Injury and illness won't stop a young station hand and his loyal dog from competing in one of the toughest endurance challenges in Australia.
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Daniel Pumpa and his dog Turbo have been selected to compete in the 2019 Cobber Challenge, which aims to celebrate working dogs.
Twelve dogs from various states have been selected and each will be given a GPS collar that tracks their distance, working duration and speed.
Points will be recorded and the dogs ranked and by the end of the challenge a new Cobber Champion will be crowned.
The competition starts August 12 and will run over three weeks.
Just over a year ago, Turbo, who is a three-and-a-half-year-old Kelpie, broke his back while working in sheep yards.
"The trooper kept working. I didn't realise he had done any damage... at the end of the day I saw he had a lump on his back... so I thought I'd better get him to the hospital," Dan explained.
"He picked up a bacteria a week after which nearly killed him. He spent five days on a drip."
Dan said he was asked to consider to have Turbo put down.
"I said no... he's my best mate," he said.
Dan's interest in the challenge was spiked when he saw it last year so decided to apply for the 2019 competition.
Dan decided to enter with Turbo, as he is his "best, young dog coming through."
"He's just got it all for me and he's my favourite one," Dan explained.
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Dan is a station hand at Roseville Park Merino and Poll Merino stud in Wambangalang, NSW, where there are 6500 sheep run over 8000 acres.
Turbo does a lot of work on the stud and Dan hopes that will help them in the upcoming challenge, which they have been preparing for over the past month.
In a busy week, Dan thinks Turbo could come close to running 200 kilometres.
"I'd like think we'll go pretty good... he does a lot of kilometres," he said.
When Dan found out he and Turbo were successful with their application, he said it was a good feeling.
The station hand loves working with, trialling and training dogs.
Dan has 16 dogs, including pups, but plans to sell some under his stud name Collite Kelpies.
His passion for working dogs began as a teenager, when his brother-in-law gave him a dog.
A few years later he purchased a dog from Gary White of White's Kelpie Stud, which marked the beginning of Turbo's lineage.
Taylor Jurd
Hi, my name is Taylor Jurd. I am a journalist with Australian Community Media, I write for the Western Magazine and Wellington Times.
Hi, my name is Taylor Jurd. I am a journalist with Australian Community Media, I write for the Western Magazine and Wellington Times.
