KANGAROO DOGS.

Evening Star, Issue 14512, 2 November 1910, Page 4

KANGAROO DOGS.

Copyright.—AD Rights Reserved.]

[By Robert Kaleski.] No. 6. In the early days of Australia, when game was cheap and flour dear, it was a common saying amongst the hospitable bushmen to their guests: “ Pitch into the kangaroo, boys, and spare tho damper.” Powder and shot were also very dear then; so, if it hadn’t been for their kangaroo dogs, the bushmen and their friends would have had mighty little kangaroo to oitch into.

So, nest to bullocks, stringybark, and jreanhide, tho kangaroo dog has helped to settle the country. First, by providing the settler with free meat; second, by killing off the dingoes, and so preserving his sheep and cattle. This last is all they are used for nowadays, and skin-getting, as meat is cheap, kangaroos and dingoes fairly scarce. —Kangaroo Hunting.— Coursing the survivors is the best sport in tho bush. You ride about on the edges of tho broken country where the game loves to camp; the dogs range a few yards ahead, their eyes quick as lightning to see the hidden game. They pause every now and again to leap on a log or stone, to see it any prey is getting up far ahead of them. All in a minute they are off; your horse (and you, if a good rider) after them. Smash, bang, crash! away you go, dodging the rocks and big timber, smashing through tho scrub, heedless of clothes or scratches. Up ridge, face to mane; down gorge on sliding haunches, a whirl of stones and dust following tho skidding hoofs; quick bursts on the level, then gorge and gully again, till tho quarry tires and bails up. If a dingo, that noble animal is soon settled ; as ho backs against a log, to snap viciously, the nearest dog leaps on him, downs him by sheer weight, and before the dingo can find time for a second snap his throat is torn out. Far different with the kangaroo; his methods, like those of all great minds, are simple but sure. When attacked, ho sits up with his back against a big tree, so that he can’t bo grabbed from behind. If the dog incautiously leaps for his throat, tho kangaroo catches him in a friendly embrace with its fore-paws; then, balancing gracefully on his tail and one leg, ho lifts the other, with its cruel spiked toe, and with one kick disembowels tho dog from throat to belly. —Tho Dogs and Their Quarry.— This only lakes about three seconds; before the other dog can grab him by the throat he has fixed it up likewise. Now, unless killed, he will retiro to other fields, and leave his dead behind him. To ride up to him to brain him with the stirrup iron most likely means being dragged off the horse and gutted like the dogs; the best thing to settle tho matter is a revolver bullet. If the dogs know their work, though, they won’t run in to be ripped ; ono feints at him in front, just out of distance, while the other tries to grab his tail and so upset him. When the old man finds the dogs are no amateurs, he leaps clear of them by a couple of tremendous bounds, then off to the nearest water. Into this he plunges headlong, swimming or wading till on a firm bottom with about three feet of water. _ As tho dogs come swimming towards him, he deftly seizes tho first and carefully drowns it; that is, if its mate hasn’t, the sense to swim behind him and pull him over by tho back of the neck, so that the other gets loose, and they kill the old man between them. —The Breed of Kangaroo Dogs.— Lots of lies have been told as to where the breed came from. Some say they were a blend of Scotch collie and greyhound ; others greyhound, collie, and mastiff; and so on. The truth is they were made by crossing the deer (not stag) hound and greyhound. The first dogs were very big, bony devils, with a light coat of shaggy hair"; game as bulldogs and fierce as tiger cats. They ran by scent and sight both; some, but not many, of the present dogs do tho same. One of them was a match for any kangaroo or dingo that ever walked. The colors were commonly whitey fawn, brindle, iron-grey, and black. Nowadays they are nearly all yellow or brindle, with an odd black one for luck. After about fifteen years the breed began to get lighter in coat through climato; continued doing 60, till now they are as smooth and shapely as greyhounds, though just as big as ever. In the country where their game lives, the dogs must he kept the same size, so as to be able to handle it. Out on the plains and in the more settled districts the game is smaller and slower, mostly hares, rabbits, and small wallabies; so they are crossed back to the greyhound to suit. This, of course, means a smaller and slower deg, though for bush coursing he can still beat the head off the pure greyhound. His feet will stand, for one tiling, where the greyhound goes lame m half an hour; also his kangaroo breeding makes him able to race at full speed i through rocks and timber where the greyhound would stake himself in five minutes. In manners, too, he is much better than the greyhound, being fairly affectionate and honest, and able to fight on occasion, the greyhound lacking those qualities. In picking-up and turning bis game ho is. also better than that animal. The only wallaby which can puzzlo him is one found on the western plains; the nigjor's name. “ wirroo,’ still sticks to it. It is a small black one; when running, it holds one paw dangling as if disabled. Being very swift, only the fastest dogs can get close to it; when they do, it dabs that paw on the ground and swings on it like a lightning pivot. By the time the dog has tamed, it has gained fifty yards on him. The pure kangaroo dog despises this sort of thing. Give him something big and savage to handle, and he is happy. Small game doesn’t interest him, except when it takes to coming round the house; then he creeps on it and grabs it. ■ —Training the Pups.— Kangaroo dogs pups are very much alike. It is hard to pick one-hotter than ■‘ho other. Till they are about six months old they are all legs and head; after that their shape, speed, and courage begin_ to show. By taking them out after wallabies, you can soon tell how they will shape ; not after kangaroos and dingoes, because these will cripple or kill them. When good on wallabies, take one in turn out with the old dogs. Before starting, put a broad, thick leather collar round his neck; this hampers him a lot, but stops him getting ripped if he rims in; the kangaroo’s too will glance off tho leather. When he sees the old dogs searching in the nsual way he soon learns to imitate them. After the run, when the game has bailed up, mostly he is too late to help in the kill; but if extra fast, and he gets to the game first, his leather collar will save him. One fault he will often have, that of worrying the dead enemy; he must be broken of this by a friendly kick or two, as it ruins the skin. Once fairly entered on big game, take only one old dog with him*so that he has to do his fair share of the work. Keep him six months at this, then he is fit to ran and work anywhere —that is at running game. To use him skin-getting for the market is different, because you work him in a different way. Where tho game is thick the country is far too rough and scrubby to ride in; therefore, you go on foot with your two dogs and repeating rifle. Creeping about the scrub, with the dogs at your heels, you will see little mobs of kangaroos or wallaroos feeding in the open patches speckled through scrub. If you put tho dogs at them, they would only get one or two, so you don’t. Instead, you sneak up as close as you can, then let go the repeater at them. —Hunting for Skins.— Perhaps you drop six before the mob is out of shot; four of these will be only flash-wounded, and can run as long as the wound is warm. So they make for the

scrub, to die out of your reach This is where tho dogs come in. The second you stop firing they are away after the wounded, killing the rear ones first, then into the scrub-edge after the others. These may struggle three or lour hundred yards in before being caught. Then the dogs come back to you. if the young one hasn’t been broken to kill and show, he won’t take you to where his game lies. You call your old dog, take him to where the young one came out, and tell him to “show.” He will ran the young dog’s scent into the game, with him following. Alter you skin that one' get out of tho scrub again and tell the old dog to “ show ” again, which, of course, he does. Tho young dog soon learns from this to show his kill; if he didn’t he would be no use to you. Another thing he’s got to learn is to grab his game in the right place—in two ways. The first is by the throat, so as. not to damage the skin; the second in smooth ground, so as not U get smashed by rocks. I lost the best young dog I over had that way a few years ago in Burragorang Valley. He and the old dog were miming a big wallaroo; instead of waiting till it got on the clear ground below, the idiot grabbed it by the tail amongst the rocks. Like all his breed, he wouldn’t let go. Of course, the ’roo overbalanced with his weight, and swung him off his feet into the air. His back hit a boulder, and snapped like a match. —Points of tho Breed. — Kangaroo dogs arc jong-livcd, as a rule, in spice of the work anti fighting they have to do, eight years being about the average. There are only three things that interfere with their health—baits, bullets, and loss of tusk-teeth. .Mostly, the fust two are not their own fault. They get those through their owner’s carelessness, forgetting to feed them. Big dogs like them want a lot of food; if it isn’t fed to them, they have ro get it somehow, so become pirates. This nearly always happens when their owner lives near a town, so they can’t catch feed themselves. Being wonderful jumpers, they can leap into any yard or through open windowp. When anything is hung Tip out of an ordinary dog’s reach, such as meat on a gallows, they will jump up, get a grip with their jaws, and hang there till their weight tears the piece out. They repeat this operation till satisfied, then jog home contentedly before daylight. They never steal from their owners, always from neighbors, and only as a last resort take to sheep-killing. For all this, they are just the opposite of the greyhound —a thief born. Still, this doesn’t save them from being shot or poisoned ' when caught. With their tusk-teeth out it ‘ is different. If they lose ono or two of ; these (as all dogs are liable to do at times), they can’t kill their game when they catch It, so cither get killed by it or shot as useless, unless valuable for breeding. The price of a kangaroo dog is anything 1 from £1 up to £2O, according to his sense I ’ and reputation. No money will buy aj ‘ really wise ono from a shooter, because ho j 1 couldn’t do without him. Besides, after i 1 the cattle dog, he is tho most useful dog i in tho bush; a grand mate, the best game * dog, a groat fighter and watch. Lots of I {own people take a fancy to them, and buy 1 1 them to keep in the suburbs ; but they i ! aren’t suited for town life, needing too I much exercise. 1 A man used to keeping kangaroo dogs I gels that way—like a drover with cattle i ’ clogs—that he can’t do without them. No i wonder if they are all like a brindle shit ! ; I had once. I was skin-getting at tho j ' time; never used to buy cartridges. Just j tell her I was out of them, and she would j slip away into town to the store, and come ( ] back with a box of them in her mouth. ] She got shot at last, trying to bring the \ j till out. because she heard mo say I was short of cash. i (To be continued.) 1 1 [No. I. of there articles on dogs ap- j poured in our issue of September 29, No. j 11. on October 3, No. 111. on October 15, No. IV. on October 20, and No. V. on October 29.] , ========== j 1