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It's Hard To Do Without a Good Cow Dog For a One Man Operation

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BeeMaster2:
My buddy Benny Joe has been doing this for 60 years. As a matter of fact last week he brought four of his dogs here so that I could castrate one young bull that refused to go in my Shute area. The dogs job is to keep the cows in a circle and Cheyenne and I moved the cows in the direction we wanted them to go. This was the first time my cows were worked by dogs. My matriarch broke out of the heard and ran into a swamp. It took some doing to get them out. Once out of the swamp, we were able to walk them to the Shute pen and separate out that bull and get the job done.

Many times ranchers have called Benny Joe to come and get their cows out of the forest or other peoples land after trying for an entire year to get them out with 5 cowboys. He goes in with just his horse and dogs and gets everyone of them out in just a few hours. It is fun to watch the them work.
I?ve seen him get all but one yearling in the Shute pen and then spend a couple of hours getting that one young bull in the pen. It was a really hot evening and eventually the dogs got yearling in a pond and they would bite the bulls nose and hold on. That young bull came running back to the pen with a bloody nose and went straight in without any dogs anywhere near it. They were trying to cool off before coming back.
The funny thing was that we didn?t really need that bull in the pen. He told me if he let that one bull go, the next time more cows would run out of the heard.
Jim Altmiller

Ben Framed:
Cows not use to dogs working them will usually react this way the first time or two they are worked by dogs. Cows in a swamp are all but impossible to round up without the help of good cow dogs.. I don't know how I missed your post Jim, but thanks for sharing the experience.

Phillip

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