Researcher builds picture of farms' hardest worker

University researcher Amy Jeram says she wants to build up a picture of some of the hardest workers on the nation's farms – the working dogs.

"The farm dog is New Zealand agriculture's hardest worker," said Ms Jerram, whose parents farm at Ongaonga, in Central Hawke's Bay. "They work really hard, spending all day trying to please you."

There had not been epidemiological studies on the health of farm dogs, though there were many studies undertaken throughout the world on pets and commercial livestock.

The amount of work farm dogs did varied, she said.

"It totally depends on where the dog is – on a station they might be covering huge kilometres every day, in other instances they may be covering only a small distance. MORE>>