Hardworking dogs trained for hardworking cattlemen
Printed by Agrinews September 29.2006
By Tom C Doran

McLEAN, IL- The brochure states, “If you are looking for a ‘stock hand’ who is waiting on you every morning, won’t quit until the job is finished, never wants days off, and will give you 100 percent everyday, you’ve found him!”

That ‘stock hand’ is also known as “man’s best friend” and Bruce Hopgood, owner of Midwest Cattle Dogs, who trains “hardworking dogs for hardworking livestock owners.”

Hopgood learned from his experiences of just how helpful cattle dogs could be.

He purchased 20 head of cattle several years ago.

“When it got time to work the cattle, it was just me. I would have to ask someone if they could help me work the cattle.”

He’d ask them to be there at 7 a.m. and they may show up at 10 a.m.

“Sometimes something would come up and they couldn’t do it at all, so I’d have to wait another week. I was telling a friend of mine about it and he said I need a dog. I never knew a dog could work cattle . I’d seen them work sheep.”

Hopgood investigated further and got in contact with Gary Ericsson, who lived in Idaho at the time. He called Ericsson for information and purchased an Australian Shepherd puppy, “Hondo.” Ericsson agreed to train the dog in Idaho,. He credits Ericsson for “being extremely helpful to me.”

“He was trained when he came back, but I didn’t know how to work him. I had to go to seminars. There’s no use having the best trained dog in the world if you don’t know how to work it.
“From there, Hondo and I could work all the cows, get them rounded up and put them in the pen and into the shoot. People started seeing this and said they’d like a dog like that, so I put two and two together and thought maybe I can start raising some dogs and helping some people out. That’s what I’ve done.”

There are two kinds of dogs that handle cattle.

‘There is a ‘driving dog’ and those mostly are healers. They chase the cattle away from you. I raise dogs that bring the cattle to you. If the cattle are coming to you, they get gentler. If you chase the cows away from you all of the time they get wilder,” Hopgood explained.

He raises two shorthaired breeds of dogs-border collies and Hangin’ Tree Cowdogs. The dogs are available for purchase from puppy to fully trained dog.

The Hangin’ Tree Cowdog is a new breed that was originated by Ericsson. They are medium-sized dogs that are bred to be a little tougher and more aggressive than border collies.

For those interested in having a cattle dog, Hopgood said they can either purchase a dog and have him train it or buy one of the dogs he has raised. However, the type of dog purchased is critical in the venture’s success.

“The dog has to have the want to. If it doesn’t want to work cattle, I can’t make it work cattle. A lot of dogs just want to work for ten minutes and then they’re done. You need something that can’t get enough of it. It has to be bred into them to do that,” Hopgood said.

“It’s like a bird dog. It’s bred into them to point. The same with these dogs, it’s bred into them to gather cattle up.”

The training process begins when the dog is eight months to a year old. They have to be big enough that if a cow kicks them they can take a kick. It takes about two months for a started dog to learn the cattleman’s directions. It normally takes two years for a finished dog. “A finished dog can do the work of three to four men,” he added.

Proper training of the dogs is a lengthy process. “They’re not a machine. That’s where you get in trouble,” Hopgood said of the methodic training. “It’s normally about 15 minutes a day on training a dog, because when you get what you want done, then you need to put him up and let him think about what he did. You bring him back out in the evening and do it again.”

“A lot of people make the mistake of just working them, working them and working them. They’re not a machine you have to let them rest. Once they get older they’ll be able to work all day unless it’s extremely hot,” Hopgood continued.

Hopgood has given cattle dog demonstrations at the Illinois State Fair, the Illinois Beef Expo and forage expo at nearby Funk’s Farms.

‘”I’ll put a trailer in the middle of a pasture. The dogs will gather them and load them into the trailer,” he added.

He is also occasionally called upon to gather some stray cattle. He and his dogs recently assisted when cattle broke loose and strayed into a soybean field. It didn’t take long for the dogs to do their job and return the livestock to the pasture.

Hopgood said one dog can handle about 50 head of cattle. He said three dogs would be needed for a herd of 300 to 400 head of cattle.

The biggest challenge to developing a successful cattle dog/cattleman team isn’t the dog, but the handlers. “When they buy a dog, they don’t leave here until they know the basics of how to work their dog. If they have trouble, I can explain it over the phone what to do. If we can’t get it done over the phone, I’ll go to their place and get things ironed out for them.”

“I don’t have any trouble with training dogs, most problems can be with some people. They think it’s going to come easy to learn how to do this and it’s not. If you come to me with an open mind, saying that you can do it, then you can do it. You can spend a little time practicing by yourself and it will get done. But if you have a closed mind, I can’t help you. Some people are that way. The first 30 minutes they’re gun hoe and you can see they start losing interest or say they can’t do that.

“Once that light bulb comes on, they’ll say, ‘I should have been in this 10 years ago.’ Most people have four-wheelers chasing them. They just get the cows wilder. There hasn’t been one person that I’ve trained that hasn’t called back and said they should have done it ten years ago.

“The dogs make the cattle calmer. If you get three or four guys working , they start whistling and hollering and the cows start bouncing off the walls. But for the dogs, at first it’s kind of a wreck, but the cattle learn to stay away from the dog. If they drift away from the dog, they’re not going to get nipped.

“The key is to put just enough pressure on the cattle to get them to move in the direction you want them to. With too much pressure, they’re not going to go anywhere. The dog has to learn where that certain pressure is going to keep cows moving at a calm pace. It’s called the ‘flight zone.’ That could be anywhere from a quarter of a mile to 20 feet. It depends on the cattle,” according to Hopgood.

Hopgood can be contacted at (309) 874-2696