Video of Australian Cattle Dog Driving Electric Car Goes Viral in YouTube
While the Australian cattle dog was originally bred in the land down under to drive cattle over long distances across rough terrain, Rogue, a one-year old cattle dog, instead drives electric toy cars.
A video in YouTube which has more than 12,000 hits showed Rogue driving an electric buggy on his owner's large estate in California. To move the toy car, Rogue uses his back paws to push the pedals and his front paws to honk as a warning to pedestrians of his approach.
It was Thomas Hall, a cattle farmer in New South Wales during the 19th century who crossed tamed dingoes with dogs used by drovers in Northumberland, the home county of his parents. The breed was initially called Hall Heelers.
The dog is of medium size, has a short coat and often comes out in two main colours - brown or black distributed evenly through a white coat. This type of colouring earned the dog breed the nickname Red Heeler or Blue Heeler.
Besides their work overseeing cows and other farm animals, the cattle dogs are now being bred for other uses such as participation in sport events and as assistance dogs to visually impaired people.
Besides driving electric cars, Rogue and another cattle dog, Ruger Red, have another video with over 10,000 hits showing the pair engaged in dancing and simultaneous movement, which is probably the canine version of synchronised swimming.
Among the tricks that trained cattle dogs could do are following directions upon command such as shaking of paws, backing and circling.
Not to be outdone, Wolf, which was 11 years old in 2006, can claim to be their breed's YouTube sensation since the dog has over 300,000 hits so far.
However, Rogue and Ruger can claim they are now TV stars since they had appeared in an episode of The Late Show with David Letterman.