A mob of roos had just split up a herd of cattle as I spoke with Yass farmer Ben Coster about his bid for Australia’s best working dog in this week’s 2024 Cobber Challenge.

Rip, his four-year-old kelpie, has his work cut out for him not just with errant kangaroos but also 1,000 sheep, 8,000 cross-bred cows and 1,000 Angus cows.

Unlike the sheepdog trials held at Hall each year, this challenge is held on each dog’s home turf, and they wear GPS trackers to record distance, speed and duration, each working day for two weeks. The dog with the most points wins top dog, $1,000, a trophy – and the glory.

Rip was the only pup to survive out of his litter so he’s tough. He’s also a TikTok sensation.

“Rip’s very loyal,” Ben said. “If my wife tries to call him to try and put him in the cage while I’m around, he won’t even look at her. As soon as I say something, he’s like, ‘Yep right let’s go.’ When you train them from a little pup and you spend a lot of time with them, they get bonded with you and they sort of stick with you.”

Ben has six working dogs on his four properties that total 15,000 acres but Rip is his main working dog.

“He just loves work,” Ben said. “He’s actually got a bit of a funny thing when the Elders agents come out to weigh the lambs. When they put their hand down to grab a sheep, Rip’s got a bit of an inkling to bite your hand if you shove it in the road because he’s like, ‘Get out of the road this is mine’. He’s pretty full on. When he knows the job’s on, he’s there ready to go.”

Despite the competition being sponsored by dog food company Cobber, there’s no treat or reward for Rip – just a pat.

“Working dogs don’t really get rewards. I guess their reward at the end of the day is a pat every now and again,” Ben said. “It’s more the bond, when you give him a pat at the end of the day you can just see the relief, all that hard work done and you get a pat and you get a feed, he gets his Cobber and he’s good, then he knows that he’s done his job.”

If you’ve watched the ABC TV series Muster Dogs, you would have heard of the “blue-tooth” connection between a farmer and his working dog. It’s an invisible, intuitive bond. Ben uses both vocal commands and whistles to communicate with Rip.

“If they’re right near me I’ll just talk to them, if they’re a fair way away and they’re not going to hear my voice I’ll whistle,” Ben said. “He knows about twelves commands; you’ve got your left and your right and your back and your behind. You might have a couple of different whistles for a stop and a different whistle to hop up on the ute or hop up on the backs of the sheep.”

In the 2024 Cobber Challenge, Rip’s up against eight of the nation’s best, hand-picked A-class kelpies, which have a combined four decades of on-farm experience.

Ben’s quietly confident that Rip – a “tough bugger” – has what it takes.

“I think he’ll go all right,” Ben said. “We’ve done a few big days, he’s just got that natural drive and that natural ability to just keep going. The last two weeks I’ve done a heap of land-marking, so we’ve done a lot of miles. We were getting mobs from out the back and walking mobs into the yard for 8km. We’ve got 10 different mobs; they soon rack the miles.”

If you’d like to follow Ben and Rip on social media (their posts often go viral) look up Wandabar Stockdogs on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.