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    Laharum's Norm Booth with his golf ball retrieving dog Missy. His other dog Hamish is a willing watcher.
  • Hero image
    Laharum's Norm Booth with his golf ball retrieving dog Missy. His other dog Hamish is a willing watcher.
  • Hero image
    Laharum's Norm Booth with his golf ball retrieving dog Missy. His other dog Hamish is a willing watcher.
  • Hero image
    Laharum's Norm Booth with his golf ball retrieving dog Missy. His other dog Hamish is a willing watcher.
  • Hero image
    Laharum's Norm Booth with his golf ball retrieving dog Missy. His other dog Hamish is a willing watcher.
  • Hero image
    Laharum's Norm Booth with his golf ball retrieving dog Missy. His other dog Hamish is a willing watcher.
  • Hero image
    Laharum's Norm Booth with his golf ball retrieving dog Missy. His other dog Hamish is a willing watcher.
  • Hero image
    Laharum's Norm Booth. His dog Hamish is a willing watcher.
  • Hero image
    Laharum's Norm Booth with his golf ball retrieving dog Missy. His other dog Hamish is a willing watcher.
  • Hero image
    Laharum's Norm Booth with his golf ball retrieving dog Missy. His other dog Hamish is a willing watcher.
  • Hero image
    Laharum's Norm Booth with his golf ball retrieving dog Missy. His other dog Hamish is a willing watcher.
  • Hero image
    Laharum's Norm Booth with his golf ball retrieving dog Missy. His other dog Hamish is a willing watcher.
  • Hero image
    Laharum's Norm Booth with his golf ball retrieving dog Missy. His other dog Hamish is a willing watcher.

PHOTOS: Missy is a golfer’s best friend

Ask any grazier and they will tell you a good working dog easily rates among the best assets on a farm.

Being able to control mobs of sheep with a few quick commands to a faithful canine friend can be the difference between a good and a bad day in a paddock.

But retired Norm Booth, who lives on farmland at Wartook in the northern Grampians, has discovered another more-than-handy way of putting his border collie’s intelligence, skills and passion for the job at hand to the test.

Norm has fashioned a 250-metre stretch of paddock at his property into a practice driving range and his companion caddy ‘Missy’ has become an integral part of a sporting pastime.



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While another dog ‘Hamish’ is content to sit back and watch, two-year-old Missy has become an expert at retrieving and assembling golf balls for collection.

 “She collects all the golf balls – as expected – like any good working dog,” Norm laughed.

“I have a little driving range I mow with the ride-on mower down to 250 metres with five flags with 50-metre intervals. Missy loves collecting the balls and won’t come back until I call her.

“She goes out and gets them, puts them in neat little groups so I can just wander along and pick them up. 

“She is very intent on her job – extremely keen – and she will even go out in the paddock anywhere and collect them. So if I lose sight of them she finds them for me.

“If I’m chipping for 20 or 30 metres with cones, as soon as I put the cones down she goes and sits with them and waits and basically says ‘come on, come on!’

“It’s fantastic. What better way of spending a lovely afternoon could there be.”

The entire July 29, 2020 edition of The Weekly Advertiser is available online. READ IT HERE!

The entire July 29, 2020 edition of AgLife is available online. READ IT HERE!