Fall is a busy time at my house. There are lambs to sort and sell. Yearling steers and spade heifers to gather and ship to the feedlots. Calves to precondition (vaccinate) and cows to preg check. The cattle work goes on all over the county at our neighbors as well. Ranching communities such as ours still trade help for cattle work. So we go help them work their cows and they come help us. The spring cattle work is very similiar as well. I wouldn't trade it for anything!
One thing that we don't trade help on is anything to do with the sheep. Mainly because there isn't anyone else within a 100 mile radius that owns sheep besides us. Also, we can get everything done we need to do with the dogs.
We just shipped lambs out last week. I used several different dogs. We gathered them and counted the ewes out of the pasture to make sure we had everything. Uno and Cash did the bulk of that work as their young and need as much experience as they can get now. Once we got to the corrals the older dogs got me started as the young dog's rested. We hold the big bunch in a pen and then sort off 10 or so at a time with the dogs to put in a tub to run up the sorting alley. The dogs just love this work!
This was Cash's first time helping load the tub and alley. Wow, did he excel at it. He's a very level headed young dog with enough power and presence to move anything. I think I'm going to really enjoy him.
Uno loves this work as well but gets a bit more wound up. She thinks heeling sheep in tight quarters is what life is all about. She settled in after a bit though. I have to say that I have worked this dog pretty darn hard at times and have yet to find the limit of her stamina. She is such a great work dog!
Okay, I'll try to keep up with more of what's going on around here now.
2 comments:
I love a dog with that kind of stamina!
Now how about a Tess update? I put Bart on the sheep last night for the first time in about 10 weeks and he looked nice. Not ready to start but nice. And he didn't limp afterwards! Whew.
Robin,
Tess kind of rides a line between wanting to be silly and grab a hold of whatever sticks out and being stellar. Just depends on her mood and even more so MINE. She's not really ready to start yet but has a good stop and recall on stock now. She feels stock very well and looks like she'll have a nice outrun. My feeling on her now is that she'll be an easy dog to train. I need to get some new pics of her. She's tall, lanky girl.
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