Dirranbandi dog Bear takes home title of hardest working dog in Australia

What do a dog from Dirranbandi and Nedd Brockmann have in common? Hint: it involves an ability to run a marathon every day before noon.

A kelpie from Dirranbandi has been crowned as Australia’s hardest working dog after he covered more than the distance between Mitchell and Brisbane in just two weeks.

For the two weeks of the 2024 Cobber Challenge, Tom Perkins’ loyal pup Bear wore a GPS tracker to measure his speed, distance and duration, in order to get an idea of how much he worked every day.

Mr Perkins said the competition coincided perfectly with a busy period on his farm between Hebel and Dirranbandi in South West Queensland, which meant Bear had ample opportunity to rack up miles to beat out the competition.

Bear ran more than 570km in the two weeks of the competition. Photo: Cobber Challenge.

Ultimately, Bear managed to cover about 570km in the two weeks, which is just under the equivalent of running a marathon every day for two weeks.

His average speed measured in at 13.4km/h.

Mr Perkins said while it was a busy period at his livestock operation, it was pretty exemplary of what Bear did on an average day.

“You always know your dog works hard, but seeing the stats clock up every single day, it really makes you appreciate the tough work they do,” he said.

He even said sometimes he forgot to put the dog’s tracker on, or the tracker would run out of charge, so the real numbers were likely even higher than what was reported.

Nonetheless, Bear managed to win, and was awarded the Cobber Challenge trophy, a $1000 cash prize and bags of Cobber Working Dog Feed.

Tom Perkins' loyal dog, Bear, has been crowned Australia's hardest working dog in the 2024 Cobber Challenge. Photo: Cobber Challenge.

Mr Perkins said the best reward for Bear though was to let him get straight back to doing what he loved most.

“He wouldn’t want a day off at all,” Mr Perkins said.

“He’s definitely one of the best dogs I’ve had for sure.”