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Cow Clinic,
February 17, 2009
with guest, pro-cutting trainer Dave Kneller
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You may have watched a Cattle Sorting or Team Penning competition and been amazed at how wild it gets. It's a fun sport: the cows run around and the cowboys and cowgirls and their horses are just full-up with adrenaline. But this cattle work is the real deal. Cows get sold by the pound, and the more they run around, the more weight they loose, and the less they're worth. At From Start to Foundation, we like to return the borrowed cows to their owner in better shape than they arrived: maybe they gained a pound or two, and they've learned how to stand quietly in the center of an arena. Here's how we did it: |
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After a few minutes each of flag work, we acknowledge that each horse and rider could accomplish the following:
How simple
does that sound? |
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Dave walks
quietly into the herd. He communicates to his horse which cow is theirs
by his focus. Horses are masters at reading intention, and Dave keeps
his eye on their calf.
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Dave's riding a youngster in training. Dave's focused on their calf, but his good pony seems to have been distracted by something down the way. Dave will quietly get his attention, have him drop his head to the calf a little, and turn to follow their calf. All in a split second, and without riling the horse. Or the calf. | |
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Now that's
about how that should be done. This colt is focused back on his job
and the calf's doing what's asked of him, too
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Krista's
rding another training horse, who might be seeing a cow for the first
time, and is a little skeptical about the whole thing. His ears are
alert and his neck and body are pretty tight. He'll gain confidence
from Krista's confidence in the safety of the situation. Krista lets
him move forward at his own pace, and will move him up to the calf's
shoulder to stop him. Her horse gets there, and goes beyond the shoulder
they take the opportunity to turn the cow back away from the herd. Dave
is putting a little pressure on from the outside, to keep the cow moving
quietly. This is more like playing chess, than playing Go Fish! You
sure don't want to take any weight off your cattle.
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Dave steps another training horse up to peel 2 cattle out of the herd. He and his horse just walk right in, quiet but with purpose, and the herd splits. | |
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The calves have now learned their job and want to stay gathered in the middle of the arena. The riders are working mostly alone to pick out a calf and move it around some. Ace, the palomino stallion, is a natural and Krista asks him to stay in frame and move purposefully, while Dave gives support and direction. |
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Cristie and Sally Move Their Calf In this series of photos, Cristie and Sally show the steps necessary to pick a calf out of the herd and move it away, turn it, then loose it! Although this isn't
her first cow experience, poor Sally just doesn't have a clue what
all the fuss is about: over here or over there, what difference does
it make where a bunch of calves are, anyway? |
 Cristie picked out their calf and asks Sally to move up. |
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 Cristie asks Sally to move away from the calf, taking the pressure off, and allowing the calf to stop moving forward. |
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 Cristie's working pretty hard. Sally's about to take a nap. They're moving up to the calf's shoulder to stop it and will move away to take the pressure off the calf if it wants to squirt out. |
 They've gotten the calf stopped. |
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 They'll back off to give the calf a little room to turn.. . |
 Then follow it off in it's new direction. A little too quickly! |
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 Since the calf was moving off too quickly, moving directly away from the shoulder will slow it. But they went too far and need to back off. Looking at Sally's demeanor, it's about time to take a break. |
 One more calf and end on a good note. |
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Scott
is trying out Luke, who doesn't seem real interested in cows today.
Scott's been busy taking these great photos.
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| Krista@FromStartToFoundation.com |
831-588-6214
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1425
San Marcos Rd. Paso Robles, CA 93446
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