The unsung heroes of the muster. Intelligent, reliable, enduring and unrelentingly loyal, the canine companions of the drylands made the work of the alpine musterers viable.

The dogs did the legwork of rounding the cattle and sheep across many thousand miles of the New Zealand landscape, sometimes to the point of exhaustion. They were there alongside for months at a time, tackling the steep, rocky, scenery, whether parched or snow-ridden with a gusto that money could not pay most men to equal. It was therefore the mark of a good shepherd that he cared well for his dogs, and the relationship between a musterer and his dogs was nothing less than exceptional – a bond of  partnership, survival and great love.