Thanks Ronnie. That's my 6 year old, Cole. He wanted Santa to bring him his own cowdog puppy to raise and train. The dogs are Dan, year and a half old east Texas and Ben Jordan bred and Kate, Foundation bred 7 months old from the mountains over east of here.
Got there and turned Dan loose and he found the cattle after about 15 minutes. I let him bay a while and then tried to send Kate. This is only the 2nd time she has ever seen cattle and her first cow job. I had to sneak her up to the bay to within 50 yards and then she went to work and stayed hooked. I settled down in the brush and watched them work for about 20 minutes. The cattle looked to be all there and settling good so I went back to my horse and rode way around them trying to come up behind them. they were against an old fence so I had to ride down it up beside them. When they saw me they tried to trot off, I just stopped and let the dogs put them back in a wad. I eased up again and they bounce a little further, this continued for about a hundred yards until we got out of the woods. Then they started driving pretty good and the dogs leading fair. That pup got in the wrong place a lot, but they weren't getting away. I'll tune on her with some gentler stock! lol I pushed them about 3/8 of a mile to the back of the pen when we realized there was a cross fence between us and the hole. I sent Pete, Cody's step dad, to get the wire cutters. He was on foot cutting the fence, they looked up and saw him and broke. By the time the dogs got them stopped again, they were about used up so we decided to rope them. Pete went for his truck and we had one tied down when he got back. It got kinda fast after that and I don't remember what all happened. Me and Clint were tying them down and the dogs were holding the rest.
We got them all loaded and it started to rain so we went back out to the road and realized we only had 5 in the trailer. Nobody knows how or when the other one disappeared! lol We went back and caught him yesterday.
All in all it went pretty good for green dogs and green help. It was kinda a sloppy job but we got them all caught. I think Kate will be alright, time will tell. Thanks for looking.
By the way, Craig, I hope your popcorn didn't get stale.
