Issue 18, March 2022 | Article by Australian Working Stock Dog Magazine | Photos Provided by Aoidh Doyle
Originally from Wexford, Ireland, Aoidh Doyle has been living and working in rural Australia for the last 11 years. After finishing school, he planned a trip to Australia for a four-week summer holiday, fell in love with a young lady, the land, and started creating a new home much to his parents' dismay. Aoidh had intended to attend university to study teaching when he returned home, but his plans changed rapidly. After deciding to stay in Australia, he initially found himself a job as a roustabout for a few years before spending part of the 2012 season in the Northern Territory working for Consolidated Pastoral Company. At the end of 2012, Aoidh returned home to his base in New South Wales for the shearing season to earn some money.
Spending 6 years shearing, Aoidh loved the travel that the industry provided for him. Based mostly in the Wagga Wagga and Albury area, he spent a lot of time around the state border where a friend managed to get him a stand at Fox Pastoral near Bonnie Doon, Victoria. Whilst there, Aoidh found himself quite smitten with not only the land around him but also a barista at the local coffee shop, Darcy, who later became his partner and the mother of his two children AJ and Heidi.
During the colder months, when there was not much shearing work available, Aoidh would work for Fox Pastoral fixing fences and doing other jobs around the property. When his partner, Darcy fell pregnant, the owner offered him a farmhand role on the property which allowed for his growing family to settle down. After working on the property for four years, Aoidh became the manager running 1,400 Angus Cattle and 25,000 sheep over 12,000 acres.
When first starting out on the property, Aoidh was without a dog. Darcy talked her father into giving Aoidh a start with his first dog, Cash. Having a special bond from the start, Cash has made his life at work ten times easier and was the dog that gave Aoidh his passion for trialling. Aoidh had played with dogs whilst in Ireland when he had worked with a shearing contractor in the school holidays. In his time there, he remembers they used trailers rather than yards or shearing sheds and that he would pen up the trailer with his boss' border collies (there are few kelpies in Ireland).
These days, Aoidh has a full team of kelpies, taking 10 dogs ranging from 8 months to 4 years with him every day. Having worked under Tim Cavill at Fox Pastoral, he and his father Rod were very influential in the early stages of Aoidh’s training with working dogs. They still spend time training and throwing ideas back and forth between each other. Tim pushed Aoidh to get into trialling and was with him at his first couple of events.
Aoidh has been competing in trials for three years now and has had some great success. However, it wasn’t all smooth sailing in the beginning and he jokes about being disqualified at his first trial. This didn’t phase him though, it just made him want to push on and to try harder. After asking Aoidh about his preferred type of trialling, he couldn’t answer, saying he loves them all. This has led to him and his good friend Campbell Smedley organising the Inaugural Cobber Supreme Stock Dog Challenge to be held at Manfield Showground over the 12 – 13th March 2022. Not taking holidays often, Aoidh, Darcy and their kids packed up for four weeks to travel to the 2021 NSW State Utility at Eugowra, the National Kelpie Field Trial in Queensland, the Australian Yard and Cattle Dog Championships at Armidale and then the NSW State Yard Dog Championships at Wagga Wagga. Over the four weeks, Aoidh had great success with Wisper Snip and Wisper Elvis – both Snip and Elvis are from the first litter that Aoidh bred. Wisper Snip finished up third in the Novice at the NKFT, won the Featured Maiden Cattle Dog and placed third in the Novice at Armidale. Wisper Elvis also placed second in the Australian Novice yard. Aoidh was one of the Victorian competitors taking part in the Cattle State of Origin whilst at Armidale and laughed about how they, “had the Queensland and New South Wales teams pretty nervous there at one stage”. Darcy also got to run her dog Snip in the Encourage at Wagga Wagga, winning second place.
Although having a pretty competitive nature, trialling for Aoidh is about having a great time with mates, meeting new people and of course, talking about dogs. He really enjoys travelling up to the New South Wales trials saying, “you never know who is going to win on the day as there are so many competitors and the standard of competition is so good”. Aoidh’s advice to someone starting out is, “to just give it a go! If your first trial doesn’t go to plan, you’ve just got to turn up next time and try that bit harder”.
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Since this article in March 2022, Aoidh and his dogs have achieved remarkable success:
- Multiple wins and placements in open cattle, yard, and utility trials
- Winner of the Cobber Supreme Stock Dog Challenge, including first in the cattle section and top-scoring bitch at the Supreme Stock Dog event
- Two-time champion of the Australian Yard Dog Championship
- Winner of the National Kelpie Field Trial
- Victorian State Utility Championships
- Victorian representative
- Second Place at the 2024 Ultimate Stock Dog
Notably, Aoidh and his homebred dog, Whisper Snip, made history as the first handler and dog combination to win both the National Kelpie Field Trial and the Australian Yard Dog Championships in the same year.
