PREACHER’S STORY: How a Rescue Dog Changed My Life.
By Michael Stumpff



I joined the Australian Cattle Dog Club of America in
2005, shortly before attending my first National Spe-
cialty. Now I was in Belton., TX for the 2009 ACDCA
National Specialty. I had two rescue dogs entered in
the herding trials. As I sat waiting for Preacher’s run,
with him belly up in my lap, Pam Pruett walked by and
said, “Does that dog work cattle?” I smiled…

Preacher was about one-year old when I rescued him
from a county animal control facility in a rural Ken-
tucky town. The shelter had contacted me about a
blue heeler puppy that they hoped I would rescue. As
I browsed through the shelter’s list of adoptable dogs
on Petfinder , before I got to the puppy, I saw what
was surely a purebred red Australian Cattle Dog. I
called the shelter to tell them I would come for the
pup and asked about the red one. “What red one?”
they said. “The one you call Preacher.” “You mean he
is a heeler?” they asked. “He is, and I’ll take him too.”
Little did I know that this dog would change my life.

Spring of 2004 I was working the Tennessee Valley
Cattle Dog Rescue booth at Animal Rescue Fair with a
couple of rescue dogs. Preacher became fixated on a
horse being worked in a round pen. Preacher’s eye
Tenn-Val's Heel Fire
followed the horse’s every move. I knew nothing
about handling livestock, but this dog seemed to want to work so badly that I decided I needed to learn
about herding.

Back in Chattanooga, I saw Lucinda Howard-Hawks, a herding trainer and trailer, at the local obedi-
ence club. I asked about couple of trainers in the area. She said Larry Painter was a cattle dog guy, and
that he was going to be giving a clinic hosted by the Saint Louis Herding Club. I remembered seeing a
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