New Litter

Well we now have a new and LAST litter on the ground. 1 male & 6 females. They are almost 4 weeks old and growing like weeds. I say last litter and I mean it this time ... just getting to old for all this. I will keep the male pup and possibly train up a couple of the females.

My rearing protocol is to introduce raw meat to the pups at 2 weeks. This is just a small little ball of hamburger for each pup. This helps to get the gut going sooner and allows me to introduce other foods earlier. At 3 weeks we start with the milk replacer in a puppy bowel which gets the lapping mechanism going. As the pups are growing so fast it helps mum out also. She continues to feed until she has had enough of them usually around 5 to 6 weeks. I keep her in with them after that until she tells me that that's it and turns them over to me.

Shortly after we introduce the milk replacer, I begin to add pablem and raw meat to the mix. At 4 weeks I start to add puppy dog food, a little at a time and then gradually replace the milk replacer with water. Usually around 6 weeks they are on puppy food soaked in water. At 7 weeks they start on the dry stuff.

I'm hopeful that the snow will be going so that I can move them to an out door rearing pen. With spring whelping this is where they would have started there lives but in the cold winter I like to start them in a semi enclosure (indoors with a little warmth).

Over the years I have developed this procedure for raising pups with what I consider a high degree of success. The pups are physically and menally tough and usually go on to be an excellent working partner.

The Mother: The mother's name is Kate and she is New Zealand Heading dog/Border Collie. She is 18 months old and works Cattle instinctively. This winter her main job was to keep cattle
away from the feeders while I put the hay in and then bring them in. Any seperating or just general moving the cattle also was one of her jobs


The dad: Bandit is a New Zealand Heading dog who works sheep (2000 head) along with other members of his family. He also works cattle on the ranch (80 head).

Both dogs are well rounded, love to work, and are as good a companion as you will find any where.

If anyone is interested in reserving one of these pups, remember this is my last breeding, or you would like additional information, email to crdogs@xplornet.com

Watering the dog

A recent post on FB commented on water and dogs drinking habits. I would like to tell a personal story about my main working dog, Jim, and water.

Early one morning during the summer (a few years ago – the dog was aged 3 years old) I was moving a flock of sheep, approximately 100, from a pasture to some grazing off property. When the job was done my dog and I returned to the barn to do some work. I notice that he was acting strange, sitting and staring off into a direction where there was no stock. He obviously was in distress and had swelling in the belly area which I took to be serious. I called the vet and then took him in where he was diagnosed as having “twisted gut”, a very serious situation which any horseman will recognize. I gave the go a head for immediate surgery which had 1/2 his stomach and his spleen removed. The stomach was then stitched to the wall cavity which would prevent this from happening again.

He recovered despite a 5% chance of survival by the vets and eventually, in 6 weeks, returned to light duties. He continued to gain strength and over the years has been my number 1 dog. He is now 13 years old and still working albeit at a slower pace. He is one tough dog.

Now what has this to do with water you ask? Well after this event I racked my brain on what could possibly have caused this when, I could find no reports or evidence of this happening to this breed. My dog is a New Zealand Heading dog so naturally I did some searching in Kiwi land including the Royal New Zealand Veterinarian College. No reports were found. I was somewhat stumped until about 2 months after the operation when I met an old timer rancher and as we talked over my dog he said that it was a common occurrence in Border Collies. These are the dogs that work all day every day year around. He told me that they have to keep a tight watch on the amount of water they ALLOW the dog to drink. If the dog drinks more water then the stomach can process it can slosh around eventually twisting the gut. The dog is tied up at the end of the day fed and given a bucket of water. In the morning the dog is found dead. More research into this and talking to many people the conclusion I have drawn is that water is the culprit. To date I have not been challenged on this assumption.

The moral of the story is that dogs do not need a continued unlimited supply of water. Teaching the dog to drink responsibly is what is needed. To date I have not had any more problems like this with any of my dogs. I ensure that they are hydrated and they know when to quit drinking. Know your dog and be aware of him like you would your partner/friend. Look out for them and they will look out for you.

Be who you are and say what you feel....
Because those that matter...
don't mind...
And those that mind... don't
matter."

Working the young dog

Well as our job continues my little Kate has her ups and downs. This could be attributed to the fact that she is pregnant.

As in all training, repetition is the key to success. I pick up a bale on the tractor and place it over the round bale feeder then get out of the tractor and with my main dog start to move the cattle away from the feeder. The young dog usually moves right in with my main dog and start to move the cattle away. This is when I start to introduce the command "walk up"

It is important that once you have the cattle away from the feeder that you stop the dog. I use the command "there".

Doing this procedure over a couple of weeks usually is all that is required before the dog start doing it on there own. This is the sign of a useful working companion.

To finish off each feeding session I like to
add a little more training in such as moving the
cattle together. Again I use the walk up command.
From this training I will start to move to the gathering
command,which incidentally, she has been doing it on her
own up to this time. This would be a good time to start putting commands to it. I want to do this slowly as she has it figured out what way to go around the cattle.

Onward and upward .. the training continues.

Feeding Cattle using dogs

Well it's that time of the year again. Each year at this time I, along with my dogs, head north to look after a ranch for 2 months while the owners get away for a holiday.... hmmmmm what's wrong with this picture ... I'm here and the owners are in Mexico??????

One of my main jobs here is the daily feeding of the cattle. I feed using round bale feeders and when the cows are hungry it can be a real gong show around the feeders. Not only that it can be very dangerous; first to the cattle ... I'm lifting large round bales that can kill if they are dropped on the cattle, and secondly, when I am backing up or moving around with the forks down it is a potential mine field for the cattle. and Thirdly, when I am cutting the plastic and netting from the bale I'm in danger from hungry cows.

So what is a person to do? Well the obvious answer is to use dogs to keep the cattle back until the bale is placed and I'm out of the way. Of course that is exactly what I do and it not only make the job a lot easier, it gives the dogs the work that they so want to do and enjoy doing it.

Where do you start in training your dog to do this very valuable and useful job? I like to start away from the work area and do a little basic training. If you have been following my post you will know that I'm not really big on commands but there is one that I always teach my dogs before I let them do this type of work. The command is "behind". I want my dogs behind the tractor and hay wagon when we are moving to the work site. The second command is "get them or get out". I want the cattle away from the feeder and the dogs in the early stages need to learn this command. Eventually both of these commands will be used only rarely as the dog begins to understand and will get the job done.

In my next post I will give more detail in keeping the cattle away from the feeders using my partners.

Trialling

I mentioned in my last post that I would talk about trialling in relation to working stock dogs. My comments may be somewhat controversial and are general in nature.

To start with, a blanket statement: “Trialling dogs do not make good working stock dogs. Working stock dogs can become good trialling dogs”.

Now that the roar of the trialling fraternity has died down somewhat I will tell you why. When a trialler takes a pup for training, in most cases, they will start the dog in a round pen and eventually start putting commands to the pup to cover “every” move the pup makes. As training moves along the commands become more intense and increase in numbers. Then it's off to the pups first trial and what do you hear?If the pup has been trained to whistles, then all you hear is a constant stream of whistles. If the pup has not been trained to whistles then what you hear is constant commands, usually hollered at the poor pup. The poor pup does not get a chance to use it's God given instincts to get the job done. And if you think that this only happens to the young dog and inexperience handler, take a listen to the open handlers when they step up to the post.

Now take a non trial trained dog ie working stock dog, one that has been allowed to use it's instinct, and you will see a very different performance. Again, usually, the dog will work more on it's own, using its head with little input from the handler. I should qualify handler: I'm referring to a level headed calm handler. An experienced handler and mature experienced dog will seem to be working in sync even if the stock doesn't want to join in the show. Will the team get the job done? Yeesss. Will they be as successful as the accomplished trialler? Maybe. Chances are the trialler will win because they are use to working under the time constraints of a trial. But you take that trialler and there dog out in the real field and then see who gets the job done most efficiently and with out any significant loss of weight of the cattle/sheep with minimal stress.

I remember trialling at the Calgary Stampede, not very successfully I might add, and a number of participants and general audiance coming to me and saying how they liked the way my dog worked. Of course he is a working stock dog. I rest my case

Be who you are and say what you feel....
Because those that matter...
don't mind...
And those that mind... don't
matter."

Trialling

I recently attended a sheep dog trial, unfortunately I was not competing. I provided a demonstration before the trial to explain to the audience how sheep dogs are trained. Most of the audience were either town folks who new very little about stock dogs, or those farm folks that did not use dogs in there daily farm work.

I have found over the years when participating in trials that there was NEVER an explanation as to what was actually happening. Some times, very rarely, a diagram of the course was put up where folks could see it but for all intents and purposes it was for the competitors. The exception to this is the Calgary Stampede World stock dog competition. An other problem was that the competitors kept to themselves and away from the limited viewing area. It was almost as if the competitors did not want to talk to non-competitors. It's almost like this is a private club and spectators are only tolerated.

The trial I attended was a fall fair held at Burns Lake British Columbia, the announcer gave a running commentary of what was going on, explaining the whys and wherefores of each run as well a little about each competitor. Not only that, the announcer sat in stands so what he was explaining was what everyone was seeing. With really tough sheep it was amazing to see how long spectators stayed, yes even the open competitors were not doing well. There was a lot of good feed back and with the competitors making themselves available to anyone who had questions the overall interest was high and made for an enjoyable experience for all.

I believe that this approach to this “sport” promotes it, as well as interest in stock dogs in general. Who knows, this may even bring more people into the world of trialling.

Be who you are and say what you feel....
Because those that matter...
don't mind...
And those that mind... don't
matter."

No Sheep on the Range

In our part of the country, ranchers have the ability to turn there cattle out on Crown land (Government controlled land) often called "range" each summer. This is similar, but yet not, to community pastures found in most ranching communities in North America.

In BC I am not aware of any range that includes sheep. Apparently the ranching community, namely the Cattleman's Association will not allow it even though it is controlled by the Ministry of Forest (in name only). I wonder who is in charge. Now any arguments in support of not allowing sheep on range has no basis in common sense, science or logic. Regardless of the efforts of sheep people, they have not even been allowed to make a presentation in support of allowing sheep on the range.

There is a number of very good reasons to allow sheep with cattle on the range. Among some of these are:
1. Sheep usually will eat what cattle won't,
2. Predator control: Sheep will have a human and usually sheep dogs with them which naturally will control predators.
3. Range management. Despite what MoF people say, they are not managing the range. It is left up to ranchers to do it and if you have ever been out there you can see that the job is not being done very well. This is a general statement as there are some ranchers who do an excellent job and others who have no idea where there cattle are the whole summer. There are a number of good common sense arguments for including sheep on the range. Just take a look at the rest of the world.

We are all in this for a common purpose, to provide food to our population. Let's get our act together .... shake your head.

Mean while back to training.