The Kelpie and the Tramp

Occurred on July 4, 2005 / Goulburn, New South Wales, Australia

Info from Licensor: "This is Ella, our Border Collie X Kelpie Australian working dog. Ella became a part of our family as an 8 week old pup in 2008. From a very early age, Ella was our daily companion to our self run custom automotive business and quickly settled into being an active 'Workshop Dog'. Ella first discovered the trampoline when she was about 3 years old. One day our twin boys were playing on the trampoline and called her up for a pet. Ella jumped on, a Starling flew overhead and landed on the neighbor's TV antenna. Ella jumped towards the bird not realizing what a trampoline was all about and soon discovered she could bounce continuously with the hope of getting closer to the bird. It didn't take Ella long to realize how to use the trampoline and eventually it wasn't possible for both Ella and the children to be on the tramp at the same time as Ella would bounce the kids off. As the kids grew, Ella became the main user of the trampoline, so much so we had to continuously rotate it as she stretched the mat and springs with her powerful jumping. By the time she was 7 years old we could see that Ella was slowing down as she no longer had the stamina to jump and jumping off was becoming a concern for injury. With the trampoline mat looking the worse for wear and the worry that the jumping may impact on her physically, we retired the trampoline."