How to Control a Cow with a Cow Horse

Video Transcript

"We're going to go ahead and talk a little bit about the communication that we do with these cows. We've already commented that a big part of our sport is learning how to read the cow, so that we can push that cow in a direction. Sometimes they say cows have sort of like blinkers in their eyes. If you watch them closely, they're going to tell you am I going to turn left, am I going to turn right. There's always kind of a leader in a cow, and so if you're watching a cow and it seems to put its nose out and starts to push ahead, you're going to say, yup, that one is ready to go. So they will tell you, but then there are things you can do to help move that cow and to be in control, or in charge of where it's going. These are some of the important first steps that a new rider working cows can learn. We know, if the cow stops when we stop, if we stop in a position right along the side of it, there's a good chance we can get the cow to stop and remain in that position. If we step forward and begin to pass the cow shoulder line, that's going to move that cow to where it's going to want to stop and turn around. As we get a little ahead of the cow, we actually turn it. Some people talk about it in the best ways to think about the cows having a bubble around it. And if you push on one side of the bubble, it's going to push the other side out, and that's the direction that that cow is going to move. We have to work a lot on our angles. When the cow gets in that position where it's charge and run, we don't want to chase it, we want to try and head it off, and get that horse to do its cow thing. So, we've got to watch the cow, we can track it, move it forward by staying on its hip. If we want to push it forward, and we want it to be a little to the right, we just got to its left hip, and push it forward. If we want to keep it what call on the wall, if she's trying to bring her cow along the fence, then she's going to stay a little bit to the inside of the cow and fence, and she's going to stay just a little behind its center line so it wants to push along the wall. At any point, if she chose to turn it, she would just get ahead of the cow, and turn it. Cows don't always cooperate for us to give the specific examples, but you can see with her good savvy cow horse, there's some good fun in that. That's what we all live for. We call that cow candy when you get a chance to sit back and let the cow work the horse, and the horse work the cow. That's the fun that we all wait for."