of the shed when he was a young boy. After receiving his trade qualification, Tim worked as a butcher for Coles supermarkets for ten years before him and his wife, Emma bought a butcher shop in Westbury, Tasmania.

Tim worked the butcher shop for five years and during this time his love for dogs and working on the land slowly came crawling back. When Tim moved to Westbury, where him and Emma purchased a little 5-acre block of land where he finally got himself a dog after not having one for the last ten years that he’d been living in Launceston.

Tim had always had a few pups he’d played around with when he was a boy, with his first one being a Smithfield, given to him by Irene Glover. Tim started trialling as a way to get a break from the butcher shop and his itch to work dogs and work on the land slowly kept creeping back. One dog quickly turned into two, which turned into three and eventually led to Tim having five dogs.

One day at a trial, Tim was talking to a good mate of his, Adrian Carpenter who manages Connorville Station, about how he would like to make a change from butchering and get back into working on the land with his dogs. About three days later, Tim received a call from Adrian and was offered a job. Tim has now been head stockman for just over 10 years. With just over 40,000 acres of land running 20,000 Merinos and Crossbreds, along with 2 000 Angus cattle, almost every day for Tim involves doing some sought of stock work with his dogs.

With every day at work involving the use of his dogs, Tim states that he “just simply couldn’t do his job without them”. A lot of his jobs throughout the day involve him on his own with his dogs. They need to be able to handle a wide variety of stock work that also involves large numbers of stock, ranging from handling cows and calves, to blind casting and mustering bush wethers.

Due to Tim’s range in stock work, when looking for a dog he looks for a positive one. One that always wants to come forward all the time, has a sound mind and is soft on their stock but can also work six weeks straight in the yards backing up and down the race.

Tim believes that with “half a chance, you can take a little bit out of a dog, but you have no chance of putting a little bit more in a dog.”. Tim wants a dog that’s working for him because the dog wants to as he does ask a lot of them throughout the day.

When it comes to training pups, Tim likes to familiarise them with humans from the get-go. No matter if the pups have just been born or he’s bought a pup at 8 weeks old, his two young kids, Charlie and Ruby will be playing with them instantly. He likes to spend at least 10 minutes a day with them, either on or off of stock in order to build a connection with them so that they have a desire to please him later on in life. Tim and Adrian also usually put Sunday afternoons aside to both work their young dogs and give each other pointers on what’s going good and what parts need some work.

With a limited pool of people trialling in Tasmania, Tim often goes across to Victoria and surrounds, where he competes in trials and stays with friends where they work and train dogs. Tim finds doing this helps him to stay competitive nation wide as he can determine where he is placed at in his training and find techniques and strategies to improve his dogs.

Some of Tim’s future ambitions includes winning an Australian Yard Dog Championship. He has now won three Tasmanian State Titles and he has come second at the Victorian State Titles. Tim’s hopes are that he is heading in the right direction but believes he still has a bit of learning and training to go. Tim’s biggest achievement is gaining three different dogs a title, with two dogs winning a Tasmanian State Title and another dog winning Tasmanian Handler of the Year in 2019.

Tim’s advice to young people or new people who are coming through, whether it be working on the land or trialling their dogs is to “never be afraid to ask questions, regardless of how silly you might think the question sounds in your head”.

When it comes to dog trialling, Tim loves how everyone can step onto the field and be a true competitor and strive to do their best and hopefully win but at the end of the day when they step off of that field everyone is mates with each other and will help each other out. Tim claims that some of his “best information he has received regarding training of dogs has been sitting around a campfire with a few beers and listening to dog stories – the social side is fantastic.”