Researcher builds picture of farms' hardest worker

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University researcher Amy Jeram says she wants to build up a picture of some of the hardest workers on the nation's farms – the working dogs.

"The farm dog is New Zealand agriculture's hardest worker," said Ms Jerram, whose parents farm at Ongaonga, in Central Hawke's Bay. "They work really hard, spending all day trying to please you."

There had not been epidemiological studies on the health of farm dogs, though there were many studies undertaken throughout the world on pets and commercial livestock.

The amount of work farm dogs did varied, she said.

"It totally depends on where the dog is – on a station they might be covering huge kilometres every day, in other instances they may be covering only a small distance.

"People may only use them at certain times of the day or for certain reasons – it may be there's a huge variety too in the number of dogs used."

Associate Professor Mark Stevenson, who is supervising Ms Jerram's research, said a good dog did the work of several men on quad bikes, in terms of being able to get to the stock quickly and effectively and move them".

Where farmers had high-performing farm dogs, the research would look at how long they lasted and whether they were retired due to old age or injury,

If arthritic conditions were a problem, it might be possible to provide owners with some early intervention strategies such as a reduction in the intensity and length of work periods, and providing a few home comforts for the dogs.

Ms Jerram has health science degree from Auckland University, and is now doing postgraduate study at Massey's veterinary faculty.

She will collect information will be collected from more than 100 farms in Manawatu, Wanganui, Hawke's Bay and Wairarapa on farmers' experiences with working dogs, the health of dogs now on the farm and dogs retired from the farm in the previous 12 months.

One farmer she talked to had 40 dogs.