One extreme to the other

David Veal’s sheepdogs are night and day — the three-legged Koki is a notorious lapdog while Alex doesn’t like people. The pair call David’s small Kialla farm home, although Koki often takes herself down the road to visit the Broken River Vineyard cellar door.

What breeds are they?

Koki is a purebred red kelpie and Alex is a border collie-crosskelpie. They are both about eight to 10 years old.

Where does the name Koki come from?

She came with the name. She was on a dairy farm and had a litter of pups. I went around looking to buy one of the pups and the owner said he was open to selling the mother, too. I thought ‘‘you beauty, I can skip all the training’’. I’d raised working dogs before, but she was a lovely dog. Why does she have three legs?

This happened after we got her, about five years ago now. She was down the back with my sons shifting cows and must have gotten kicked. She hobbled up to them with blood all over her face and they rushed her to the vets.

She ended up getting her jaw wired shut for six weeks. After six weeks her leg hadn’t regained sensation, so they amputated it.

The vet said sometimes dogs tear all their tendons apart from pushing off with the kicked leg right after the impact.

What are their personalities like?

Koki is very loving. If you sit down on a chair she’ll jump on your lap or next to you. She loves to go and visit the neighbours and it’s not uncommon to find her sitting out with the sheep, just being with them.

We had some lambs who weren’t doing well recently, so we brought them into the backyard to keep an eye on, and she spent hours out with them, licking them clean and everything. The mother instincts came back hard, definitely.

Alex is extremely loyal to myself and my eldest son. Anyone else she won’t have a bar of. If you’re around for a few hours she might warm up, but that’s about it.

(Alex did not emerge during the Country News visit.)

There is also a cockatoo near your shed.

Yes, Rocky the Cocky we call him, but he usually gets called Cocky. We’re his third owners. They say cockatoos can live to a hundred.

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