In the early 1980s, renowned Coleraine kelpie breeder Tim Austin was asked if he'd help Victoria's Royal Agricultural Society celebrate its 150th anniversary.

This was no speech or small-scale demonstration - instead organisers wanted to know if he and dogs from his celebrated Elfinvale stud would shepherd 1000 sheep down Swanston Street in Melbourne.

They were after something high-impact and that's just what eventuated, particularly when the flock swelled to 1500.

"It meant I had to accept all the risks and all the blame if anything went wrong, but if it went right I got a great deal of kudos and PR out of it," Mr Austin said.

Extensive negotiations took place before the big day arrived in 1985, with Mr Austin's wife Judy and son Tom positioned at a set of yards near the Shrine of Remembrance to guide the seven semi-trailer loads of wethers in.

A relatively smooth start went awry when a keen photographer tried to snap part of the flock, prompting a 500-strong breakaway to head towards a partially finished underground train station.

It was one of Mr Austin's prized kelpies, Ben, which saved the day and proved just how valuable working dogs can be.

"He got around them and stopped them from going down the tunnel they were building and brought them all back," he said.

"As he was working these 500 back to join the tail end that was just going past there was an enormous round of applause for Ben. Ben has a great big smile on him and boy, I was glad to see him come back."

The story is one of thousands from Mr Austin's 52-year career, which began after two stints as a jackaroo and led to him breeding some 8000 dogs.

His efforts as promoter and marketer of the kelpie saw pups' value skyrocket from as low as $15 to up to $1000, and inspired sales of the dogs to 23 nations worldwide.

Mr Austin started work at Barrama, a property near Harrow, as a 20-year-old with two boxing titles and the mistaken belief that all dogs of sheepdog origin could be successfully trained.

He was given a timid female that would run home at the sound of a raised voice and had little interest in sheep.

"I didn't realise how much genetics were involved in the mentality of the dog," he said.

"I studied genetics and dog psychology up pretty hard while I was at (New South Wales merino stud) Wanganella, and then I bought my first kelpie there from the overseer George Foote."

The tough, hot country around Deniliquin demanded a resilient and clever kelpie, and Hiawatha True Lassie proved to be a solid start to the Elfinvale stud Mr Austin established in 1956.

He returned to Coleraine a year later with the intention of expanding his breeding work, the extra income leading sheep numbers on the property to steadily rise from 1400 to a peak of 45,000.

"What a lot of farmers want to do is always to show control over the dog and make it sit and keep behind them, and if you're always doing that you are negating the positive attitude of the dog to try and do its primeval action of casting," Mr Austin said.

"Fidelity, if you breed for it, becomes an arming device, although the dog may be hot and thirsty and (have) sore feet it will keep working because it's got this fidelity.

"The aim of Elfinvale was to breed general-purpose pure kelpies that will work satisfactorily in the paddock, yards or shed . . . as you increase the purity, so you tend to increase the predictability of what you're purchasing."

Mr Austin's experiences are detailed in a new book 'The Kelpie' by Queenslander Tony Parsons, who established the Karrawarra kelpie stud in 1950.

At 700 pages, it's a guide to all aspects of the dog, from its Scottish origins and common traits to health advice for those with a working kelpie on their property.

The author said he was inspired to write a fourth book on the breed after learning readers were paying hundreds of dollars for out-of-print copies of his previous three efforts.

"Some people say it's the best dog book ever published in Australia, but it's certainly the best kelpie book," he said.

"It's stunned a lot of people. They never expected to see a book of this size."

The 79-year-old, who was awarded an Order of Australia Medal in 1992 for his contribution to kelpie propagation, said there was a new generation of breeders emerging.

"There's quite a lot of young fellows coming through and there's a few young women too. There's a lot of interest in the kelpie, more than there's ever been," he said.

"In the old days things were different: people couldn't afford to have many dogs, couldn't afford to feed them, couldn't afford to go to trials.

"(Back then) the owners of the places and even the managers didn't work the dogs because they had men to do it, but now with the cost of labour a lot of owners of places are having to work them and they need a dog."

Mr Austin retired from kelpie breeding about two-and-a-half years ago and today lives with Judy in Port Fairy. The couple's sons John and Tom have continued the Elfinvale stud tradition, while daughter Jane works as an assistant to Melbourne business executives.

The avid writer was criticised during the height of his career for embracing publicity and promoting his work at home and overseas, but maintains he simply did what was right for his family and farm.

"If that was the prime thing that was making the money I had to get on with it," he said. "What you learn from the dogs is an enormous level of forgiveness (and) an enormous level of trust, complete trust if you treat them correctly."

Mr Austin said a 1983 trip to Lapland in northern Europe remained one of the most memorable journeys he made as a breeder.

"We Australians get pretty attached to our dogs, but these (people), they run and run about 30 to 40 miles a day behind their reindeer," he said.

"If they could get a dog that'd do it for them, they loved the dog."

A blue kelpie from Elfinvale was sent to the Nordic region, and was regularly cast out some 13 kilometres to collect wayward reindeer on distant ridges.

"When that dog died they had two funerals, one in a little village and in the other one they cremated the dog and scattered its ashes over the hills," Mr Austin said.

"It's nice to know that in other countries they also grow to love their kelpies."

aweaver@standard.fairfax.com.au