Meet Wally, the Border Collie Who Works at Greywacke

When he was photographer for the first Kiwi edition of the Wine Dogs book series (2008), he only came across one pooch-less winery. “People who don’t like dogs – well, you have to think twice about whether you should like them or not, don’t you?”

The dog who exerts the biggest gravitational pull on Kevin? A Border Collie called ‘Wally’. He and wife Kimberley previously owned a Weimaraner (“visually beautiful but a bit of a nutcase”), a wire-haired Jack Russell (“its mission in life was to kill”), and a Border Collie called Dixie (“a perfect dog”).

Like Dixie, Wally was deemed insufficiently assertive for the farm she was born on. “She’s our second ‘reject’ sheepdog. The two we’ve had have been very shy – which is why they got the sack.”

After a bit of sheepdog Googling, Kevin found a farmer in Geraldine keen to rehome a six-month-old pup. “I asked if she was house-trained and the farmer said she’d never been in a house.” Nor had she known the indoor comforts of a car. On the drive back to Marlborough, she sat awkwardly on the back seat facing away from her new owners. She’d only ever travelled on the back of a ute. Now six, Wally likes to role-play her herding forebears when she’s out in the vineyard, Kevin says. “She spends an extraordinary amount of time chasing swallows. They dive-bomb and tease her. I think she’s trying to protect me from them.”

But her most important role at Greywacke is Head of Communications. “Wally is super friendly. You can trust her with important visitors, Masters of Wine, anyone.” So a subtle schmoozer then? “She’s not that subtle actually. She’s a beautiful dog.”