Borderlines

[Pam Wolf]

I think there are many reasons for a lack of trial handlers, cost being one. I tried on several occassions to put on a trial, asked around for interest and none were interested UNLESS it had a big purse. Wanting to keep it small I opted out of holding trials.

 

I know some who have slowed down on their trialing due to the costs. Entry fees are out of reach for many I know. But entry fees are nothing when compared with the price of gas, travel time, need to find/pay someone to watch things at home for the weekend, lodging (even camping costs for food etc) etc it is an expensive hobby. Those I know who farm simply cannot afford it. There is no where near the number of hobby trialers in this part of the country (it has grown but nothing compared with the east coast).

 

To Julie( I think that was the poster) sheep attitudes are different here. Those who have sheep generally do not use dogs. If they do then they are VERY particular about how their sheep are handled and do not want to risk them at trials. Some of this can be attributed to arena trials where the work is less than stellar. Much of it is attributed to farmers simply not knowing what is possible in good work.

 

Additionally this is a cattle area primarily. The cattlemen do NOT want dogs with their cattle-probably less than the sheep people do. Most work their dogs on a long rope or chain. It is ineffective and they have either not seen/been made aware of a better way (or the dogs cannot do it) or they do not want to take the time or put the money into the training of a good dog.

 

I have seen very good courses for cattle that combine field gathers and arena type chutes and panels. IMO this is the best of both worlds.

[Liz P]

I was looking at the trials that are already being listed for the Midwest this coming year. My biggest problem will be my work schedule. I think there was only one I could drive to and back in a day. The rest are too far away and require several nights in a hotel or tent ($$$ and time off from work). As a veterinarian in a smaller hospital, I can't just keep taking off the busiest days of the week to pursue my hobby.

 

I didn't realize how spoiled I was living in the Northeast until I moved out here! I used to have my choice of many excellent trials, all within a few hours drive.

[Diana A]

To Julie( I think that was the poster) sheep attitudes are different here. Those who have sheep generally do not use dogs. If they do then they are VERY particular about how their sheep are handled and do not want to risk them at trials. Some of this can be attributed to arena trials where the work is less than stellar. Much of it is attributed to farmers simply not knowing what is possible in good work.

 

Additionally this is a cattle area primarily. The cattlemen do NOT want dogs with their cattle-probably less than the sheep people do. Most work their dogs on a long rope or chain. It is ineffective and they have either not seen/been made aware of a better way (or the dogs cannot do it) or they do not want to take the time or put the money into the training of a good dog.

 

 

These kinds of attitudes really worry me as far as the future of the working border collie. Is anything being done to educate these people or assist them with economical ways to have a good dog (i.e. training help, etc)? Fewer people using dogs to work, leading to fewer trials, leading to even fewer hobby herders, leading to fewer people seeking quality dogs and therefore less incentive for those who breed good dogs - a downward spiral that does not sound like good news. In my area there are quite a few large field trials and I have never even seen an arena trial except on Youtube, and entries are so huge that many get turned away. I didn't know that things were so different in other parts of the country.

[Pam Wolf]

It is a one at a time thing right now. Hence why earlier in this thread I have tried to emphasize the need for education to the farmers about the value of a good dog. I think if the ABCA would produce a GOOD brochure on the value of a good dog, emphasizing how to select, how a BC works and the types of tasks a well trained dog can do would be of great benefit. These brochures could then be available for breeders to purchase at a minimal cost and distribute to local feed stores,4H, FFA etc to help promote good dog work.

 

One big thing is dog prices here are much lower than most of the country. This does not encourage people to breed for quality (and a long history of breeding for quantity doesn't help either). Most farmers do not want to pay over about $250.00 for a pup or a yearling dog and it has been this way for many years. there are still BC litters being sold for under $100.oo and many of these are very poor quality-some registered some not. Once a farmer buys such a dog he is often turned off dogs in general as working dogs.

 

Additionally the history of Father, Grandpa etc using a dog on a rope is long and hard to break. Most farmers I know won't pay for a good well trained dog and don't have the time/money to get one trained or take lessons.

 

Even though people often stop to watch when I am working dogs, or tell me how much they like watching the dogs work, they either don't want to put the time/money into the training, nor do they want to learn how a BC works, it is much simpler to put the dog on a rope.

 

Many I speak with do not know a dog can go around and fetch cattle! Many years ago I sold a pup to a local cattleman. He was complaining about the stray he had picked up recently. Seems the stray would go out around the cows and bring them to him when he went out to feed! When I asked him what was wrong with the dog bring in the cows, he actually looked embarrassed and said:" I knew a dog could fetch sheep and dairy cows but it never occurred to me that a dog could fetch beef cattle!"

 

Yes, your area is MUCH different from around here. I go up there and it is quite different. I have lived out this way for over 30 years now and it is very frustrating. Periodically we see an increase in interest then it dies out. I have worked with a few kids. One, now graduated from college, is showing interest in continuing with working BC's. For his high school graduation, several trialers took up a collection to send him to Scotland to work with Bobby Dalziel for a couple weeks. We have a new and upcoming youth we are collecting for now. But the process is slow, so it is one at a time and hopefully the word will spread.

[Diana A]

It is a one at a time thing right now. Hence why earlier in this thread I have tried to emphasize the need for education to the farmers about the value of a good dog. I think if the ABCA would produce a GOOD brochure on the value of a good dog, emphasizing how to select, how a BC works and the types of tasks a well trained dog can do would be of great benefit. These brochures could then be available for breeders to purchase at a minimal cost and distribute to local feed stores,4H, FFA etc to help promote good dog work.

 

 

Maybe producing some type of video would help as well, so they could actually see it - a calm well trained dog doing efficient work. Do most farmers have internet these days and could be directed to Youtube video from the ABCA page? It probably even needs to go above and beyond a brochure - it's hard to train or even work a trained dog based on reading a brochure - it takes an actual person to do a little hand holding. Do farmers usually take Ag courses or have some type of resource that ABCA could use as a springboard for some one on one education? I know ABCA has the web page saying go to a trial to find a good dog, but it looks like for many this is not feasible even if they were interested (especially if you're talking about long trips and overnight stays), and a big part of the problem is even getting them interested in the first place.

 

Question - would a trained dog earn back money spent on the dog? Is that a feasible arguement that could be used to persuade someone to invest in a good dog? Or is the type of work they need done really served just as well with a 'dope on a rope' type of dog?

[Pam Wolf]

Yes, many do have internet, but often in this area is it dial up. Ever try to do U tube on dialup?

 

I'll ask Jess, he just graduated in grazing but I don't recall him ever mentioning it. I know he went to work at a very large sheep dairy and even though the guy had trial dogs he never used the dogs on his dairy sheep, just kept training sheep for his dogs. When they had to move the ewes to another barn it was done with people on 4 wheelers. Jess was allowed to use his dogs in only one of the many operstions he worked in during college.

 

Most of the farmers I talk to either don't care about papers or they have to be educated that working Border Collies are not AKC registered.

 

And YES a trained dog coule/does earn it's price and then some. But many of the farmers I talke to seem to think it more important to leave the dog running loose and it not bothering stock nor chasing cars than to have the dog trained to work stock. There is a lot of education needed in this area.

 

I am not talking about a brochure on HOW to train a dog but rather one on the value of a BC, their style of work and it's usefulness, how to select a good dog, what to look for, what to avoid if necessary and where to seek training info.

 

I think there have been some attempts in a few extra ed type college courses on the BC in the area but I don't think it hit this group of people and they were not training type courses

[Debbie Meier]

Pam, sounds aweful familuar.

 

Wayne and I talked at lengths with some local farmers over the last few years, what we discovered is there is no rich history of using working dogs in our area as some have been lead to believe. They talk about the farm dog that protected the kids or maybe that special one that would follow the dairy cows home, but they had no idea how useful and to what degree a border collie, or any stock dog for that matter, could be.

 

The cable broadcasts of the sheepdog trials overseas have helped a little, not in the form of convincing them that they need a dog or can use a dog, but atleast they have a bit of familuarity as to how the border collies work. When I was at the Expo this past weekend a few people were talking about watching the broadcast of the Montana Ranchers recognizing that the dogs I had were the same type, what they were talking about the most was the dogs riding everywhere on the ATV's (we don't get cable so I have no idea what the show was, but recall hearing some posts about it here, oh yeah, we have dial up too!!).

 

Wayne delivers propane in a pretty large area north of Des Moines. Some of his customers have livestock and border collies, he has never seen any of them used, they are just pet farm dogs.

 

Bob Johnson down in Tingley, far south Iowa, is doing a good job getting some of the cattle producers moved over to dogs and helping them get them trained. He is a good one to do it having connections in the cattle community, he also AI's cattle. In some cases the best person to get the farmers/ranchers convinced is someone that is connected closely with the farmer/rancher(s) or considered one themselves. They speak the same language and understand where each other are coming from.

[Gloria Atwater]

It's hard to get a field trial together when there is not a lot of interest in it from a handler standpoint locally.

 

Kind of what I imagine might be the case, if anyone in Nevada ever tried to get a field trial together. We have endless miles of open range ... but no trials. To have one, we need permission to use someone's land, we need sheep to run in the trial, and then we need handlers willing to come to the middle of nowhere to run. There is *one* Open trial person that I know of in northern Nevada, (she is currently without a dog!) and one down near Las Vegas. I'm in P/N. That's it for the entire state, that I'm aware of.

 

But ... maybe that will change. Some day. Heaven knows the local ranchers only want cow dogs who can bite a nose, and the sheepmen all hire Peruvians, who have dogs, but heaven knows how they work.

 

~ Gloria

[Gloria Atwater]

I'm reading this thread with great interest. As a mostly-lurker, I find it excellent and illuminating reading, especially hearing from people in all parts of the country.

 

Thanks, everyone, for your input! Discussions like this are an education in themselves.

Cheers ~

 

Gloria

[Mark Billadeau]

I've not worked dogs on cattle. But if it were a good (safe) place to use a dog, a livestock hauler with a well trained working dog to help load and unload the cattle would provide wide spread exposure to what these dog can do.

[stockdogranch]

For the past 8 or more years, we have had a series of cattle trials all over Wyoming (and a few in Nebraska, too) during the summer. Many of these are held at county fairs, and we get some big crowds in the grandstands watching--mostly ranching families. This series was started by Jim Chant and Juan Reyes specifically in order to expose the working rancher (usually a cattle rancher) to the work a good dog can do. Juan runs a LOT of cattle, and has a bull sale at least once a year; he is very well known and respected all over Wyoming for being a big cattle operator as well as a genuinely good guy. People respect what he has to say. So Jim and Juan's "mission" has been to educate ranchers as to how their operation could benefit from having a good working dog. Have they succeeded? I think the word has gotten out, albeit slowly, one rancher at a time, but I think it is working.

A

[Pearse]

That's the problem in trying to convince producers to use dogs.

 

They aren't going to drive five hours each way to go watch a dog trial.

 

When they do go to watch a dog trial at a state fair or a Sheep and Wool festival, and the first five dogs they see run sheep around the field and end up gripping them, they reckon these so-called stockdogs are for the birds.

 

They don't want to pay $2500 for a started dog, but they'll pay 4 x $2500 for the ATV's to go out and round up their stock, plus pay three other people to help, and it will still take them three times as long as it would with a couple of half-decent farm dogs because they can't see putting the time and money into a dog that may or may not be of any use to them.

 

If you want to attract producers, you need to go to where they are, with good dogs, working more than four sheep, doing things that producers need done with their stock.

 

I go to a trial here in MN every summer that is held across the street from the Co, fair. A fair number of farmers and stock people (mostly dairy in this area) wander over to watch the dogs. They are all impressed with what they can do, and the handlers are well prepped to take time to explain what's going on on the field, but impressed as they are, a lot of them don't see how what they are seeing on the field applies to their daily needs. One Friday morning, we were running the Novice trial at the far end of the field on a separate flock. After the trial was over, we brought a stock trailer and parked it in the middle of the field, opened the doors, and with no panels or chutes, loaded it using two dogs. Walking back to the car to put up one of my dogs, I was stopped by two men who had been on their way to the cattle show at the fair and had stopped on the road to watch. They thought that this was the most amazing thing they had ever seen, loading a stock trailer in the middle of a field in under ten minutes from the moment it stopped. That was something they could relate to.

 

For me it was an instructive moment. A lot of the demo's we do are in places where the general public congregates, not so much the stockmen. Arena and field trials are nice but often I don't think they are making the connection between dogs moving four head around a course, and dogs doing practical work. If we're going to reach out to producers and convince them that good stockdogs might be of use to them, we will need to make the effort to go where they hang out and show them good dogs doing what they need done.

[Tea]

I use my dogs at the USDA Mobile slaughter both for myself and others.

 

I also use dogs to help gather sheep to be sheared that the owner can not get in.

 

I talk to farmers and hand out my friends cards who are pro.

 

In my area with the slow and local and sustainible food/clothing movement there has been considerable interest in the work I do foraging sheep/goats loose on the land I do not own.

 

So much so that I have been asked to talk about it at different Ag Seminars here.

 

It is then that I hand out cards from friends who teach and train. So these folks know where to go to get help.

Also I have been asked this year to do three sheep to shawls with dog demo, blade shearing, picking, carding, weaving etc.

I have asked my pro friends to do the dog demos and speak of how impossible it would be without the dogs.

 

I have had two other groups start up foraging on land trusts trails and parks in the City.

 

 

The interest is there. It is just connecting people.

[Debbie Meier]

Have they succeeded? I think the word has gotten out, albeit slowly, one rancher at a time, but I think it is working

 

It's working, dogs are moving around and changing hands, private sale prices and the price that the ranchers are willing to pay will make you drop your eye teeth. If you have a good one and don't want to sell it, don't price it to anyone, not even if you are thinking your pricing it out of reach.

 

I know of someone that did that the year before last, priced a bitch that he had and liked high, real high, the buyer bit. Ended up the seller back peddled out of the deal and sold a different dog, which is also doing great for the buyer. The bitch that was priced way high ended up winning the nursery cattledog finals last year, big lesson learned for many of us. The ranchers will put the money up if they like what they see, without batting a eye, and they won't buy just any dog.

[Lane Campbell]

Here in Louisiana I would suspect that the large majority of stockdogs are used on cattle.

We have had 2 associations in the last 15 years or so. The first one died after about 10

years, and the new one is having a hard time getting off the ground.

 

The biggest problem is availability of reasonably priced stock. I have put on a trial at my

place for the last 6-7 years. I can only hold a trial after my calves have been weaned and

are on feed, and even with healthy calves it is hard on them. How many folks are willing to

risk having dogs "chase" $800-900 calves. Most open handlers do a pretty good job of

controlling their dogs, but there are a lot of folks that try to trial and do not understand

good stock handling and will abuse stock. I do what I can to set up courses that can be

worked, and that do not create unsafe areas for my stock, but every year after the trial I

tell my wife I won't do this again. Believe me there is no money to be made, but I do feel

the dogs are an important part of my life so we try to give back.

 

We have had demos for years at state cattlemen's conventions, vet school open house, state

livestock shows, and fairs. My experience is that there is such a big learning curve to

owning and working a dog that a lot of the dogs just get left in the kennel and never get a

chance to work to their potential.

 

Lane

[Carson Crazies]

The thing is, when it comes to the average farmer or rancher that knows little about training and working a dog they need a dog that is going to be easy to train - with a lot of sense and natural in it to begin with. They need a dog that isn't going to slice up their stock and cause wrecks from day one. These dogs are out there (I know... I have one) but I wonder how many farmers and ranchers ever see or get their hands on this type of dog? I wonder how many of these types of dogs are being bred from? I think there's a place for them. I realize that with an easy to train and biddable type dog you often sacrifice other things, but I'm willing to sacrifice a little in some areas to have a dog that *I* can actually train, and I'll bet they would too.

[Debbie Meier]

This is kinda entertaining, the phone has been ringing off the hook since my last post. Another call from Wisconsin, looking for a well started female. Just spoke to the handler trying to line up a sale to another buyer, the hope was to get a dog resold that was just recently sold to another but delivery has not been taken, offered a $1000.00 profit, no dice, the dog is not for sale. If anyone has a line on some good honest started cattle dogs give us a call, we can line you up with buyers, but they gotta be good strong dogs that can also work the field.

 

Also, watch 2012, there may be a big money cattledog event pulled together in April to the east of here, it will surprise me if it does not happen. The folks talking about have a track record of getting it done, doing it big and right. It will be worth traveling cross country to.

[Lana]

 

 

If you want to attract producers, you need to go to where they are, with good dogs, working more than four sheep, doing things that producers need done with their stock.

 

 

 

I think this is the key.

Ranchers and farmers go to a dog trial and they often think the training is too complex for what they could ever teach a dog. If you take a dog into their world they are much more likely to see a dog as a pratical tool for their operation.

 

In our area many ranchers use dogs on sheep and cattle operations. Part of that is tradition, once you get people started using dogs it can snowball into others using dogs. It does take time, these things don't happen over night. I would say that Geri Byrne having lived in this area for so many years has had a lot to do with that tradition. One person can make a difference, but it wont happen unless you know and respect the ranchers and farmers.

 

Commercial operations do want a dog that is more natural and easy to trian, but more important than that is a dog with stamina and no quit. Dogs with big motors are just not what most people in the sport/herding world are looking for to win trials. I know people say they want that, but when it comes down to it most people really don't.

 

Some of the talk here, and in threads like this, is very disrespectful to ranchers. That may not be the intent, but it often comes off that way. I am not saying that many of these stories are not true, but the attitude wont go over well in person...especially if the speaker has done little or no all day tough ranch work with their dogs.

 

If you want to change some ideas speak softly, work in their world, and bring good dogs.

[Carson Crazies]

I certainly wasn't meaning to be disrespectful - not by a long shot. My sincere apologies.

[Lana]

Laura, i just meant the tone can get that way, not saying one person here was disrespectful. I also admit that the stories told are often true, it is just not the attitude i would have in person if i wanted to sell the idea of working dogs to ranchers/farmers.

[abcollie]

We have a "sheep guy" down here that runs thousands of sheep and he uses Border Collies. But NOTHING like we do ... he needs them just for "force" (loading into truck/trailers) or to keep them away from the roads. He has a Mexican that lives (in a small trailer) with the sheep. He has a couple of dogs with him that he just walks up and down with to keep the sheep away from where they aren't suppose to go (next field, etc.). Never does outruns or works small bunches.

 

However, the "sheep guy" loves to see what we do and use to rent his sheep for trials (not now ... not sure why??? Price? Or he just didn't think it was worth the money, time, effort?) He does try to get dogs from good trial/work dogs (breeds his bitches and keeps the pups). The pups gets the "trial by fire" method - he just puts them to work (no training). He likes them to push and bite butts because that's the "rough" work he needs.

[Lana]

 

The pups gets the "trial by fire" method - he just puts them to work (no training). He likes them to push and bite butts because that's the "rough" work he needs.

 

 

I like a lil trial by fire for some young hard head dogs but ass bitting not so much

[abcollie]

I like a lil trial by fire for some young hard head dogs but ass bitting not so much

 

No argument from me :@) (unusual - huh :@) but it seems to work for what he wants (loading hundreds of sheep into a truck/trailer). Guess a "butt bite" does the trick (he's usually in a hurry :@)

 

Interesting in that his dogs don't have any eye. I've often wondered if he keeps the ones with no eye or because they never get pushed back far enough to develop it??? I tend to think the not pushed back ... but who knows :@)

[Lana]

I do find a good low heel bite is nice when loading chutes and trailers.

 

Interesting about the eye.

[stockdogranch]

Candy: Last time I talked to him (handful of years ago), he was getting disgusted with a certain person who would rent his sheep and keep them longer than originally agreed upon, and run them in more than one trial=loss of body condition.

 

Lana: I agree about big motors for the trial world, but to me there's nothing like a natural dog with a HUGE motor along with a heel bite!

A