Dog trials: Matt Clark sticks with Syd through thick and thin

Matt Clark and Syd during the 2021 South Island New Zealand Sheep and Dog Trial championships last month. Photo / Peter McIntosh

Northern Southland sheep dog Syd has been in the wars.

The black-and-tan huntaway has had a leg rebuilt and an eye removed.

His owner, Glenaray Station deer manager Matt Clark, of Piano Flat, ran three huntaways, including Syd, at the South Island and New Zealand Sheep Dog Trial Championships at Greenvale, near Waikaka last month.

Clark, a Waikaia Dog Trial Club member, bred and trained Syd.

The pup was born in 2015 and quickly learnt the skills required to be a sheep dog.
"It didn't take him long and then I accidentally ran him over."

In 2016, Syd was working on the station when he was run over by a dip trailer, ending his season.

Syd returned to work the next season, but it ended after he shattered a leg in a stand of willow trees when running to shift lambs.

"It went snap - it sounded like a branch but it was his leg."

Pins and a plate were used to reconstruct Syd's front leg and he wore a cast for about three months.

Syd completed his first full season in 2019, qualifying for the South Island Sheep Dog Trial Championships in Hanmer Springs the same year - the pair finishing seventh in the zigzag hunt.

Syd added to his injury list at the end of 2019, when he was working and a stray piece of high-tensile wire poked his eye.

Everything possible was done to save his eye, but the wire had gone too deep and the eye had to be removed.

He was a different dog with only one eye, lacking the trust required to obey a command and go blindly in a direction.

"I had to learn how to work him," Clark said.

"He's my mate and he does what he's told and sometimes a bit extra," Matt says of Syd. Photo / Peter McIntosh

It was like starting again, and both returned to the training paddock last year.

Clark never considered putting Syd down.

"Not once ... he's too valuable to me as a breeding dog. You can't replace him - he is who he is - he's my mate and he does what he's told and sometimes a bit extra."

To qualify for the championships this year, a dog needed to accrue six points at dog trials this season.

Syd finished on 18 points.

Although Syd did not make the leaderboard at the championships this year, in the zigzag hunt, Clark and his dog Ranger placed second in the South Island and seventh in the New Zealand championships.

When Syd retires, he would be kept as a pet.

"When he looks sore, he can kick back."