Working Dogs - How an Australian Shepherd Saved the Day

by Jeanne Joy Hartnagle-Taylor
(Colorado)

Autumn is the time of the year when livestock is rounded up and gathered to be shipped to market. Calves are collected and weaned and any that were not marked during the spring are now branded and tagged. Before snow falls, clean up rides are made to gather any strays left behind during the main gather. Finally, the bulls are gathered and moved to winter range or corralled in pastures where they are fed for the winter.

It was no different on the Taylor Ranch in Moab, Utah. One year, during the late fall with the threat of heavy snowfall, Joe Taylor and his father, Lester needed to move several hundred cows with calves and about 70 head of bulls from the high country down to a lower elevation. Normally, they would not have moved that many cows in such rough country with only two riders, but Joe's brother, D. L. was in the hospital from a horseback riding accident.

They considered going to town to see if they could hire an extra hand, but they decided inexperienced help would be more trouble than it would be worth. Joe and his father decided to go ahead and move the herd from the Bar A down to the Fisher Valley by themselves.

They were headed north across a big open draw. Joe was working Taylor's Whiskey, an Australian Shepherd. "Whiskey's natural instinct was to go ahead of me," said Joe. "He worked the sides. He would go up the right side of the herd and then come back around behind me and then head up the left side." Joe noticed Whiskey went back up the left side a second time. He was half a mile away. "He would disappear for ten to fifteen minutes at a time. Then I could see him leave the herd and go straight west and run with his nose to the ground. I really needed some help in the rear. The calves were trying to cut back on me, but he was so far away from me - he could not hear me yell at him. I was pretty mad. A little while later, I saw Whiskey bringing a 2,000 pound horned Hereford bull back to the herd at a dead run. Not long after that, he brought back a huge polled Hereford bull."

Only when Joe came upon a rise was he able to see what was happening, "It's a bulls instinct to go off by himself," he explained, "and how Whiskey knew to keep those bulls from escaping is not something you can train a dog to do. It is instinct pure and mysterious." It is a perfect example of how farm and ranch dogs bred for the real world need to be able to think for themselves and take action accordingly. It is also one of the reasons they are so highly valued.

Another time, Joe and his brother were tracking a couple of wild young bulls through about eight inches of snow on the ground and followed them into the junipers and thickets. "We had been chasing them long enough they were pretty tired. Normally, I would have never gotten off my horse, but I had just won the Working Cow Horse class that spring and I did mot want my mare to get hurt. Wild cattle are usually afraid of you when you are on foot, so I got off and tied her up, but the next thing I knew, I was being charged by one of the bulls. He was about 1500 to 1600 pounds. I had no warning. I grabbed the horns. As he hit me, my hand slipped off the near horn. He knocked me down and started mauling me. All of a sudden I felt the pressure release, so I started crawling back towards my horse."

"When I looked back, I saw Whiskey had grabbed him by the nose and Oscar (sired by Whiskey) had grabbed him by the ham and put him on the ground." When Joe was safely on horse, his brother told the dogs to let the bull go. "I was all covered in snow. I don't remember it, but D.L. told me he knew something was wrong because he heard me scream like a Comanche and came a riding." While Joe had been butted, hooked and knocked down by cows running by, that was the only time he had ever been pinned down and mauled. Taylor's Whiskey saved the day - he could be counted on to ward off an angry bull or mad mother cow.

Even though a dog's life is far too short, four words can be said of these exceptional creatures, "Good job, old boy!"