The Roundup

 A boy, a horse, and a dog cannot be left alone in the country without some great responsibilities to fulfill.

Parents across the world have discovered this, and as a result, give the boy, the horse, and the dog plenty of work to keep them occupied for the duration.

Such was the case during the summer when my parents went to work in town.  We had a lot of angora goats that needed minute by minute care and they were ready made for a young person to fill a day.  Those goats needed working one weekend.  That meant drenching for stomach parasites, doctoring any injuries or wounds, and making sure the males were neutered.

Before rounding up any animal on a spread, one must make sure the pens the animals are headed to will be able to sustain rowdy behavior.  Let us face it. These goats have been in a free range mode for quite some time, and now they are being suddenly asked to be in their best behavior.  Well, it does not happen that way.  All the fences had to be mended, gates had to function properly, and the pens must be in good working order.  It had taken several days to get those pens ready to hold all of those goats.

Angora goats have a different mindset when it comes to some things.  They are especially good at cleaning up brush and useless growth, and can give a place a polished look.  However, that means goats go places they perhaps should not go.  For instance, an angora goat produces mohair and when it becomes of any length, it will tangle in everything.  Those goats have no awareness of that issue and will get totally tangled to the point they cannot walk.  Once a slight tangle occurs, a goat will continue to worry with it until it is a major factor.  If left alone, the goat will eventually die.

In rides a boy, a horse, and a dog to the rescue.  Finding the goats that are in distress is a major responsibility.  There are very few places in this world without briers. Briers are vines that have sharp barbs and grow with the full notion of capturing all of the angora goats in the neighborhood.  For that reason, one must carry a pair of hand shears as part of the kit on the saddle.  Most of the time a goat is really appreciative if one can extricate them from the briers.  That is the case especially if they have been trapped there for some time.  Every once in a while a stubborn goat will fight the very hand trying to lend aid.  When that happens there is usually some kicking and head butting in play making the job a tad more difficult.

After all the goats are relieved of tangled distress, there comes the count.  One must be able to determine the number of animals in a particular pasture if one is responsible for getting them all to the pens.  This can be somewhat of a difficult chore for a young person.  Goats do not understand the importance of the count.  As a consequence, they like to roam a bit while grazing.  You can imagine the difficulty if you are trying to count the things!  However, they must be counted so it continues to be a learning experience.

Dogs are especially helpful when working cows, sheep, and goats.  Border collies are known for their intelligence, and also for their patience in working alongside humans who have no idea what needs to be done.  Those dogs can be trained almost to the point of depositing the check in the bank after the goats have been rounded up and sold. Someday that will probably happen, too.

We had a border collie named Missy.  This was the finest dog, ever, to my way of thinking.  We were side by side in everything happening on our place from daylight to dark.  Missy had a tendency to find all of the little soft clover burrs she could hustle in a day.  Those things would get wrapped up in her coat to the point they would rub a sore on her skin if they were not removed.  That was a job I had every evening after a hard day of work.

I am not sure Missy had any idea that I had saved her from certain pain and anguish, but we were a pair.

It had come to round up time.  The working pens were ready, all of the goats had been pulled from the briers, a rough count had been conducted, and goats had been bunched up into a loose herd.  This loose herd had to move to those pens.  Missy did a great job of moving those goats in a slow and deliberate manner.  This worked really well when my horse and I tired to the point of stopping for a drink at the stock tank.  That water looking inviting enough for a swim so that happened, too!  My horse Coalie did not swim, but I did take a cooling dip in the tank while Missy kept the goats in a nice little canyon next to the tank.

After the swim, Coalie had decided we had worked enough for the day and was really cantankerous about being saddled again.  There was a lot of loud discussion with that horse, but the saddle finally went on and Coalie became the best horse ever once again.  I could not leave Coalie alone in the pasture with cows or sheep.  He would take it upon himself to conduct a round up on his own.  I do not know if this was practice for the real thing, or if Coalie just wanted to round them up.  He would run the cows and goats to the point of exhaustion, so he lived in a different pasture.  That round up skill really came in handy when the real thing had to be accomplished.

This round up was the real thing for me, Coalie and Missy.  We were working about a thousand head of angora goats.  Those goats have a spirit all their own.  There is no way to tell what goes through their minds to cause them to act the way they act.  We found goats climbing up limbs in trees to get oak leaves that could have easily been obtained standing with all four feet on the ground.  These animals are characters.  Some of them have attitude, some are docile, and some are really carefree.  We had a mixture in this bunch of goats.

There has been no scientific study on the effect wind has on the mind of a goat.  However, the wind can really affect the thinking of a goat.  It seems they become almost obstinate about anything when the wind is in their face. It really makes life difficult. It can be especially rough on round up day, and especially for a boy, a horse and a dog.  I think Missy understood this best because she seemed to have more patience with the goats on windy days.  That patience did not transfer to me or Coalie that day, though.

She managed to get those goats all the way to the lane that led to the working pens and of course, Coalie and I helped a lot by making sure the stragglers kept up with the main herd.

When we reached the opening to the lane that led to the working pens, something happened to the goat’s idea of cooperation.  They just stopped before going down that lane. I do not know if the goats in front had some sort of memory of bad times in those pens or what was going through their mind.  Of course, the wind kicked up a notch just as we got to that lane.  Again, their mind goes elsewhere in the wind.

We worked out a system where we would bunch and push to try to get those goats into the lane.  Bunch and push, bunch and push over and over.  It just did not work.  I managed to sneak into the barn from the back and get a sack of feed.  This feed was the favorite feed of the goats.  They would just about kill anything that got in between them and that feed.  They really liked it.   I poured some of that feed out in the pasture, and left a trail of it well into the lane.  It did not work.  Those goats ate all the feed right up to the entrance to the lane and stopped.  As a matter of fact, some of them just decided the lay on the ground in front of the entrance.  This did not seem to be going well, and the day was drawing late.  Parents would be home soon and would want to know why the goats were not penned.  It was time for a serious conference.

Missy, Coalie and I backed away from the bunch for a bit to decide a new approach.  While Coalie and I studied the situation, Missy took off like a shot and started barking and nipping.  Barking and nipping seemed to be the right approach because the goats immediately recognized the need to start moving.   It was sure working better than our bunch and push approach.  Coalie and I decided to help by moving in a little closer to the herd.  That set Missy to turn around and let us know to stay put.  I must say that is the first time I was ever cussed out by a border collie.  Coalie and I understood our orders and let Missy work the herd.  In just a few short minutes goats were in the lane headed toward the pens acting like it was their intention to head that way all along.

Once the last goat went in the lane, Missy turned around to face Coalie and I. I truly believe she was teaching us a lesson.  That lesson was if you had left me alone, we would have been at the house hours ago.  This was a lesson well learned.  Those dogs know so much more than we do.  Missy gave me the cold shoulder for a couple of days after that round up.

It wasn’t long though before we were best friends again.

 

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