At the cleared site for the new museum, K9 Search Medical Detection trainers Amanda Cunningham (left) and Bobby-Jae McDonald with dogs Koda and Chance - who aren't huntaways. Photo / Eva de Jong
It’s no secret that Hunterville loves huntaways.
On State Highway 1 running through the town, there’s even a large statue of a huntaway dog.
Every year for the past 25 years the town of about 440 people has hosted a Huntaway Festival in which shepherds compete alongside their loyal dogs in a shemozzle race.
Soon there will be a museum dedicated to the dog breed, with plans to start construction on a site 30km from the town.
Dog training expert Peter Gifford owns the Cheltenham Country Kennels and K9 Search Medical Detection charity based near Hunterville.
He is looking to transform part of his land into a museum to honour the huntaway breed.
“It’s the only dog that’s indigenous to New Zealand and that’s where the passion arises,” Gifford said.
Hunterville Huntaway Festival committee chairman James Kilmister said farmers had relied on huntaway dogs to “do the hard yards” for the past 120 years, and there was a strong history to be recognised.
“The fact is Hunterville is the huntaway capital of the world - or of New Zealand,” Kilmister said.
“We’re very supportive of Peter’s museum and we’d like to help set it up, it’s just a matter of gaining a bit of support locally from farmers that are known for being good dog trialists.”
Huntaways are powerful, loyal, and good-natured dogs.
The cost of a purebred huntaway can range from anywhere between $5000- $10,000. Black and tan are the main colours of a huntaway, but they come in an assortment of sizes and markings.
Kilmister said the famous bark of the huntaway dog - a loud, deep noise - was key to steering sheep.
“Number one is the bark, and number two is their gentle nature.”
Their muscular, strong build allowed them to navigate steep hill country farms for sheep and cattle mustering.
“They are the tools of the trade: builders have hammers, but in the farming business our dogs are our tools - they’re real work machines.”
Gifford is hoping the build will be finished in 2025, but he is relying on community support and donations for the museum.
K9 Search Medical Detection trainer Amanda Cunningham said she was really excited for the museum to be built and for more visitors to learn about their work at the centre.
The K9 Search Medical Detection team currently train about eight to10 dogs living on-site to become disability assistance dogs. The training is specific to the client, but the dogs can help with a variety of conditions such as anxiety or epilepsy.
Gifford has more than 40 years of experience training dogs through working with organisations such as Land Search and Rescue New Zealand, the NZ Police, and the Department of Corrections.
He said dogs can be trained to recognise the smell of drugs, bombs, or even cancer.
There is a special scent training room at the facility where the trainers teach dogs to identify and respond to certain odours.
“If humans walk into a kitchen on a Sunday night and smell cooking, we might think, ‘Ah, it’s roast dinner',” Gifford said.
“But the way that dogs do it is they go in and smell: ‘There’s peas, carrots, gravy, broccoli, chicken’. They break every scent picture down into common denominators.”
Recently, Gifford worked with Massey University to train a set of dogs to pick up on the smell of a biomarker in the urine of canines that could be linked to cancer.
He said the ability of dogs to pick up certain scents made them incredible at tracking: “They can pick up a drop of blood in an Olympic-sized swimming pool”.
For diabetes assistance, a dog can learn to smell the pheromones in their owner’s breath and warn them if their blood glucose levels are dropping to dangerous levels.
“They’ll either put a paw on you, bark or spin around,” Gifford said.
He is now looking to do trials with people with coeliac disease to train dogs to alert them to the presence of gluten in their food.
Gifford said visitors to the museum would be able to take a tour of the centre and understand the variety of roles that working dogs perform in New Zealand, and the extensive training involved.
“If a dog’s engaged with you and wants to be invested, you can teach it anything. But if its mind is elsewhere, you’re wasting your time.”
Anyone interested in donating or being involved in the building of the Huntaway Museum can contact the team through the K9 Search Detection Dogs Facebook page.
Eva de Jong is a reporter for the Whanganui Chronicle covering health stories and general news. She began as a reporter in 2023. You can contact her on eva.dejong@nzme.co.nz
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