Ben pictured left, at the 2018 Australian Stock Dog Spectacular.
Former Harden Local Ben Coster has become an ambassador for Cobber Dog Food. Ben now works on a property in between Yass and Boorowa, however, readers would know Ben for the 5 years he spent in the twin towns working at Romani Pastoral Company. Ben knows his dogs and his bitches and has carved out a highly successful career training them for competition and work purposes. He said, “It’s simple, if you don’t put time into them, you don’t get anything out of it.”
Ben finishes work on the property around 5pm before spending another hour with his dogs before the sun light evades him. He won NSW Handler of the year in 2017 and in 2018 he won Bitch of the Year. This year his success has continued with a number of championship wins.
Ben said, “Cobber approached me to be one of their ambassadors and I have only been feeding Cobber for the last three weeks, but I have found it to be a very good dog food for my working dogs. It contains Diamond V technology which allows the dog to digests the food quicker and its easier therefore to turn it into energy for working purposes.”
Ben said his clients have noticed a big difference in the last three weeks. “My pups are looking great and a lot of my clients are telling me how good my pups and my dogs look.” Ben owns approximately 20 working dogs which are housed at the property where he manages a sheep operation. Cobber, with the help of Delta Agribusiness in Yass, will now provide 12 months worth of feed for Ben’s dogs which will allow him to attend up to 25 trials a year and expand his operation.
Ben said, “ We are very busy, we travel a fair way. We probably go to 25 to 30 trials a year,” Wandabar Lucy was given to Ben as a puppy by Garangula Boss Andrew King. Ben has been selecting different bloodlines and breeds and sells puppies through Wandabar Stockdogs, a company he started a number of years ago. Ben’s dogs are versatile in that they can work with sheep and cattle.
“I like them with a lot of grunt, stamina and plenty of strength. That way they can work with cattle as well as sheep and get the job done, especially when there are lots of sheep in the yards and I’m on my own.”
