One of them, the male Byrosi Barkem in fact showed some working ability.

He succeded in getting a 2nd at an Open class trial, but in those days trials were quite different from now.
He had to work a bigger mob, around 20 sheep, which suited him better than the trials of today with 5 – 7 sheep would have done.

He was mated several times to the Working Kelpie bitch Elfinvale Almira and they produced many good workes, both as sheepdogs and other kinds of working trials like tracking, searching etc.

In 1975 Tim Austin, Elfinvale Kelpies, sent 9 Working Kelpies to different buyers in Sweden. Only three of these were ANKC registered, but on the initiative of some private breeders and after two years of applications we finally succeeded in getting permission for the others to be included in the KC register. But unfortunately they were never bred from to any extent, it was only one bitch, Elfinvale Vaksam, that had any progeny that was used for breeding. Mated to Elfinvale Hyland, imported by Stormkappan in 1981, she produced a bitch pup, Dulcie, that in her turn produced 24 pups, most of which qualified at different trials. In a litter of 7 by Avenpart Colligen we find for instance Stormkappans Boomerang who got top placings in Winners Class both at sheepdog and cattle dog trials, and Stormkappan Biara, 2nd in Open sheepdog trial. Biara herself was the dam of 6 qualified sheepdogs.

The first dogs were all registered with the ANKC (Australian Kennel Club organisation)
– even the Working Kelpie bitches –
and so they were registered with the Swedish Kennel Club (SKK) in their normal S-register as Australian Kelpies together with dogs from the show lines.

It was not until 1983 that there came any imports that were registered with the Working Kelpie Council (WKC).

That year Tim Austin came from Austrlia and went on a tour around Sweden and Norway giving working demonstrations with his dogs.
He brought 11 dogs, one of them a bitch in whelp. Two of the adults and three of the pups stayed in Sweden, the others went to Norway. The two adults were ANKC registered but not the others, which posed a problem as the SKK did not accept the WKC pedigrees.
However, it turned out that it was possible to register them in Norway, and then they could be brought to Sweden as they had registration certificates from the Norwegian Kennel Club which were accepted by the SKK. Unfortunately this led to further problems as they were all registered as Australian Kelpies in spite of the fact that they were Working Kelpies.

One of the pups that came here this way was later to become the most widely used Working Kelpie sire in Sweden.
His real name was Elfinvale Justin, but he was registered in Norway under the name of Norinvale Justin. He was also the first Working Kelpie to gain the title of Sheepdog Trial Champion and held his own at the Swedish Nationals (he was 3rd in the National Cattle Dog Trial), and his offspring were numerous, 75 in all.
Many of these competed successfully at trials and the greatest success had Nerunder Eva who also became a Sheepdog Trial Champion and competed in the National.

At the beginning of the 1980ies we thus found ourselves facing the same problem that the breeders did in Australia twenty years earlier – the farmers thought that all Kelpies were workers – they were all registerd in the same register! – and they bought the wrong pups and got disappointed and the breed got a bad reputation.

At the end of the 80ies and during the 90ies some of the new imports began to show themselves successfully in the trial arenas. By and by working dog people began to relalize that there were two kinds of Kelpies, and Working Kelpies began being accepted within SvaK (the Swedish Working Sheepdog Club).

Among the dogs that contributed to this the following can be mentioned: Bullenbong Balar and Bullenbong Tess, who competed in the sheepdog National, the abovementioned Norinvale Justin and Nerunder Eva, and Örjagardens Bessie and Emmalundas Trapp (all Sheepdog Trial Champions). Furthermore Stormkappans Iona, Coogee Luce II and Erkens Hassan who have all competed in the National plus a long row of good dogs that have competed in Winners Class in sheepdog as well as cattle dog trials, for instance Stormkappans Parra (certificate), Stormkappans Boomerang, Erkens Fix (cattle) Nerunder Finn etc.

Stormkappans Iona

All this time the club worked actively to get Working Kelpies registered with the SKK in a separate register, but not until the Scandinavian kennel clubs agreed on the possiblility to open an Appendix Register, could this work be successful.
In the year 2000 the Swedish Kennel Club accepted Working Kelpies as a separate breed and began registering them in their Appendix under the breed name Australian Stock Dog /Working Kelpie.
In connection with this the club was affiliated to the SKK and its name was changed to THE SWEDISH WORKING KELPIE CLUB (SWKK).
Accordingly it became possible to start transferring the Working Kelpies that were registered in the S-register as Australian Kelpies to the new register. By now only 328 dogs are transferred, but it will be possible to do so in the future too.