So, today started out pretty rocky, and I was a half hour late to my appointment to meet my new friend, B. (I am going to hid her name as while I may put myself out there, I don’t think it’s good to put other people out there without their permission.)
It’s an hour drive from where I live. Exit the highway, head east into the hills and I’m driving through some amazing canyon terrain. Part of me wonders if I’ve over shot it, but I know enough about homesteads by now to keep going anyway. The road gives way to dirt, which gives way to sweet river crossings that my 20-year old 4-Runner eats up while squealing in glee the entire way.
We get to the gate and there B is with her three adorable, patient, and precocious young children. We met on the Internet after I posted desire to work livestock. Today was a discovery for both of us, but I had a feeling I’d like her – that she was my people.
And, I turned out to be right. As we pull up to her main area and the kids unload and some seriously beautiful cattle dogs come up to say hello, we kind of get an eager feel for eachother and I tell her my story and she tells me hers. She’s hoping that I can use her stock and in turn help her learn how to teach her cattle dog to fetch and take flank commands.
I tell her I would really like to see her work with her dog first (this was Kathy’s advice) and she was really adamant that her dogs just do chores and it’s nothing to see, so we and the kids and her blue dog walk out to the hill/pasture and take a gander.
She’s got about 40 kids and goats and some mixed sheep in there and we talk about the plan. I tell her probably the goats are the best bet as she is worried that if the sheep get worried they’ll take off and not come home, whereas the goats stay calm. Sounds good.
Problem is, there’s no pen. It’s just an open field on a hill with chaparral-covered hills beyond it, a road lined with deer—proof fence, her, her dog, her kids and me and Rippa. I took Fury along for the ride but told her that Fury wasn’t going to be put out on the sheep – I just wanted her to have a nice car ride.
SHe’s like, “Can you just send her to gather them up?”
Nope. Not good enough for that yet.
“Well, maybe you can just get one part of the two herds?”
Okay, so we try that. I’m kind of wondering what’s gonna happen with the other herd that’s only 100 feet away, but Rippa has managed to stay focused working sheep while cows stood around, so maybe . . . The two herds separate, and I lay Rips down, get between her and the goats and tell her to get around. Not so nice. There’s too many, they’re not condensing into a group, and I can’t help her get out with my stick so the first thing she does is heel one of the bigger goats. I call her off and stop and think for a minute as everybody moves further up the hill.
B notes it’s funny, as that’s the goat her dogs always bite too, so I figure there’s a reason, but it still wasn’t very controlled and I wasn’t going to let crazy happen.
“You think your other dog can do it?”
Fury is pretty good at the outrun, but again, two years off. I am not going to risk it today. New plan.
So we’re standing on the hill with B down below kind of following us as I try to get the goats back into a herd and stalled. No such luck. They divide into two groups and I yell that I’m going to try to get them to her deer fence and see if that works. Rippa, for her part, does a lovely job of driving them pretty calmly as I remind her to “wait.” But I put her down to push them back down the hill. They go laterally to the fence so I leave her there (again, goooooood dog) and try to push myself. Even 100 meters out from Rippa, and 100 meters out from me, the goats won’t stall so I can get them set up. B notes they probably want to regroup with the rest of the herd, and she’s probably right and, with memories of messing Fury up by trying to make this workable, I tell I can’t work the sheep.
”Cows?” she suggests.
I wasn’t expecting that, but any exposure Rippa can get to cows is good by me.
She keeps three cattle. A bull and two cows that are beef breeds, but she milks. We let Fury out of the truck along with her dogs and we all ride up in the mule with the dogs following us (she points out this takes the edge off them if they’re tired, which is a great idea).
When we get there, they’re up in the top of a hill in chaparral, no pens, so I figure I’ll call it good if I can get them moving a little and fetching along the road. If nothing else, some “legal” exposure for Rippa seems like a good idea. I do have the ability to call her off.
B settles in with the kids in the shade and just lets me go to it. She’s so mellow. She keeps yelling encouragement while I feel like a crazy yokel on her goats and saying it’s good for the dog and such. Sometimes you need to run into someone like that. I am all worried that I’m going to piss off these people and she’s as chill as it comes.
Anyway, I tie up Fury and let Rippa off and ask her to get around. These cows are pretty used to people and dogs and she goes up to them and they just look at her. I don’t have to worry about her heading – she’s standing there, trying to turn them, and they’re like, “Uhhhhh, nah.” She won’t hit their polls and she doesn’t really want to get behind them so it’s just a lot of snarling and waiting for something to happen, so I call her off and think this is a situation where Fury might get a little more respect first, even though she hasn’t been formally worked in a few years.
Tie Rippa up, let Fury off. Fury quickly gets behind them, but they turn around on her and go, “Yeahhhh, we’re not moving.” If I had a camera, I would have had some GOREGEOUS stand off photos of Fury and the cattle, but neither one was giving. She’s trying to move them – she barks, moves in, and they just move back at her. She doesn’t want to hit their heads but I’m going, “Ssssssss-skit” and she moves in but won’t bite. I remember Kathy telling me that she’s so small, she better make a big show to get their respect or she’s getting trampled so I go, “KILL IT” (which is sort of her command to go hog wild on a stuffed toy) hoping maybe that extra bit would motivate a bite, but she just stands her ground. I think maybe I have too much pressure on the cows and back up, but nothing. Finally they do give, and they head straight into the chaparral. Crap. Now I’ve lost the cows.
I think, well, maybe I can at least get them back on the road so I can ask B what she does with her dogs but they get so into it that I can’t do anything. I go down the hill a bit and tell Fury to get around, which she does, but again, she’s not moving the cattle. I try to physically help her by pushing them myself, and they just ignore me, too.
I was thinking maybe they were just too used to people and dogs and as I write this, I am more convinced that’s the issue. If they were range cattle, which is what I’m used to working, they would have been a lot more easy to move off of both Fury and I. Driving home, I kept thinking, “Man, I really am a yokel if I can’t move cows with my dogs after all this time,” but, and correct me if I’m wrong, if B has got her cattle dogs on them, and they aren’t really trained so much but bite them pretty liberaly when needed, and she comes out and milks them, they probably don’t care about me or my dogs: my little dogs trying to use finesse really are going to fail, and me helping won’t matter. I can walk right up to them and pet them.
So, I bail and call Fury off and we go off to find B and her kids, who are still just chilling under a tree. I apologize for looking like a yahoo and she says didn’t expect much but I have control over both dogs and that’s way more than most people. We talk a little about her dogs and her friend that wants to sell her a kelpie and how she really does want to get back into trialing. I feel a little more confident in our relationship now and offer that she probably needs pens to be able to get control on both her dogs (and mine) before trying to do stuff like this and she agrees. We head back down to my car and her home.
So . . . yeah, that’s not going to work out. But B was really cool and it was neat to meet a kindred spirit my age trying to make the ranch life work. My dogs and her dogs got along fabulously, and my dogs even liked her kids. She’s good people and I hope that with me getting my own sheep and maybe her building up pens, we can kind of work this out together. It would be nice to have dog friend like her.
And, as icing to this story of Epic Fail, as I’m saying goodbye, Fury and Rippa are trucking around with the other dogs, looking at the ducks and the chickens and then Fury finds a kid (baby goat) out somewhere random away from the herd and . . . I don’t know what she was trying to do to it – stop it? Treat it like a puppy? Chase it? But basically she starts pushing it around with her nose all gentle like, but follows it as it tries to escape, and I call her off and she totally ignores me. It honestly looked like she was trying to clean it and it wouldn’t let her but she was obsessed with achieving this goal. She keeps pushing it down the road as it tries to escape and she’s trying to get her nose in its ear and I’m chasing her and yelling at her and then Rippa comes up and I am like, “Oh geez, this is gonna be bad” but Rippa actually listens when I say to leave it, whereas my usually totally obedient veteran Fury dog is enjoying pushing this poor little kid down the hill. I am screaming my head off and apologizing to B who is like, “It’s okay, she’s not trying to hurt her.” But OMG, dog, STOP DOING THAT AND COME.
Eventually I got her back, but MAN. I looked like a screaming fool. Partly I just was overcompensating because I wanted to be respectful to B and her livestock, but partly, dude, FURY, REALLY? I think she wants a pet pygmy goat.
B, "Don’t worry about it, seriously, I probably sound like that with my kids.”
What a day. I think I need my own sheep. Don’t you? That or, man, I really got to throw in the towel on this one because I have no business doing this.
I probably should have taken one look at the situation and said, “Yeah, my dog can’t handle this yet.” But I’m learning. At least no harm done and B got an amusing diversion to her day.
I keep imagining what it must have been like to watch me crash through the bushes with Fury and the cows screaming at her to GET AROUND! AHH!! COME! WITH ME!! GET AROUND!! AHHHHH! and silence. And here suddenly I am with my broken stock stick and a dog with a big smile on her face. At least Fury got to finally have a sanctioned livestock adventure.
