Post by thystledown on Sept 6, 2023 14:27:05 GMT -5
Had to move three 16 month old steers out of brush country and swampy ground this morning. I took all 3 dogs. Tess and Topper tend to work always upright and rarely grip below the hock. Tess got kicked in less than 300 feet. Yipped, but kept on working. Topper does a good job getting big at heads to stop and turn them and knows the command to "get around them" from working goats (I actually made an attempt at teaching formal directed herding like in trials with him). But at the heels, he too got kicked, but only glancing as he's still young and athletic. TEAL however is my star today. This was her first time out in a pasture and I haven't trained her on stock much at all. She's watched and helped with little jobs--but nothing in open space like this. My goodness is she keen. She's a bullet. And she goes low for heels! One recalcitrant steer had to hold his leg out and shake her off before hustling his fat behind after the others. Yet she didn't run through the herd and scatter them or press too hard if they were moving. In fact, if they were moving well, she tended to quit and come back to where I was. But that's because she just turned 2 and has not done this before. She wants to be sure she's doing it right. I don't like to chatter at a working ES. In my life, ES work alone out-of-sight to move dairy cattle. These guys don't get that much practice as beef don't require moving as often as pastured dairy. But I didn't have to try bounding through brush and weeds and swamp to move these guys. We have ATV's and horses, but neither would get through this ground quickly or easily; certainly not as fast as those steers could move. And the steers did NOT want to go where I was sending them. But with 3 ES on 3 steers there was no chance of not going where I wanted them. These boys have only been worked with dogs, just Topper, once before. They had a tendency to turn and charge the dogs. This made the dog in the line of fire skip out of the way while the others came in from the side. Such fun! There is NOTHING so fun as working ES in such circumstances! Reminds me why I have this breed instead of the Keeshonden and Standard American Eskimos I used to show in AKC shows. My gorgeous champion fluffies got a lot of attention on the streets, but my ES get the work done on the farm. When I moved back to a farm in NY and returned to owning livestock, getting an ES was a foregone conslusion. As my father and grandfather used to say, "I don't know how anyone gets the job done on a farm without one."
The photo of Tessie and Teal show how laid back they are when not working. This is also a desireable trait in the traditional ES cow dog of this region. You can't have a dog pacing and upsetting the dairy cows at milking time. They need to lay down and be still.
The photo of Tessie and Teal show how laid back they are when not working. This is also a desireable trait in the traditional ES cow dog of this region. You can't have a dog pacing and upsetting the dairy cows at milking time. They need to lay down and be still.