Jodi is riding Tator, Jason is riding Radar and I’m riding Badger. We’re using our dogs Hangin’ Tree Sport, Chick and Chris. By the time we finished, there were a lot of tired animals and people. My wife Jodi set a horse blanket down for Sport so he could lay in the sun and rest after a long day of work! We gathered and penned about 75 cows and calves that day!

Hope you enjoy,

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One hot day I was outside doing something, not sure what it was but my wife, Jodi, finds me and tells me our three hogs are gone. So my first stupid question was “What do you mean gone?”

So she explained it to me again in two words: “They’re gone!” My second stupid question was “Where are they?”

Jodi explained to me that she had no idea. So the hunt to find the hogs began and it only took about 10 minutes or so before we found them about 400 yards away. They were still on our property but only because they hadn’t got to the back fence, which was only three looses strands of barbed wire. The grass out there was about 2 feet tall and those hogs were happy! But I wasn’t because I had things to do and it had nothing to do with pinning hogs in the heat. Jodi tells me they’ll follow her so she grabs some grass and calls to them. Well, they followed her to the first gate but they sure wouldn’t go any further.

Well if you know me you know I train cattle dogs so what do I do? I go to the kennels and get my two best cow dogs, Hanging Tree Sport and Hidden Canyon Cross.

Let me tell you, working hogs out in the middle of a field is not easy. I’m not sure if you can dog break hogs but I can tell you those three hogs were not dog broke.

So the fight began.

I started by getting behind the hogs and trying to get them headed back to the barn-lot where their pen was. I had used Cross to catch and hold calves before but neither him nor Sport had ever got to work hogs. This means I had nothing going in my favor.

My wife liked these hogs so the first words out of her mouth were “Don’t let the dogs hurt those hogs!” After about 30 minutes of fighting with those hogs I was so hot, sweaty and mad I didn’t care much – I just wanted them in the pen. Since they wouldn’t leave the field they were in, I thought I’d just have the dogs bite them a little. Needless to say, my dogs were hot and tired also.

My first mistake was I just said “bite him” when the hogs turned the wrong way. Sport bit the first one and let go. But not Cross, he bit hard and wouldn’t let go and my wife started hollering at me but I was so mad I didn’t care about her hogs. I finely told Cross “that would do” and he let go of the hog. The hog was headed in the right direction so all was well. I was thinking to myself I should have gotten my dogs out a lot sooner!

However, when the hogs go to the barn-lot gate, two of them walked right through but one turned back. All I had to say was “bite him” and that hog had two dogs on his head and my wife was screaming at me and the hog was squealing like crazy. I won’t say here the words that were coming out of my mouth other then I didn’t care about that darn hog – I just wanted him in the pen! Well that hog turned right to the gate and I told my dogs “that would do” and they let go.

Two of those hogs finally had enough and all they wanted was their pen but one stupid hog still wanted to make my life miserable. And he was doing a good job of it too. When we got to the pen two hogs ran in but one turned and made one last try at escape but in a flash he had two dogs on him. The blood was flying, my wife was screaming and I was telling my dogs to “bite him” some more. When we finely got those hogs in the pen and after all was said and done everyone and every animal was fine other than a few chewed hog ears. My wife and I finally had a good laugh over the whole ordeal.

I was kind of new at gathering stock but I knew enough to know you didn’t go haul stock without a stock dog so I brought my cow dog Jake along. Ken told me he had about 2 loads apiece for each of us and the round trip to the sale barn was about 140 miles.

I met Ken at a restaurant and we had a bite of lunch before we got started. It was 101 degrees outside that day! During lunch I asked Ken about his great dog and he said he had left him at home.

When we were done eating, we drove on out to the farm to get his herd of goats. When we got out of our trucks I could see some pens but there were no goats in them! I started looking around and there were a lot of goats out in the fields and rolling hills.

I asked Ken what the deal was and he said he was told they would be in the pens. The owner walked out and told us he wasn’t sure when we were going to be there so he left the goats out because it was so hot. He said it wouldn’t be a problem getting them in.

So we walked out in the field and the goats would have nothing to do with going into the pen. We were all sweating bad by then and I told Ken I was not chasing anymore goats.

Ken and the other guy tried for a few more minutes while I watched from my truck with my good dog Jake sitting next to me. After a bit they walked to my truck and asked if I would gather the goats for them with my dog. I said I would but wouldn’t be responsible for any goat that didn’t cooperate with my dog because Jake was a cow dog not a goat dog and he might get a little rough with those goats.

Ken and the other guy were so hot and tired they didn’t care. So I sent Jake out and he was awesome! He got what I thought were all the goats heading in but the owner hollered at me and said there were a few more over the next little hill. I told Jake to “look back” and he went back over the other hill and got the last of the goats. We got both rigs loaded and hauled those goats to the sale.

When we got back and loaded the last of the goats, the man who had sold the goats told Ken to take the llamas also. Well those lamas did not want to go into the trailer! The owners put halters on them and tried to lead them into Ken’s trailer but they wouldn’t budge.  Those guys pulled and pushed and sweated a whole lot! Then they asked me to help. I laughed at them and said to get those llamas headed into the trailer and watch out because I was going to have Jake bite their heels. Ken said “no”, that the llamas would kill Jake. I told them to pull those llama’s heads into the trailer and stand back, then I gave Jake the command to “bite” and he did! Those llamas jumped into that trailer and we were done!

Its 10 years later and I still get into the same kind of situations but I enjoy it because I get to work my dogs in some challenging and unique situations and some darn funny ones too!

I guy I know, Ken, called me to help catch 4 calves. I mean give me a break, 4 calves? NO PROBLEM! The day before I left for elk hunting, I loaded my horse badger and my two best dogs, Hanging Tree Sport and Chick, and drove out to meet Ken. When I got there we trapped the cows with grain but the 4 calves wouldn’t come into the pen. Well, we decided to go ahead and load the cows and the bull and then work on getting the calves caught up. I’m not sure why I did it but I attempted to bring the 4 calves into a half mooned pen with the little 4 foot walk gate in the middle.

Heck, we even left one cow in a little pen inside the bigger pen so the calves would come in easily. WRONG! I’m not sure why I tried it this way. We only had about one hour left before dark. As it turned out, I could stop the calves with my two dogs but couldn’t get them into the pen. I finally got one big double-bred scat- cat heifer in the pen but then she tore it down and got out. So I got to chasing these calves with my horse but then he went down in a spring and that ended that! After me, my horse and my dogs were all wore out I told Ken that we needed to quit as it was getting dark. So we had to unload the cows and bull and headed home.

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When I got back from elk hunting I called Ken to see if he got the cows and calves penned up.
He said he hadn’t. I hate to lose at anything so I asked him if he was ready to give it another shot and he said he was. We set it up differently this time! We started out at 10.00 am on a Sunday so we would have plenty of day light hours to work. I also asked my son, Jason, if he wanted to come along and help which of course he did (he knows we always have a good time gathering cattle). That Saturday night I didn’t get a lot of sleep because I was thinking about those 4 little calves.

We met Ken and his wife on Sunday morning and Ken asked me how I wanted to do it. This time I told him we’d open a big 12 foot panel, angel it out, then I’d send my two dogs out to hold the cattle up. I believe there were about 5 or 6 cows, 4 calves and one big bull.

Once I got the cattle settled down, Ken dumped grain into the feeders and I started having the dogs move the cattle back to the corral. Some of them went on in but there were a few that wanted nothing to do with that corral. So they kept trying to get around it and Sport and Chick would get them stopped. This lasted for about 2 minutes then they all went into the corral. The cows didn’t want to stay in the corral so they tried to leave but my two great dogs, Sport and Chick, got them stopped. The calves didn’t even try and run – they had enough the last time they meet those two dogs!

We shut the panel but a couple of those cows headed to the back side of the corral hoping to bust their way out. I sent Chick around the outside of the pen and one look at that dog biting through the bars at their head got them stopped.

The heard settled down really nice and the whole process took maybe 5 minutes.

What I learned from these little calves is that you should really think out what kind of dog power you have and set up the situation so you can win! I had plenty of dog power but I should have opened up a panel and brought the whole herd in at one time. I could have even gotten the 4 calves in if I would of opened up a panel at either end of the corral. Because of my mistakes, I thought about those darn 4 little calves the whole time I was gone hunting!

The thing about working dogs with cattle is that you’ll probably make mistakes – you just try to learn from them.

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I asked my son, Jason, if he wanted to go and he said sure because he knew that I always got into some pretty wild situations. I also called a buddy of mine from Cottage Grove and asked if he wanted to join in and he said the same as Jason. Jason and I loaded up my horse Badger and his horse Comit. Then we loaded up the “real help”, Hanging Tree Sport and his side-kick, Chick, a female Cattle Master dog. Once loaded we headed down to Albany where we meet up with the guy who owned the calf and my buddy, Tim. The guy asked me what I had in mind. I explained to him that I would try and get the dogs to hold up the calf and Jason and I would rope it. We saddled up and rode over to where the calf was and sure enough there were a lot of llamas around but fortunately the people had them all haltered and tied up. Well, the horses didn’t care much for those llamas but we got by and into the field where the calf was. Sure enough, one more fence and the calf would of been in the neighboring subdivision and I don’t think those people would of appreciated that!

We all talked about it for a few minutes and got a plan together. It probably only took us about 5 minutes to get the calf stopped and bayed-up with the dogs! These Hanging Tree Cow Dogs make gathering cattle an easy job. Once the dogs got their job done, I was able to get a rope on her. Jason roped her back feet then him and Tim tied her down and together we slid her into the trailer. The reason we tied the calf and loaded her this way was because the guy had a small, open-top single axle trailer and we weren’t sure it would hold the calf.

The main reason it all went bad for the guy was not getting the calf loaded right. He had bought two calves and when he went to load them in the trailer, one went in and one went by the outside of the trailer. The one that didn’t make it in the trailer went wild and crazy because it couldn’t find its partner. When they tried to stop her she got more crazy and just started going through fences. That’s when he decided to call us!

Our best luck that day, besides how easy our dogs made the job, was a lady out there who took a lot of pictures and was kind enough to load them on a disc and mail to us.

Watch for the next story of my cattle gathering experiences. I have a lot of them to share. I’ll also put up some photo albums soon of some nice trips I’ve been on – to Montana and one wild, hot trip I took to Arizona.

The first time we worked her it was pretty much a wreck. She just flew into the heard and went wild. It took a bit but we got her under control.  After that first try, we started working her 2 to 3 times a week through the summer. Soon she became a really great working dog.

About a month into her training she got to where her owner could get her to lay down behind cattle then bring the cattle to him wherever he happened to be walking. He could even send her out to bring cattle to him. I believe he has maybe 12 cow-calf pairs and  he can move them wherever he wants with just him and his dog – while he’s on foot! He really enjoys working with his cows and his Hanging Tree Cow Dog and it sure has made gathering his cattle an easy chore.