Murray Wilkinson has developed his own language of whistles to control his working dogs and it's been put on display at the Sydney Royal Easter Show.
Inspired by a working dog demonstration he watched at the show as a child, Mr Wilkinson was determined to learn the art of dog whistling.
"I came to the show with my nan and pop and pretty much followed the [working dog] show from show to show," he says.
Now Mr Wilkinson has his own performance at the event, which draws in crowds of up to 200 people at a time.
"I've been working some cattle out in the main arena and a few sheep as well," he says.
"It just gives a little insight as to what we do day to day on the farm.
Whistling wonder
Perhaps the most fascinating part of Mr Wilkinson's performance is his ability to control his dogs with whistles.
"[Other trainers] do use the whistles [but] people don't use all different ones probably like I do," he says.
Mr Wilkinson has different whistle combinations for different dogs, which direct them to sit, go left, go right, or run a ring.
He says it is a process to teach them the unique commands.
"We try and have all basic manners at a young age like sitting and waiting for me to go first through a gate or something," he says.
"And then we introduce them to stock and it's all just word association.
"So when they're doing an action, we'll put a word to it and we'll just continually do that over and over and over until it becomes second nature.
Working dog perks
Mr Wilkinson has brought along 11 dogs to the show but has 21 dogs in total, 20 of those are border collies and just one is a kelpie.
He uses them to help muster livestock on his 34,000-hectare property at Ellerston, east of Scone in New South Wales.
Mr Wilkinson takes out up to six dogs at a time on the property, to help muster stock.
"They make things so much easier because they can get into spots where we can't … and we can guide stock around and they just keep them calm," he says.
"We need to be able to control them all using different commands."
Mr Wilkinson breeds his dogs mainly for his own use, but occasionally will sell them too.
"I sold one actually the [other] day for $15,000 and he's a pretty handy dog," he says.
"Some of these dogs that I use in the demo I'd probably want anywhere from $20,000 to $30,000 for them.
