This week's post is a guest post by Debi Anderson
We recently sold part of our herd to local farmers. In
each instance, I told the purchasers that all of our cattle are 'dog trained.' That didn't seem to impress them.
When each of the purchasers came to pick up their animals, I took our two border collies to the field with me. I sent the dogs out to get the cattle. Each dog went to opposite sides of the cattle, and drove them back to me, without the people having to chase them. Saturday, we had to retrieve our wandering bull. They went up a huge hill, and brought him down to us. All we had to do was command the dogs.
These dogs are relentless, and the cattle have figured out that they may as well go where the dogs want them to go, because the dogs will not give up. That is what I meant when I said the cattle are 'dog-trained.' Recently we had some balky steers who didn't want to go through a small gate. After we had worked them around the lot three times, we turned to dogs 'loose' and let them run the steers around until they were tired enough (the steers) to calmly walk through the gate. Maybe that was just their way of getting away from those pesky dogs.
I've seen each of them get kicked and rolled over, and get up and go right back. They think chasing and herding is the best fun in the world! Additionally, they are wonderful companion animals. They are highly intelligent, loyal and easily trained for 'just the fun stuff,' like fetch, hide and seek. If you have never seen a border collie work, take a moment and pull up a YouTube video and enjoy the fun.
Do you own a working dog? Give them some praise in the comments below.
Their website is http://www.andersongrassfed.com