About our Dingoes
DAJACKIE PURE DINGOES
Captive Breeding Programe
BREEDING PURE AUSTRALIAN DINGOES TO SAVE THEM  
FROM EXTINCTION
My association with the Australian  
Dingo, goes back over 50 years, when
as a ten year old on a holiday in
Outback NSW, I met a marvelous old
Aboriginal Dingo Trapper called
Joshua Bolt.  At first I was rather
intimidated by the old man - he was
a tall man with huge hands, a bushy beard and snow white hair.  He
had black eyes that seemed to look straight through me, but spoke
in a quiet and gentle tone.  Employed on a huge property as a Stock
man and trapper, he had tracked and shot dingoes that were known
to have consistently killed or badly injured livestock.  Strangely he
did not believe in the iron traps used my most trappers, and as I
became less intimidated by him, and grew very fond of him, I learnt
that the Property  Owners were not at all like most landholders,
who believed that "the only good Dingo was a dead Dingo".  

They were devout Christians and believed that everything alive had
it's place in God's Creation.  I knew them as Auntie Neddie and
Uncle Ted.  Auntie Neddie was the sister of my Mum's best friend
and that is how we came to know Auntie Neddie and Uncle Ted.  
They were lovely people and we were always welcomed to spend
time with them - which I did several times over the years.  

The Aboriginal people on the property were treated in the same
way as we were, they ate at the same table as we did and were
treated as equals, socially and in all aspects of property work.  That
had earned Auntie Neddie and Uncle Ted the love and respect of
the Aboriginal people in the district, and they were repaid with a
devotion and loyalty that I had never seen anywhere, and have
never seen since.  

There was no problem with drink, or with mistreatment, and they
were encouraged to follow the traditions they had followed for
centuries.  Unlike most Christian people of the time who thought of
the Aboriginal people as Heathens that needed "saving", Auntie
Neddie and Uncle Ted did not believe it was right to try and change
these proud people into something they were not.  Really, Auntie
Neddie and Uncle Ted were before their time, having such a
wonderful attitude towards the Aboriginal people, and believing
that it was important not to destroy the natural environment, or the
native wildlife. They were living proof, that it was possible and
profitable to run livestock, at reasonable stocking numbers, whilst
co-existing with the natural environment and animals.

The Dingo was synonymous with the Aboriginal people, of the area,
but unlike some areas, the camp Dingoes on the property were
healthy and well fed.

Joshua Bolt, was a champion of his people,  and a respected  Elder
of his tribe, and of all the Wildlife on the property, including the
Dingo.  Joshua was about 75 years old when I first met him and had
been born on the property.

For some reason Joshua took me under his wing and taught me so
much about the wildlife of Australia.  It was all so unique to me
having come from the United Kingdom when I was only 7 years old,
and I was fascinated by the Wildlife which was like nothing I had
ever seen.

Of all the wildlife that Joshua showed me, none fascinated me like
the Australian Dingo.  Yes there were more unusual creatures,
fascinating in there own way and unique in all creation, but the thing
that took my attention with the Dingoes was the ordered way in
which they lived, the way a male and female became partners for
life, the way they existed as a family group, and the way they
regulated the numbers of puppies born each year. The other
important fact was that the Dingo was top order predator, so there
were no feral animals (cats foxes, and rabbits) and neither did the
Kangaroo population get out of hand.

Had the Dingo been left pure without the interference of domestic
dogs we would never have had a "wild dog" problem.  But with
settlement and travel came domestic dogs of all shapes and sizes,  
Worst were the hunting dogs, bred to maim and kill.  These dogs
often "went bush" to breed with the purebred Dingo producing a
hybrid dog that had the instinct to kill anything, and the cunning to
track its prey anywhere.

That is how the purebred Dingo so unjustly got such a bad name -
not because the pure Dingo was an indiscriminate killer, but because
the crossbred/hybrid was just that, a killer of anything on four
legs, native or domestic.

Today the purebred Dingo has been all but wiped out, by hunting,
and baiting, but mostly because domestic dogs have continued
crossbreeding with these wonderful animals.