Some highlights of the clinic:

We started a young “Trayer” pup in his quest to becoming a real cattle dog. When he walked into the clinic he was a great pet who was happy to lie on his back like a baby or have a ball thrown for him. We started him working with my seasoned cow veteran and personal “go-to” cow wrangling buddy, Hangin’ Tree Tyson. One of the best ways to get some of these young and inexperienced pups started is to have a solid dog to go in and show them the ropes. By the end of the weekend this pup was becoming a real working cow dog. With consistent work from his owner, this pup has the makings of a great partner out on the ranch and an obedient pet in the home.

An energetic Aussie/Border mix came in as a friend and companion dog looking to learn a little more respect around horses while riding both in the arena and out on the trail. We started with a little ground work letting this dog know exactly where the “Black and White” areas are. One of which was “you may never go ahead of me”! This translated very nicely into “you may never go past my horses shoulder; the safety zone is always beside or behind mom” once the owner was on a horse.

It’s always fun to have a family come in with their own projects and we got that with a little Corgi and a working-dog mix. Each of these folks came in with a desire to learn more about using their dogs for their intended purpose and getting a better handle on general obedience. The Corgi learned what the fundamentals of herding would be if there were chickens or ducks with a little goat thrown in the mix, along with a general obedience brush up. The working dog put in some hard and not always easy work on obedience. One of the owner’s goals was being able to have the dog “stay put” in the area for those times when there are several people moving around and no room for a pup to be running amuck. Success was achieved on this!

In the end all the dogs did a great job and the owners had a great time learning new ways of working with their dogs and getting some super results!

Thank you to everyone who came to Oct./Nov. clinic and for putting such great effort into your dogs. They were all great to work with and it was my pleasure working with everybody there.

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Marvin Pierce

I went to gather about 25 head of steers and heifers the other day, each of them probably weighing in at 1000 pounds or more. I called my friend Rick and asked him to come along. I brought my two best dogs, Tyson and Hangin’ Tree Trap, a young dog for some training and I even brought an extra horse for Rick to ride. I also told Rick to bring along his dog Maggie because I knew it was going to be a fight to get those steers and heifers out of the swamp and tall grass.

When Rick showed up I told him whatever you do, if your horse stops, “look” to see what’s ahead because it might be a spring. We were having a hard time getting the cattle out of the brush. The young dog kept circling the cattle and holding them up. The dogs finally got them stopped when my phone rang. Since it was someone I really needed to talk to, I answered.

About the time I answered the phone my horse stopped. Not thinking about what I was doing I bumped him with my heels and like the well-broke horse that he is, he went forward. Unfortunately, he went forward into a spring and sunk to his belly in bog water. When his chin hit the ground I was rolled off to one side but I sure as heck held my phone up high! Phones cost a lot of money! When my horse got out of the mud and I caught up with Rick who was sitting on his horse on top of the hill, I asked if he saw what happened. He said yes and he sure wished he had his camera with him! I’m sure glad he didn’t that time!

There are times when I don’t get to work my dogs much because I own Marvin’s Fencing and build a lot of fence for a living.

But any time I get a chance, I go help people gather cattle. This past week I was asked by a neighbor to help haul 4 loads of cows and calves and one bull – a total of 5 loads. I figured it’d be some good work for my dogs and I had it all set up for a smooth and easy day.

First problem: I didn’t take a horse with me and being on foot with this many cattle isn’t always good! Second problem: not all of the corrals had been opened up so there was some fighting to get the young calves in those corrals! There must have been about 50 head of cattle, some of them Charolais crosses which love to put up a fight! Good thing I had Hangin’ Tree Tyson and Hangin’ Tree Trap with me – it only took about 10 minutes with those dogs to get the cattle all penned up and then only a short amount of time to sort out the cows and calves we didn’t want hauled.

We loaded the trailer and left about 6 big calves for the next load. As we were leaving I saw that the main gate out to the fields had one of those cheap chain and latch combos. Well I know we had enough bailing twine laying around to reach to the moon but for whatever reason I decided not to worry about it. We dropped that first load of cattle off, picked up another load and delivered them somewhere else, then picked up a calf on the way back. When we were driving into the barn lot a few hours later I turned to my neighbor and asked him if all those calves in the fields were supposed to be there!

Well of course they weren’t! Right then I knew what happened. They pushed open a poorly secured gate! The only ones happy to see those calves loose were Hangin’ Tree Tyson and Hangin’ Tree Trap. Fortunately it only took those dogs about 5 minutes to get the calves back through the open gate and penned.

So remember to secure your gates, or else have some really good cow dogs with you!

During this same busy week I got a call asking if I wanted to go pen about 60 head of roping steers and of course I couldn’t pass up this opportunity to work my dogs!

So I loaded up a couple of horses and my dogs, picked up Nathan (link) along the way to videotape the whole event and had Stacey there at the other end for help and to ride my other horse

We drove for about an hour to reach the place only to find out the steers weren’t dog broke. Fortunately I brought along Hangin’ Tree Tyson and Hangin’ Tree Trap who are seasoned cow dogs. I also brought Dottie who is by Hangin’ Tree Sport and out of Cattle Master Chick. She’s only two years old and has never been on a cattle gathering like this so it was an education for her. Surprisingly, it only took about 30 minutes to get the roping steers out of the brush and into the barn even with Dottie along.
I’m feeling pretty good and thinking this all went easily enough and that we were all done with a short day of work, Stacy and I tied our horses back at the trailer, I put Dottie in the dog box and told Tyson and Trap to stay under the truck.

We were starting back to the barn on foot to help load the steers when I heard someone holler that the steers were busting out and heading for the hills! Well being that I know I was the last one through the barn lot gate I also knew it was left open. So I hollered at Tyson and Trap to come. I ran into the lot and see a lot of steers going through the gate.
I tell Tyson and Trap to “get ahead”. They get to the head steer but he won’t stop. They hit him again and again. By this time they’re a couple hundred yards out of the lot so I go back for my horse and Dottie. I’m yelling at Stacy to get the other horse as I take off after the herd on mine. It’s not looking like the dogs are going to get the steers stopped before they get to the brush and hills. This is not a good thing. I’m going at a pretty good clip on my horse after them when I get out about 400 yards and see the steers coming back around the corner straight at me with the dogs behind them! The steers see me coming and start turning on my dogs. I know if my dogs could of talked I would have got a good cussing. It took a few minutes before we got them headed the right way again but skill was on our side!

My dogs were hot and tired after that fiasco so when we got the steers in the corral I let my dogs drink water and cool off for awhile. We didn’t have the best set up with the corrals so it took us about another 2 hours to get all those steers in the barn again. Once again, time and effort could have been saved if there was a secure gate – and a shut one!

You can make a short day (or week) into a really long and hard day if you’re not careful with your gates. When you pen cattle make sure your gate is tied good and won’t come open. Bailing twine is cheap! And if you’re gates aren’t secure, make sure you’ve got good cow dogs!

Hope you enjoy reading this.
Marvin pierce

Let’s say a lady drives up to somebody’s house and the man comes out and says hello then his buddy comes up to the lady and starts sniffing on her. She would probably slap the snot out of him. Or knee him…or do both! The same thing should apply to the dog. It’s really sad when you see a lady get out of her vehicle and a dog goes over to her and puts its nose between her legs. No woman likes this and there is nothing funny about it. It’s very embarrassing and makes women feel uncomfortable.

I believe this behavior is due to a lack of training of the dog by the owner. Sometimes the owner doesn’t know how to solve this problem or where to go get help or that this is even a problem at all!

It’s really common for a dog to want to go sniff on a person when they show up but the owner should not allow this to happen. If the dog is trained right all the owner should have to do is say “no” when the dog starts toward the person.

To break this habit the dog-owner needs to teach the dog what “no” means. So how do I teach my dog what “no” means? Here’s an example; whenever my dog tries to jump on me I say “no” then step on his back foot or bump him with my knee. Then I call him to me and pet him but do not let him jump on me. That way he knows he can come up to me anytime but he cannot jump on me. When someone else comes over to my place I make sure they do not let my dog jump on them. I also tell them to say “no” to my dog and step on his back foot or knee him if necessary.

Sometimes a person can stop a bad behavior from happening just by staring at the dog and saying “no” in a very firm voice, but it is more effective to teach your dog the word “no” from the beginning.

Once you’ve started this training you’ll soon be able to just say “no” to your dog and he will stop whatever it is he is doing. He will have learned that “no” means that whatever behavior he is doing will get him in some hurt and trouble if he doesn’t stop and he’ll learn not to do that behavior.

A lot of people have a hard time teaching their dogs what “no” means. To me it’s a simple command that means “you cannot do what you’re doing – STOP”.

If you own a dog that sniffs on women or does other unwanted behavior and you can’t fix the problem yourself, you should think about contacting me for help in getting rid of unwanted behavior.

Check out Marvin Pierce’s Dog Obedience Classes and Videos

It all started with a phone call from Jon; some cattle were loose and running around on hwy 47 near Gaston Oregon. This is never a good thing! Jon said he was headed that way with a stock trailer so I asked him if he needed me to bring my dogs and horse and he said sure. I loaded up my Quarter Horse Badger and 3 dogs, Tyson and two of my Hangin’ Tree Cow Dogs.

When I showed up in Gaston, there were a few Yamhill County and Oregon State police officers milling about. I was told by the officers that there were 3 head of cattle down in the brush at the edge of the field and they couldn’t do anything with them. About that time, Jon called me from down in the field because he was trying to keep them from going out into a larger field. He asked what I wanted to do just as I was asking him what he wanted to do! I suggested that we have the road blocked my ODOT who had actually shown up by then.

I told the police officers that I would go down to the field with Tyson and see if he could control the cattle, then we would bring them up to the road and load them into Jon’s trailer because we couldn’t get the trailer into the field. I took Tyson and my horse into the field to see what we could do. The first thing that happened was the cattle brushed up. I was close enough to see what was about to happen and told Tyson to go bring them and the fight was on. One cow decided to kill Tyson or at least run him off. They fought it out for awhile then the cow and one calf came out of the brush and into the road. I just stayed down in the field on my horse where I could keep an eye on the other big calf. I thought I might have to rope them and tie them to trees. But I kept waiting and telling Tyson to bring them back. I could see some of the fight going on with Tyson and could hear the cow bawling. After a few minutes the cow and calf came back down into the field. I got Tyson to bring them back to the other calf.

By then Jon was backing his truck up to where the cattle had come out onto the highway. He set up a couple of panels and I had Tyson help me head them to the road. Once we got to the road, the cow kept trying to get around the panels and into the berry bushes. I threw a loop on the cow and drug her back to the field and had Tyson bring the calves and hold them till Jon got a couple more panels set up. Tyson and I got the cattle back to the road where the cow started into the trailer but then stopped. Luckily Tyson bites when I tell him so he bit the cow and she jumped into the trailer with the other two calves following her. We shut the trailer gate and it was over!

I have learned over the years that when people don’t know about me, my dogs and the services I offer they can end up chasing their cattle for days, sometimes weeks, until their only option left is to call the slaughter truck out and have their cattle shot. Then they have to find buyers, move the bodies, store the meat and so on. It’s a lot better to just contact me at www.piercescowdogs.com. I’ll come out with my horse and dogs, catch the cattle for you (usually within a day) and with a lot less headache – guaranteed!

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 day I was building a fence for some clients. The people owned a blue heeler and it was allowed to run loose. I was there early one morning and when the people left for work the dog started chasing and biting at the horses that were in the corral. I was there the whole day and this dog would chase the horses, then it would quit for awhile and then it’d start again. The people got home that afternoon and the dog ran out and laid in the drive way to greet them. When they got out of the truck the dog ran over and got its pat on the head.

The man came over to me and started talking and I asked him if he knew his dog had been chasing and biting at his horses most of the day. He said “no way”, his dog would never do that. So I told him he should sneak home some day and see what his dog was doing while he was gone!

I build a lot of fence on farms and I constantly see dogs that chase horses and cattle when they’re not suppose to. A lot of times the owners just laugh about it. If the truth was known I bet a lot of horses and livestock are hurt due to unruly, untrained dogs. Some people don’t understand the trouble a stock dog can cause. Of course once they get one of these dogs they fall in love with it and can never part with him or her. So they’re forced to try and figure out how to keep him out of trouble. My solution to this is keeping my dogs in nice kennels with runs and then turning them out to run and play at least every morning and every evening under SUPERVISION, even though they have a big acre-sized turnout. Of course I also work my dogs on cattle regularly and start basic obedience with them when they’re just pups. Between the cattle training, the constant obedience work, nice kennel setups and good supervision I know my dogs won’t be causing a big wreak with the other livestock.

I have heard all the excuses for letting a dog ride loose – “My dog has never been tied in the back of my truck.” or “I have hauled my dog loose all his life.” Some people even tell me my dog would probably fall out because of the way I drive! This is of course another good reason to tie your dog! I’m sure these excuses have worked for a lot of people. I remember when I was a kid and you never saw kids wear seatbelts. Obviously the rules changed when we realized just how dangerous that kind of thing was! The same kinds of dangers apply to dogs in the back of trucks and even more so because they’re less protected when riding in the back of a truck bed.

I have had so many people tell me about their dog falling out of their truck and getting run over. Just a few months ago a man called me and said he needed a good dog quick because his best dog fell out of the back of his truck, got run over and killed.

I know its a little extra effort to tie your dog in the back of the truck or put him in a dog crate. But, when you get to where you’re going it will still be there and alive. Make sure to also use a chain and not a rope as the dog can chew through a rope and get loose.

I suspect I’ll hear from some people about how they tied their dog in the truck and he hung himself. Well I believe if you tie him so he doesn’t have enough slack in the rope to get over the side, then he can’t fall over the side!

My dog never rides in my truck are anyone else’s truck without being tied or in a crate.

Good luck hauling your dogs!