When it comes to endurance in the paddock and willingness to work for little more than a good feed, John Pointon and Prue Howard know you cannot go past a working dog.
But they will not settle for any breed: for them, the border collie reigns supreme.
"The working dog can do the job of several men," Ms Howard said.
"Pull the kennel door open at three o'clock in the morning and they're not wiping the sleep out of their eyes, they're leaping with enthusiasm.
"They happily work all day."
The couple are not the only ones with a soft spot for the breed, with a border collie working dog recently selling in central Queensland for $33,000 – a national record for the breed.
The breed is also set to star in the next season of ABC TV series Muster Dogs, with filming already underway for the show that is set to air next year.
Even without this 15 minutes of fame, the dogs are the most popular in Queensland competition trials already.
That is according to Tom Berrie, president of the Queensland Working Cattle Dog Trial Association, who said 85 per cent of dogs competing were border collies.
So, what makes these dogs so special?
Strong, silent type
While kelpies may spring to mind when you think of working dogs, collies are natural herders who can "cop a lot of work through the day".
"I think the quality of the handlers and the trainers has improved," Mr Berrie said.
"It's made a big difference to the handling of dogs and the breeding of the dogs."
Mr Pointon has been breeding and training collies for "45 to 50 years", but said it never got easier saying goodbye to his dogs — including two-year-old Rambo, who recently sold for $20,000 at a central Queensland working dog sale.
He said while he could see the value in kelpies, border collies were more suitable for the couple's style of work.
"The slower you can go, the better the result," Mr Pointon said of moving livestock in trials or in the paddock.
Which is where the collie's stealthy, quiet and methodical working method comes in handy.
"These dogs suit us because they're silent workers," he said.
Ms Howard said, "There are other types of cattle dogs that will try and drive – so it depends on how a grazier operates as to what type of dog they want."
Muster Dogs stars
Muster Dogs director Monica O'Brien chose the breed for season two of the show to highlight the subtle contrasts to kelpies, which featured in season one.
The show will again follow a new litter of pups, who have a year to become trained working dogs.
"What we've started to discover is kelpies' natural herding instincts come on faster than collies," Ms O'Brien said.
"We're also seeing that kelpies like to be asked their opinion on how to best muster the herd and collies like to be told.
"But [collies] can be more precisely tuned into exactly what the handler wants."
She said the milestones expected of the new pups would be the same, just tested a month later to align with slightly slower maturity.
Training for success
Although collies are often used in rural Queensland with cattle, they cannot head into the yards as pups.
Instead, they train with sheep where getting "run over" does not cause as much damage.
Ms Howard said each litter would vary with how early dogs were ready to start working – some were eager from about 10 weeks, while others might be four or five months before getting started.
Training starts with an introduction to the sheep – the place where Ms Howard and Mr Pointon are looking for that instinct to shine.
"They might be in there for 30 seconds to a minute at the most," Ms Howard explained.
"As soon as they show us something, we pick them up, cuddle them."
This continues until they are ready to start training.
"As we start to train them, we just start to encourage them instead of just running around the sheep, to be going in a particular direction," she said.
Mr Pointon said as the dogs aged, good nutrition and care were important.
"The maintenance in a dog is like the maintenance in a car — if you don't look after them, they will fall apart on you," he said.
