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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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!