Category Archives: Life Lessons

Fun Hater

Lets have a little fun. I have been getting pretty serious about all this writing stuff. It’s time for a funny story.

My daughter named a bucking bull after me a while back. She named him “Fun Hater” and that really hurt.  I do like to have fun, but my fun may be different than other folks.

I spend lots of my life like I am right now – writing.  I’m stuffed in an airplane with people all around me and not able to stretch my legs out.  I eat restaurant food all the time.  When I get home I have the need for freedom and the last thing I want to do is go to a movie or a concert to be surrounded by the same thing.  A good home cooked meal, having my dogs around, and throwing a few loops at the roping dummy seems more important.

Getting horseback and riding through some good grass, moving some cattle, or just riding up and looking over the Musselshell River that runs through our place is about as good as it gets for me.

When I look around me and see the stress that all these people are under just living in the crowded lifestyle so many of them must live in, it’s amazing to me we don’t have way more problems in society than we do.

If you are lucky enough to live on a farm or ranch or have a rural lifestyle, enjoy it.

For several years we traveled the country doing horse clinics and demonstrations.  Our children were home-schooled and most of the time had a geography lesson while doing other school work. This means we were going down the road in a pickup truck while they were doing school.  We had lots of fun and met many good people.

One person that we met was Charlie Trayer.  He was doing cow dog demo’s for Purina and we were on the same program several times.  We all really liked Charlie and the Hangin Tree Cowdogs he was raising so we ended up with some pups.  We had rope names for our dogs.
I named mine Lasso and Mesa named hers Roper.  They had a lot of go to them.  We decided we needed to get some goats to work our dogs the way we had learned from Charlie.

Goats were a little tough to find in Helena, Montana at the time.  I finally located some, but the lady didn’t want to sell them because they were purebreds and she was going to show them.  I think I ended up paying $250.00 each for five goats and she would buy them back when I did not need them anymore.  That’s quite a bit of money to spend on goats, but I was going to get it back so it was no big deal.  We really didn’t have anywhere to keep goats, but we did have a indoor arena, so we rigged up some pens and got ready to work our dogs.

We shut all the doors and turned the goats loose.  We got our pups and we were ready to have our first dog training session.  Mesa was probably 8 years old or so and always wore her Gus hat. She was what you’d call pure cowgirl.  We cut the dogs loose and they did want to work.  Lasso was a little older and he was aggressive.

They hit those five goats hard.  Goats were running, dogs were barking and not listening, and there were way more things going on than I thought were going to happen.  One thing I forgot to mention was the reason the goats were so expensive is they were little bucks. Lasso noticed this right away and would catch a goat by the balls and hold him.  If you have ever heard a goat cry when a dog has it by the balls, you will understand the intense drama shaping up in our little father-daughter dog working session.

Roper was running madly after the goats. Mesa was trying to catch him.  The goats could not outrun Lasso and he would get another by the balls and the screaming would start again. This did not go on for to long and Mesa said to me, “Daddy, I don’t think I want to work dogs on goats anymore.”

She got her wish, because when a goat finds that much pressure they will find a way out of it.  The goats got out through a door and $1250.00 worth of goats headed for the Scratch Gravel hills of Helena. That was pretty much the last time we saw them.

Just a few years ago I had some heifers that belonged to Craig Wenger which I had calved out for him. We also had about 60 head of two year old bucking bulls I had purchased from D & H Cattle Co.

I had been out checking some cows on a young horse that only had a few rides on.  When I got back to our place I decided to turn some chickens out to graze in a little hay field. (They were my wife’s chicken project, not mine.)

I was unloading my horse and saw that some bulls had gotten in with the heifers, and I was pretty sure Craig was not to interested in getting the bucking bull business, so I kinda hurriedly got on my colt to interrupt the bulls fun.  I was pretty busy trying to get these bulls separated when my horse decided he was not really ready for bull sorting. He proceeded to try to buck me off.

While he was taking my attention off the bulls and getting my mind to riding I happened to notice a little action in the chicken herd. My dogs had taken the opportunity of my mind being occupied with the bulls and were having a fresh chicken dinner.  Things were pretty busy for me for a few minutes.  After the dust settled, the tally stood at 4 chickens dead, 2 heifers bred, one horse rode, 3 dogs disciplined, one wife mad and a great big laugh had a few hours later.

So you see I am not a fun hater at all.

~ Curt Pate

Am I a hypocrite?

There is a lady involved with the beef industry that is very willing to share her opinions on all sorts of social issues. A while back she pretty much stated that we men needed to grow a pair and start acting like men. So I will, and the first thing I will say is that’s no way for a lady to talk, but it sure did get me to thinking about things.

Her statement caused my mind to ask myself this question. Am I a hypocrite? That is a tough one because it will make you really get honest with yourself (unless of course, you’re a hypocrite to yourself about your own honesty to yourself).

I have many strong opinions about what I feel is right and talk about being right, but do I live them? I actually feel pretty good about most of what I do and feel like I am honest with you and myself.

In thinking all this over, it caused me to create some thoughts that may be helpful for you to think about.

What is my purpose in life and am I fulfilling that purpose? I feel real private about a lot of things, but like to share my opinions with others.

I don’t really know what my purpose in life is. I have not got that one figured out just yet. I do know that so far my job for lot in life has been the training and care of animals that are involved in food for humans and horses that used for pleasure or in the production of animals.

I am real happy about that. I don’t know why but I have always had a compassion for animals. I have always had some kind of a dog in my life, and for some reason dogs seem to enjoy being around me. I like that. I am fascinated with cats. They are a very hard animal to figure out. Some cats really like being around me, but some want nothing to do with me. I want to get to a point that all cats like to be around me.

Some people would think of me as a hypocrite because I say I care about animals, but I eat them (I don’t eat dogs or cats, I hope …) or am not against rodeo. Other people would say I am a hypocrite because I am not sure ranch rodeo is a positive thing for the beef industry and the natural horsemanship movement has not been the best thing for the horse.

I am not saying these things to offend anyone, but simply giving my take on things from the way I see it. People can do whatever they want to do in our society. If it is against the law and if they are caught they will be punished in some way. All I am doing is voicing my opinion on what I think will create improvements.

That may be my purpose in life. My wife and I have purchased many places in our 25 years of marriage. I am proud to say we have improved each place considerably in the time we owned them. I have thrown my leg over lots of different horses in the last 50 years and hopefully I have made improvements to most of them. In the last 20 years or so I have hopefully made improvements in the way people communicate with animals and other people. Yep, I know “improvements” is my purpose in life.

Lets get back to the animal subjects …

How can I say I care about animals but still kill them for food?

To be honest I never even thought about this for a big part of life. I have been in the cycle of life and have seen nature’s harshness with death from predators or old age and have seen how slow, painful, and inhumane this process can be. Growing up with a grandfather that was a butcher, helping him slaughter since I could go with him, and seeing how much more effective he was at a quick and fearless death than nature, it never even entered my mind that what we were doing was wrong. We had cared for the animals, provided them with shelter and feed, which was our purpose in the deal and in turn, they did the same for us. We gave them a good quality of life, better than what they would have had if we were not involved, and in return they gave us a better quality of life in the form of food and shelter just as we provided for them.

Animals either don’t know what death is and aren’t afraid of it. If they did or were they would act very differently before they are harvested. They would not walk calmly up the chute to their death. Animals do have fear and to me we need to handle the animal in a way that keeps it from being afraid as much as possible.

Agricultural animals can take incredible amounts of discomfort. They can survive at extremely cold temperatures, have broken bones or body parts cut off and in a very short time get back to normal behavior. The worst thing that I see for animals is fear. I don’t think the pain of branding or castrating is inhumane to animals, but the fear it creates probably is. This is why it is important to be very effective a doing these processes. To brand an beef animal with a hot iron, it should take less than thirty seconds and be done. If it must be done do it properly and quickly then get the animal back to the herd to feel safe.

When a predator attacks the fear is extreme and can last a long time. If I raise the animal in a way that reduces stress, increases quality of life, and ends the life quickly and with the least fear and pain possible, while keeping natures natural cycle in harmony, I don’t feel I am being a hypocrite, but a true animal activist.

I used to rodeo and rode bucking horses and bulls. I really miss having the physical skill to ride bareback horses. I don’t miss riding bulls, it probably ranks up there with the dumbest things I have ever done. If I care about animals how could I do that? Most guys that ride bucking horses have the utmost respect for the horse, and have a lot of feel for the way a horse is handled and treated.

The way I see it, the bucking horse has the highest quality of life of all horses I have seen, including the wild horse. Most performance and pleasure horses get to much nutrition and not enough exercise. Many are kept in small enclosures and are in small numbers so the natural social order does not happen. Many trained horses are constantly being put under pressure to perform under high pressure training regimens and some get no exercise at all with little to no social interaction because of the human taking such good care of them, as if they were a human.

If you study the life of most bucking horses, they are raised in a herd, with lots of room to roam, get a pretty good balance of nutrition, and don’t have to work or be stressed for long periods of time like pleasure and performance horses. When they are learning to be performing bucking horses, they can have quite a bit of stress until they learn how to work in the system. The quicker they learn the easier it gets, so it is important to train them to the system.

Many of the problems that show up in performance and pleasure horses, such as soundness, disease and stress induced vices, are very rarely found in bucking horses. They live and perform longer as well. To me this is fact that the bucking horse has the best quality of life in the horse world. There may be more risk of injury because of the extreme energy they put out for 30 or 40 seconds, but this is actually what keeps them healthy, the short periods of high stress is exactly what nature does to keep an animal aware of danger, and healthy enough to do something about it.

As I look at rodeo, it appears to me that folks don’t see the big picture. Would I be a hypocrite if I justified tie-down roping? I don’t know if I can justify it and am not trying to, but I will give some observations. If we break roping and tying a calf down into its component parts it makes it easier to analyze. The horse and rider chasing the calf create fear so the calf runs. It is proven that an animal has one main thought at a time, so if the calf is running, that is a natural thing for calves to do, and as long as it is not for to long of a period of time it does not over stress the animal. If it is caught, this is the only time in the run when pain is really involved. The horse stops, the calf keeps running and he is stopped by the rope. It used to be the calf was jerked over backwards because of the sudden stop, but calf ropers have learned to not jerk them hard to keep them on their feet to get a faster time.

If you watch a bunch of cows and calves together, and a new calf that is only hours old try to suck the wrong cow they get butted or kicked real hard, and it does not hardly phase them. Calves take way more punishment from other cows than they do from the sudden stop of the rope.

The next thing that happens is the cowboy runs down the rope. This creates fear in the calf and it again thinks about and tries to run away. After the roper gets a hold of the calf, he flanks him down. To be honest this is when the cruelty can happen. If he is flanked real high and hard, it could knock the air out or stun the calf. When a calf or any fleeing animal is on its side and restrained they will struggle briefly and then usually give up and lay quiet.

Mother Nature has created this. When a prey animal is caught they struggle for a while then give up and go somewhere else with the mind. This is the way animals deal with the fear of attack. You can see this in a tie down roping run. If the roper flanks smooth, strings the front foot quickly, then scoops the hind legs low and firm the calf does not have time to struggle. When the roper gets of the calf the may struggle a couple of times then lay quiet until untied. Many times after the run the calf almost walks or trots off in a better state than when he started.

All this takes from 7 to 30 seconds. Now there are some things we could do to minimize the jerk of the rope like a calf collar to reduce the ropes pressure on the neck. That may help but I have to remember that the calk takes more abuse from its own mother or other cows. If the horse overworks this would be helpful in keeping the rope from choking the calf.

Of all the timed events tie-down roping is the most criticized. It used to be called calf roping. This is why it is thought to be the most abusive, because you are dealing with young, cute calves. In my opinion it is the least abusive of all timed events that involve cattle. The one that gets the least mention is the one that I feel is the hardest on cattle and that is team roping. Team roping steers are big and look tough with their horns. When you have a horse that weighs 1200 pounds plus, and a steer that can weigh well over 500 pounds and you are going around 20 miles per hour, and you rope that animals hind foot or feet and you dead stop it all that is a bunch of stretch from his heels to his horns.

I point these things out to show, in the way I truly and factually believe animals deal with stress, pain and fear.

I am not a big fan of ranch rodeo. I like most of the people involved, admire the skills the competitors have perfected, love the tradition and gear, but I cannot find a way to justify the events. All the things they do in a ranch rodeo pretty much go against everything we try to promote with the Stockmanship and Stewardship program the National Cattleman’s Beef Association sponsors. These practices are not what I envision as what the customer sees as Beef Quality Assurance. I am not saying they are wrong for doing it, and don’t think ill of someone that promotes or participates in it, but I would be a hypocrite if I tried to justify it.

The difference between rodeo and ranch rodeo is the events. Rodeo animals can be patterned and trained to accept the pressure and the events are quick. Lots of pressure under 10 seconds, then back to the herd. If you look at ranch rodeo there is quite a lot of wild chasing and quite a bit of stress on the cattle and really no way to pattern or train the cattle before, and the pressure can last quite a while. With ranch rodeo the real good competitors get it done quick and effectively, but many times things don’t go as good for some, and these circumstances create what I see as the problem. Professionally run rodeos have become very strict with rules and time limits and are quick to punish for animal abuse. This is the way it must be.

I would be a hypocrite if I did not give my honest point of view on this. I will probably make some folks mad about this subject, and for that I am truly sorry. I have learned the hard way that when you say what you believe it can cause friends, or who you thought were friends, to get real upset.

It is interesting to explore the different ways people think we should care for and use animals. I like to visit with vegetarians and animal activists that will give me a chance to discuss my reasons for believing in and doing the things I do. If you can keep from being in a confrontation, but keep it in a discussion, it really helps them see things from my point of view. I think the better I get at this the closer I will be to getting to pet more cats, and as I said before that is real important to me.

~ Curt Pate

Balance

Feel, timing and balance – this discussion all started from my desire to preserve and improve the American Western style of horseback livestock handling and management.

This is very important to me. My people have been livestock people for as long as I can find in the past and my children are both choosing to go forward with livestock in the future. I truly feel it is what my whole life has been set up to do, and now I feel it is time for me to share the knowledge I have accumulated to give people that are interested more options to think about and hopefully act upon.

The challenge is as humans we have the the mental ability to use all the things available to us to become very powerful. If we are not careful the power becomes the main desire and we over use this power to create what we think we need and want. If a person is not careful this power becomes addicting or habit and what is pleasure at the moment can lead to problems in the future.

We need this power to survive as humans, and the world needs us to to use this power in BALANCE to survive. As I look to all the disagreement in the world most of it seems to come back to the use of this power.

In livestock management the amount of skill you have in controlling the feeding and handling of this stock creates success or failure. In some society’s the animals are very gentle and easy to manage, and in others the animals are closer to the wild animals that grazed the environment before them.

On the western ranges of North America, because of the feral cattle being wild it created the need for power to overcome the animals ability to escape pressure. This is what created the skills of the cowboy. (For this discussion lets call everyone who works cattle horseback a cowboy.)

The ability to create a horse that is more athletic than a cow and the skill of using a rope or whip to aid in the management of cattle were essential to being successful at profitable ranching in the early days of ranching. Today we still need these skills in some situations, but because of modern facility design, smaller pastures and enclosures, and modern advances in technology not everyone has to be a cowboy in the cattle business.

To me you must use what works best for your personality. Beef cattle are stronger, faster and have more stamina than the human. The horse is stronger, faster, and has more stamina than the bovine. The human must use its brain to outsmart the cow, or to train the horse to outmaneuver the cow.

The skills of the cowboy are very admired. What I call being a good cow fighter is very well thought of in most ranchers’ minds. It takes a bunch of dedication and skill to get this power over a beef animal. Good horsemanship skills, good roping skills, and reading a cow are very important in the fighting of the cow.

This is all great, but what if we could change things just a bit, change the feel and timing of pressure, to create a more balanced approach to getting the critter to do what we want. If you don’t want to change because then you would not get to rope as much or have the high power horse skills in use as much, I understand. You are not in the business for profit, but for lifestyle. And you are also saying you like to be hard on livestock. When you rope cattle in the pasture, throw a trip on ’em to doctor them, you are being hard on ’em. When you yell, scream, slap your chaps and run into the bunch to get ’em through the gate, you are being hard on them and teaching them to be afraid.

I like to think of a good cowboy the same way I have heard a good black belt karate master should be. The black belt has spent years accumulating skills to have the mental and physical ability to have power over other humans. If they don’t use this power in balance it would create many problems. They could end up in prison or dead if they become to aggressive with their skill. From what I understand the black belt develops these skills but does all he can not to use them, except in a controlled match. This is how he tests his ability to use the skills, so in a real life situation he is ready to use the power.

What we are talking about with effective cattle handling is the ability to use feel and timing to get an beef animal to go where we need them to go. The better you handle the cattle the better trained they become and the less pressure it takes to handle them. If they have not been trained, or have learned to escape from bad handling, then you should have the skills (power) to get the animal to do what you want. This is when the balance of power is important.

For me personally, at one point in my life I thought the use of my cowboy skills was the most important thing to develop, and it was. But what I have found with experience (another word for mistakes) is that I overused the skills because I was good at them and did not know how good it felt to get something done with feel. My personal satisfaction and profit level have increased and chance for injury or death have decreased.

What helped to get me to that balance was being around good stockman that understood the balance. I had the skills, that’s why I had the job. The boss’s job was to keep me in check and to balance my cowboy powers with the feel it took to do the job right.

These days I am learning ways to work with animals in harmony as much as possible. Time and experience have helped me learn to balance pressure with animals and humans. There are times when neither will cooperate and that is when more pressure is needed. If you don’t have the pressure available to you, you will either not get it done or have to hire someone that does have the ability to get it done.

Cowboys come in all different styles. In every style there are a few that have learned feel, timing, and balance. This earns them the title of a “top hand.” Not just from other cowboys, but from all involved, and that is real important. I hope you are one or are working hard at becoming one.

If we use balance in our gift of humans having power over other animals the rewards are many. If we get power hungry the instant satisfaction is usually followed by future problems. This is not exclusive to cowboys, but to all humans and all aspects of life. Balance may be the secret to the highest quality of life.

Find it.

~ Curt Pate