Australian Cattle Dogs

A Dog Called Blue and A Dog for the Job - the Books

A Dog for the Job draws on its predecessor, A Dog Called Blue, but only for the period after c1870. The first Cattle Dog historian, Robert Kaleski, insisted that the grazier, Thomas Hall, imported working dogs from England and crossed them with the Australian dingo. The result of the cross was the Halls Heeler. A Dog for the Job shows this to be incorrect. Bert Howard later proposed the Northumberland Blue Merle Drovers Dog to be Hall's import but this dog never existed in fact.

The ancestors of the Halls Heeler came to Australia with the convicts and their minders - with the First Fleet in 1788 and later convoys. An intentional dingo cross is unlikely although coincidental dingo crosses may have occurred.