Ag Shows & Events

Canadian Doug Kennedy, 74, is one very happy man.

Attending the Golden Shears in Masterton over the past three days has been a dream come true for him. “It’s been on my bucket list for years and I can’t believe I’m here,” he enthuses. “I’ve just left temperatures of 20 below and a metre of snow, so I’m happy to be in New Zealand on many levels,” Doug knows what he’s watching too. He’s been shearing and teaching the craft for decades in his home state of Ontario. A teacher of elementary school children (9-13 years olds) by profession, he was literally forced into learning how to shear when his father died and he was left as a 20 year old with a 125 strong flock of large Suffolk ewes to shear. It was a small farm of 50 acres that he had been raised on and he wanted to make it work, in honour of his father. Being self-taught, his shearing method is novel, if not a bit unorthodox. He shears equally well with both hands, a trait which has worked perfectly for him when he took on the teaching of students at the shearing school near his hometown, Thamesford, a rural based town ship of just over 8,000 people.

“Shearing students can watch what I do with either my left or right arm and see the mirror image to copy. It makes for very flexible learning.” Doug also did some competitive shearing too in his younger days, mainly at the Royal Winter Fair in Toronto. “I loved the competition, rubbing shoulders with people aiming at excellence. It’s good stuff.” He says one notable feature of the intake at the shearing school in recent years is the increasing number of females learning to shear. Last intake, 75 per cent were women, he said. It’s a mixed bag of sheep that Doug has been involved with in Ontario. There are the large Suffolks, along with Rambouillet (French Merino), and the Dorsets which dominate the English breeds there. Asked if he had a favourite sheep breed, he laughed saying the best ones to shear would be ones without legs or heads “they just get in the way.”

Following the Golden Shears, Doug is heading to the South Island of New Zealand with two other bucket list ambitions. He wants to see the merino sheep of the high country and also to visit earthquake damaged Christchurch city. “Because of my interest in sheep and shearing, I have always a close affinity to New Zealand without ever visiting until now. When I watched what happened to Christchurch, I was surprised how visibly moved I was for that poor city.” There will be live feed from the www.goldenshears.co.nz and free images from www.pete.co.nz/press For free higher resolution images contact the Golden Shears media group at goldenshears@pete.co.nz or phone 021 488 137.