Processing calves

(Jag)

We take in calves for another cattleman to feed for the winter. They go to our cousin for summer grass in May. As the order buyer gets the steers bought they're shipped to our house. We process (brand, vaccinate and pour) them as they come in. Usually 50 - 100+ at a time. We work around the boys' school work so that the four of us can take care of it without any extra help. We introduce the dogs to the calves as we're moving them in the corral and up into the tub and alley. We don't use the dogs once they're in the alley as it's solid. We've been doing this long enough now that my family runs calves through pretty quickly. I do think there's some sort of murphy's law that says when we get the bigger loads in it has to be cold, snowy or windy. Sometimes all of the above!

(Jag watching a bunch that's been worked already.)

Anyway, the dogs will bring a bunch of about 14-15 up the return alley and into the tub. We are there to open and close gates for them. I like to spread the work out between all of my dogs from time to time but I do have a few favorites when it comes to this work. Jag and Zac know the job so well that it would be easy to just take them all the time but Zac is retired and I don't want to shorten Jag's career by over using him. Dustin takes Kat and she really excels at this work. Well, as long as Dustin is there. It doesn't even do me any good to take Kat out if he's not there as she wants nothing to do with working for me anymore.

(Kat bringing another bunch to the tub.)

Cash has just started helping with it this year. He turned 2 in January. He can be a bit gung ho at times and wants to go after every steer that comes of of the chute but he's taking less reminders to lay still until needed now. He's also dealing with working with several different dogs at the same time and getting better about only taking his commands. He's proving to be a very useful dog. He's also figured out that he likes be next to the chute just in case one of the calves hasn't been castrated yet!

(Cash working with Jag as backup)

It can take several hours to get it all done and move the calves to pasture but we all really enjoy the time spent together. Even the boys really seem to enjoy it. They both would like to brand every calf but we make them trade off between that and bringing calves up the alleyway. When it's cold the fight is ON because both of them would like to be close to the branding stove! :-)

(Jag turning one back)

We need to get our own fall calves run through tomorrow. We'll have to gather and move them to the corrals first. Should be enough work to spread it out to a few dogs anyway. Nell and Jag will probably do the pasture work and we'll let Kat and Cash work the pens. It's supposed to be nice tomorrow. Not sure if we'll really know how to handle that.

Black Hills Stock Show

The winter is pretty slow for us on the trial front. We're so thankful to have the opportunity to run at the Black Hills Stock Show. It's a great chance to get together with other dog people and catch up. It's also a really good venue to get working dogs in front of the public. There are a lot of spectators there who become genuinely interested in working dogs and how they can help their operations. It's a nice thing to see.

It's not a sanctioned trial and there is one class. It's a figure 8 pattern around two barrels, Y chute and then a pen. It's a timed trial and as such is very easy for the crowd to understand. I'm not a huge fan of timed trials but have to admit they are an adrenaline rush.

This was Dustin's first year to compete there. He and Kat have come so far together it's really great to see. I ran Kat until she was 3 years old and fully trained. Dustin helped with everything dog related for 6 months to prove to us he was serious about owning a dog. When he had done that, Kat became his dog. He still helps with anything related to the dogs.

It's really fun for me to see the bond and the partnership these two have together. It reminds me quite a bit of the team Zac and I have always been. She always did well for me but she never really gave her heart over to me. She has more than done that with Dustin. She will do anything for him.

So, back to the Stock Show. Dustin and Kat didn't advance past the preliminary round but their run was something to be proud of. When Dustin started running her he would pretty much "default" to her judgement on everything. He wasn't truly running her but letting her run it all. In the last year that has completely changed and he is now a partner with her but has stepped up to be the handler. It took her awhile to trust that he really knew what he was doing and give the "reins" back to him but she has now. His timing, judgement, stock sense and attitude have really come a LONG ways as well. I'm SO proud of him!!

I had a good time getting together with friends as well as running my dogs. Jag is fighting a really nasty infection right now and it was clearly obvious to me that he wasn't himself out there. I really shouldn't have run him. Zac had wisdom and experience on his side and did a great job. He's so much fun to run at these kind of events. He LOVES crowds and it really gets him pumped up. He's very level headed though and handles whatever is thrown at him. He made it through the first two rounds to end up 4th in the finals. Good job Zac!

Looking forward to next year.

"Family"

I'd like to wax philosophical about family and all the different kinds and meanings that go along with the word but honestly I'm not feeling real great today so will be brief.

Anyway, the above picture is a partial "family" shot of the Jag and Reece (outside edges) with 3 of their half grown pups. Rock is the one I'm holding and he's mostly his mother's son in personality. I love that goofball! The two Jamie has are Rye (sitting up more) and Hope (mostly black). Hope is very much like Jag's side of the family and Rye seems to be a bit of both right now. The pups are all starting out really well and both Jamie and I are excited about them.

Now, for those of you who don't know Jamie. She has become one of my best friends in the last few years and to me feels more and more like a sister. We celebrate family highs and lows together. We talk dogs but more often than not, we discuss husbands, kids and ranching. So, this picture doesn't include all of my family (or even close to it actually) but it does have some important members of it!

Holidays

I hope everyone had a blessed Christmas and a great start to the New Year. I have enjoyed the last two weeks immensely! We had family visit and spent a good deal of time hanging out together. I'm very fortunate to be able to get together with quite a few of my extended family members for all of the holidays.

My dad is the pastor of our church, Living Word Community Church. We meet in the old Movie Theater in our nearby town (well 30 miles but it's our closest town). We're a non demoninational, ranching kind of church who live by the word of the Bible. We had quite a few special performances (singing, cowboy poetry, narrations, etc) by people in our area at our church this month. I'm always amazed by how much talent out little community has. Pretty exciting!

We start school again tomorrow. The boys aren't overly thrilled with it but I'm ready to get cracking on it again. We're taking down the Christmas decorations tonight. I'm not ready! It's pretty amazing when you think about the whole Christmas story. Maybe if we can all remember it more throughout the year we'll be better people for it.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Picture game

Okay, I got tagged to do the 6th picture game. I won't go into all the details as I think everyone else that blogs has already been tagged and played the game.

This was my "6th picture" in my archives on my computer. It is Jag holding the replacement heifers up to the cake pickup. I think it was when he was 2 so about 4 years ago. We had weaned these heifers in the corral and dog broke them for about 4 days or so. Then moved them to a section pasture where we fed them all winter. We'd drive over and cake them every morning. It only takes about 2-3 times before they figure out what the pickup is about. The dogs gather the draws and such and we wait in the middle of the pasture. We're keeping some calves of our own again this winter so the dogs get extra work again. Yay!

Winter weather and Survival

Well, we're all battening down the hatches again. We're under a blizzard warning for tonight and all of tomorrow. No one seems to be taking it lightly after the last storm. We're all praying we're going to be terribly over prepared for what is supposed to be coming. They're not predicting a lot of snow (5 inches) but they were only predicting about 6-8 last time and we got 2 feet. The part that's bad about this one is how much colder it's supposed to be. We're supposed to maybe reach 3 degrees on Sunday with windchills down to -30. So we have all the livestock fed down in the draws and I'm going to move sheep close to the house before it gets dark tonight. They'll have the big, machine shop to get hunkered down next to and if it gets to bad they'll just have to go in it. Mike hates that thought! We have the generator close by in case we lose power and the garage is full of firewood. So, I think we're about as prepared as we can be anyway.

Now, for my survival story from the last blizzard in November. A friend of mine lives north of me about 2.5 hours. She got hit pretty hard as well but thankfully didn't lose a lot of sheep. Unfortunately 2 of them could never be found. She was out feeding shortly after Thanksgiving and noticed the top of a sheep's head where a snow drift was melting. She knew she was dead but glad to know for sure now. Except, the head moved a bit! She and her husband went to digging and sure enough she was alive. This was now 24 days after the storm. She was extremely thin and soaked because of the melting snow but was able to stand in there. So when they got her dug out she walked to the barn and went right to eating hay and drinking. She's needed a lot of TLC and is still pretty thin but looks like she's going to make. It's just another reminder of how strong the will to survive can be! Simply amazing to me.

My main "men"

Well it's official, Zac has been retired from cattlework and most of the hard work on the place. He hasn't done the bulk of it in over a year now but we've finally decided he just can't do the tough jobs anymore. He still gets to do plenty of work around the place and some of the smaller trials but his body just doesn't keep up with his heart anymore.

Heart. It is the one word that describes him the best. I have worked a number of dogs now and have had and still do have ones that are more talented but if I ever have one that has as much heart as Zac has I will truly be blessed. I have never "lacked for dog" in any situation I've put him in. It's not that he's always the toughest (although I'd put him up against most I've seen) it's simply that his heart will carry him through whatever is asked of him.

I made to many mistakes in his training to even know where to begin. I started using him on the place to moves cows and calves at 6 months old. I put him in way to many situations that have aged his body way to rapidly. If given the chance to go back and do it again I'm not sure if he or I would know how to do it any differently though. We've always just been a team and no matter what needed done we figured out a way to do it. Probably not always the correct way and darn sure not with a lot of finesse but we always managed to "get 'er done"!

One of my favorite memories of Zac is during a huge fire in a neighboring pasture in August of 2003. In the mayhem a bunch of lambs got pushed into a tank and couldn't reach the bottom. They couldn't get any footing to be able to get out. I grabbed the ones closest to the edge and started pulling them out. Zac watched me for a minute and I was just taking my boots off to go in after the others, he jumped in without me asking. He started grabbing them by the base of their tails and pushing them to the edge for me to grab. He would then let go and go after another one. You just can't train that in a dog!

Zac just turned 9 on Thanksgiving day and besides my family there isn't one thing I'm more thankful for than to have this dog in my life. He has officially moved into the house. Some days he acts older than his age. Other days you'd think he's a pup again. He loves to set out sheep for the young dogs and back them up if something challenges them. One of his other favorite pastimes is watching TV with us in the evenings. And I DO mean WATCH. Not just sit there, he totally gets in to it. His favorites are anything on Animal Planet and Football. I don't think he'll ever see another tough job or really hard trial course again but I plan on enjoying every day I get with him.

So this brings me to my other "man", Jag. He wasn't as fast maturing as Zac but I also had an old reliable to fall back on while training him so didn't put him in the situations I just threw Zac into either. He was a challenge to start as he pushed on me and when I pushed back we often met with an explosion.

I have been amazed at his natural talent. He's the best outrunning dog I've ever owned and stellar at reading stock. My hubby always says he's got more finesse than most but doesn't always choose to use it! His sheer determination is what kept me going with him when he was young and I was getting frustrated. Nothing was going to get by him. I'm pretty sure he would have died trying rather than not get it stopped. Didn't matter what species it was.

Jag is now the dog that does the bulk of the tough work around the place. Dustin's dog, Kat, helps quite a bit as well but she won't work for me anymore. During the blizzard he was the dog who helped us find all the weaned calves and move them out of the draws. He was the one who worked for 10 hours the one day helping move neighbors cows around. I'm not sure I've seen a dog lose weight as quickly as he did during that 2 week time span. I fed him like crazy but he just put in way to many miles. Always ready for more whenever I asked.

One of my favorite memories of him is when I sent him after the ewes and lambs right at dusk. The coyotes had been giving us trouble and I wanted to move them closer to the house. He's always great at gathering everthing so I just went about my business and figured he'd show up soon enough. Well the sheep quit trickling in but no Jag. So I went looking. I called but no Jag. It took me quite awhile but I finally spotted him on a side hill just laying there. I hollered but he wouldn't come. I was getting a bit torked then so ran up there to give him a piece of my mind. When I got there he was laying next to a big hole that was very deep. I really couldn't see anything down there but just then I heard a faint little bawl. It was a lamb and I had to reach in well up to my shoulder to reach the little bugger. His mom had left him but Jag wasn't about to!

Jag just turned 6 and I'm hopeful that he has many years left of ranch work as well as on the trial field. I hope to spread the work out to my younger dogs more quickly now so I don't age him as quickly as I did Zac. It really is nice to know I have an old reliable again though!