GROWING up in the rugged Pilbara region, Aticia 'Teesh' Grey was a typical bush kid.
The fourth-generation grazier would walk around barefoot, covered head-to-toe in a permanent layer of red dust, hair a scraggy mess and prickles a constant companion.
But despite her upbringing and love for the land, Ms Grey never envisioned one day managing half-a-million acres (200,000 plus hectares) of her family's outback cattle station, Glenflorrie.
Or writing a book, starring in an ABC documentary and owning 18 dogs including 12 kelpies and six maremmas for that matter.
In fact, if anyone told Ms Grey that would be her life at 33 years old, she probably would have responded with, "you've lost your mind".
Funnily enough, nowadays she wonders if she has lost hers.
Ms Grey is a first-time author in her newly released memoir Muster Dogs, which takes readers on a wild journey through the outback with flying red dirt and plenty of kelpies.
It is a story of love, laughter, loss and hope - proving dogs really are a woman's best friend.
And that is something only cemented further in the book's companion ABC TV documentary of the same name which Ms Grey stars in.
Speaking to Ms Grey, you can't help but admire her strength, authenticity and friendly nature.
And the same goes when reading Muster Dogs - it is honest, compelling and captivating.
So much so, you feel like you have escaped to the Pilbara and are standing by Ms Grey, watching in on all the moments she writes about.
Ms Grey stepped up as manager of her family's West Pilbara cattle station a few years after picking up her first team of kelpies in 2013.
At the time, she was completely unaware of the heartache she would experience in the severe and devastating drought, which was just around the corner.
Ms Grey describes it as a time that "forced her to question everything she thought she knew about the fragile country of her home".
However, one thing did remain unchanged through her everchanging world - her loyal canine companions who have stood by her side through it all.
Her four-legged menagerie proved invaluable as she and her family worked towards securing the property's future.
Ms Grey said with the ups and downs, she wouldn't change her life for anything.
Her dogs taught her to "be a better person, who is more accepting of situations she can't control, and that there is more to life than the station she grew up on".
They gave her confidence to travel, connect with a whole new world of like-minded folk and find independence in running her own business alongside her family's.
"Most of all, in my dogs, I have found my passion," Ms Grey wrote in Muster Dogs.
"No matter where we are in life, as long as I have my dogs by my side, I am home.
"And that is the greatest gift of all."
Ms Grey describes her journey into the working dog world as one that was not without "bumps and bruises".
Even though she always had a dog by her side, she did not understand the value of a good working dog until she owned her own.
Her dad had a preference for red heelers, who would follow him around the cattle yards and help with pen-up.
Heelers were all Ms Grey knew as working dogs until a trip to New Zealand in her 20s when she met a range of handlers on different farms and her eyes were opened to a world she "hadn't consciously realised existed".
In Muster Dogs, she recalls pulling up on the side of the road to watch a man, standing on top of a high hill.
He was directing his dogs around a paddock as they herded sheep within it, using only a series of indistinguishable whistles.
"I was amazed at how well he could orchestrate the situation, controlling all those minds with seemingly minimal effort," Ms Grey wrote.
It was a trip that proved life changing, and sparked her interest in working dogs.
So when the opportunity arose to attend one of renowned South Australian dog trainer Neil McDonald's advanced livestock and working dog schools early in 2013 - she jumped at it.
There were no heelers at the school and Ms Grey soon learned why.
For the first time she appreciated the natural skill and stock sense of the Australian kelpie.
In Muster Dogs, Ms Grey describes Mr McDonald's school as "an overload of information" covering not just dog training and stock movements, but stock and human psychology, farm management, working dog history, OHS and welfare considerations.
She writes that she had "no idea just how pivotal to her life those days at the school would be".
From the first day, Ms Grey was hooked and by the end of day three she asked Mr McDonald for a favour, after finding something she needed in her life without even realising it was missing.
"I wanted to experience the rapport I had witnessed between Neil and his dogs and the end result of educated, calm stock," she wrote.
"I asked him to put together a going team of dogs for me, sight unseen and my journey in the world of working dogs began."
Ms Grey jumped straight into the deep end, purchasing four going dogs and a dog trailer on the other side of Australia.
On the trip back from retrieving the dogs, Ms Grey paid Mr McDonald a visit at a station near Katherine in the Northern Territory.
He was handling some cattle on a property in preparation for another training school the following week.
That visit became a lesson for Ms Grey, as she learned there were a few aspects of working dogs, which "defy human logic until they are explained correctly".
In Muster Dogs, she says an example of this was when dogs were asked to go in a particular direction.
"We usually point the way we want them to go because, well, that just makes sense right?" Ms Grey wrote.
"Turns out we are actually telling the dog we want them to go in the opposite direction, because our arm, leg and body language are acting to block the dog from going the way we are pointing.
"Confusing?
"It makes sense once you get the hang of it, but try figuring that out with a brand new dog and an audience of three very experienced dog handlers watching on from the fence line."
Feeling the pressure, Ms Grey asked one of her new working dogs, a red and tanned girl called Diddy for help.
Diddy stepped up, the nerves calmed and the cattle work started to fall into place.
The extra few hours under Mr McDonald's guidance set Ms Grey up well for the intense rollercoaster ride she would soon embark on.
"I learned pretty fast I had an uncomfortable number of bad habits to unlearn."
Another lesson she was quick to learn was never try and outsmart dogs or leave valuable items within their reach.
Ms Grey shares an example of this in Muster Dogs, where she tried using a two-way radio to beat her dogs at their own barking game.
She secured one of the radios under the roof of a kennel and when the barking started at 2am, she yelled into the microphone from afar: Sit down and be quiet.
"The silence was glorious and after a few more choice words to keep them in line, I headed back to bed, pretty chuffed with myself," she said.
"The next morning, I arrived at the kennels, smugness vanished in a hurry when I found a very proud dog sitting next to a drowned radio, the expensive handpiece floating dismally in his water dish."
Remote discipline was shelved - Dogs: One, Ms Grey: Zero.
A fun game of trial and error is how Ms Grey describes the first six months with the working dogs.
She writes of how her dad was a reluctant observer of her journey.
His view was, "Why do you need to learn how to work stock when you have worked them all your life?".
In 2014, Ms Grey attended both her second and third working dog schools in quick succession.
By the end of the same year, she knew she would soon have to take on the manager's role at Glen Florrie, as her brother, Murray moved to the southern farms with his growing family.
Within two years, her original team of five dogs had grown to a handy 10 and it finally started to feel like she was getting the hang of things.
In Muster Dogs, she writes about how she came to appreciate one of the most important skills required in her dogs: the ability and desire to work with minimal direction from her.
"This was where kelpie's independent, headstrong nature really came into its own."
As well as supporting her through work, her working dog team provided some comfort during the drought.
In 2018, Glenflorrie had barely recorded a drop of rain.
However, Ms Grey describes it as "not too big a of concern" at the time, as a run of average seasons had kept the country in good stead.
Her outlook changed when the wet season failed to deliver and while some winter rain fell, the subsoil moisture wasn't there to keep things going.
Late 2019 came, and the feed and condition of cattle started to fall away sharply.
You can feel the heartache in Ms Grey's writing as she describes it as "some of the darkest times", where some difficult decisions had to be made.
"Somehow we were lucky," she wrote.
"Each time I felt I had nowhere to turn, a new door would open in offers of agistment, hay, free lease country and help from family and friends."
Finally last year, rain showered Glenflorrie with hope and its first decent drink in four years.
A year before, Ms Grey had agreed to take part in ABC's heartwarming series, Muster Dogs.
The show is uniquely Australian and follows five well-bred, young kelpie pups from the same litter, as they are placed into working homes across the country.
Spanning the Top End to regional Victoria, each home is different and each participant is given the challenge of transforming the young pups into champion muster dogs.
Film crews documented the 12 months each grazier spent fitting the new pup into their team.
For Ms Grey it was the project's goal of showcasing the importance of working dogs in Australia, which was most intriguing.
She admits she truly had no idea of the value in good dogs until overseeing a team of her own.
So having the chance to highlight this and encourage others to consider utilising working dogs was tempting.
Through muster dogs, Ms Grey acquired a 10-week-old, female, black and tan kelpie she called Gossip Girl.
The pair's first onfarm task involved riding a two-wheel motorbike together.
And it produced "mixed results".
Ms Grey writes that from there countless hours were spent on the motorbike together, shifting cattle, searching for waterholes and checking for stray cattle tracks.
The final 12-month assessment was filmed last June at Darwin, training on weaners in the paddocks.
While it was a journey with its ups and downs, the bond formed between Ms Grey and Gossip demonstrates a positive future for farming in rural Australia.
"Hopefully it gains a bit more appreciation and respect for what working dogs can do," she said.
"They aren't just a tool, if people look after them, they can be so much more than that.
"Muster Dogs is about educating people, who don't have dogs, and inspiring people, who do."
Both the book and documentary share the mistakes and lessons learned along the way, as well as the experiences, which shaped the direction of the path she is on today.
"There are many talented people I have met along the way, who have gained more knowledge, experience and understanding of dogs over the years than I will likely ever know," she wrote.
"And I am grateful for that.
"I appreciate the opportunity this offers me to continue to learn from those folk even as I tread my own unique path.
"Life isn't a destination.
"It is the journey we are on right now and who could ask for better company on the ride than the unquestioning enthusiasm of a loyal dog."
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