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Watching the Gate
One
place
where
people
seem
to
mistakes
is
when they are watching the gate
while someone else is pulling cattle. The most common mistake is
when a cow is coming down the fence and breaks across the pen. It seems
the reaction is to try and outrun the cow to get in front of it and
turn it back to the gate. Of course the reaction of the person pulling
the cow is the same. The end result is similar to squeezing a greased
marble between your thumb and index finger and the cow flies across the
pen stirring up and putting stress on the other cattle. Of course the
first mistake is behind why the cow broke across the pen in the first
place.
When a cow is coming down the fence it is wanting to
get around the rider pushing it. No matter how relaxed the cow appears,
it is still looking for a hole to get around the rider. If the cow
spots the person on the gate, it will react in relationship to where
that person is even if the cow is at the back of the pen and the person
is just a few feet from the front of the pen. While some cows keep
their heads down and never notice the rider watching the gate, others
will pack their heads higher, notice the second rider, and react to go
around them. I’ve worked with people who have a tendency to do
things while watching the gate which will make a cow blow back across
the pen. Of course these people are also constantly cursing these
“crazy” cows without even giving a second thought to the fact
that it may have more to do with what they are doing than the cow‘s
attitude.
The fact is, that ninety percent (or more) of the
time, when a cow begins turning back or blowing back across the pen,
the fault lies in something either the gate person or the person
bringing the cow is doing. Other than letting extra cattle run
out the gate, the person watching the gate needs to do several things.
The most obvious is to recognize which cow the person is pulling. This
is difficult if the person bringing the cow has several extra cows (or
perhaps half the pen) with the one they want. The second thing is not
so obvious. It is possible to attract the cow’s attention and begin
moving ourselves in a way to help the person pulling it to get it to
the gate. Often this can be done from quite a distance, sometimes from
halfway across the pen.
Begin by moving your horse to turn the group of cows
away from the gate while keeping your focus on the cow to be pulled.
When the cow to be pulled begins to turn with the other cows use a
little lateral movement to stop or slow down the action. You need to be
careful with this as you don’t want to accidentally turn the cow back,
but to keep it from going with the other cows and head for the gate.
When you make the move to do this, the cow’s attention will be divided
between you and the person pulling the cow. By using lateral movement
and moving away from the cow, combined with the pressure from the
person pulling the cow, the cow will turn and go past you towards the
gate. As the cow goes past you, turn and go with it, using lateral
movement to allow the cow to turn and see the gate.
Of
course
there
are
those
times
when
the gate is wide open, the
cow has a clear field of vision to it, yet blows across the pen. When
this happens the reaction of both the person pulling the cow, and the
gate person is to get ahead of the cow to turn it. Of course this
seldom works and we soon have the majority of the cows in the pen
running around. The reason it doesn’t work is because, from the cow’s
perspective, we are actually asking the cow to speed up, go by the gate
person and across the pen as in figure 1A. 
We must remember that our actions play a big part in how the cow
reacts. We must also realize that we have been inundated through the
years with being taught to work cattle against their natural
instincts. As such we are working against ourselves and making
our job more difficult. In order to change our reactions to the cattle,
we need to concentrate more on reading the cattle and moving in a way
which will cause them to react in the way we want. To be successful,
this means making smaller adjustments and making them more often than
we are used to. While we are making the transition (or when
working with someone who doesn’t understand the concepts of working
with the cattle), there will be times when we do need to move in a
hurry. But we can do this in a way which will still keep the cattle a
little calmer.
In Figure 1, the cow is being pushed a
little to hard, spots the rider at the gate and runs across the pen.
The person watching the gate could have prevented this by moving across
the pen before the cow made its move. Once the cow has started moving
fast across the pen it is usually too late to get in front of the cow.
Trying to get in front of the cow at this point will only speed the cow
up as in Figure 1 to the right.
 In
order to turn the cow without adding more stress, the person on the
gate needs to move up the fence while the person pulling the cow needs
to use lateral movement, fading away from the cow as in Figure 2. As
the "gate person" passes the cow's hip, the cow will be drawn to look
at them, taking the cow's focus off the person pulling them for a
second or two. However, the success in getting the cow to draw to the
gate person is highly dependant upon what your partner is doing. The
harder they are pushing the cow, the less the cow will be drawn to the
gate person. Conversely, the more the person pulling the cow
fades and removes pressure, the more the cow will be drawn to the gate
person, changing its direction of travel.
Once
the
cow
is
facing
the gate as in Figure 3, its normal reaction will be
to try and go around the gate person.
 As
your horse is bent into the cow and ready to turn, adjust yourself to
the position shown in Figure 4. At this point, being flanked by both
riders the cow will have the gate directly in front of it and should go
right out the gate. I say should because even though the cow's focus
should be on the gate at this point, many people have the habit of
hollering at the cow to speed it up. This habit of making noise to
speed up a cow, or to get it going after it stops is another one of
those things we have been taught to do which just causes us more
problems than it solves. Noises such as shouting or slapping reins on
our chaps, etc., just puts stress on the cow without having any
focused pressure. As a result the cow is likely to go in a
direction we don't want it to go. Often when we approach a gate
and start hollering or making noise to get the cow to go, it will turn
to look at what is causing the noise, and try running back between the
rider and the fence rather than out the gate. About the only time it is
advisable to holler at a cow is when it is blind and can't see what you
are doing.
If
the
cow
is
wanting
to
turn
back at the gate, rather than hollering
at the cow as it aproaches the gate, or putting more pressure on it,
you can often speed a cow up by stopping and backing up your horse a
few steps. This works because by backing your horses up, you are taking
away any hole the cow thought it saw. As the cow is wanting to get away
from you, and you have taken away the hole it wanted to use, it will go
out the gate. This method will also work when you are walking a cow
down the fence. If it stops (and especially when the cow looks back at
you) you are too close. Rather than asking the cow to keep going
forward you have positioned yourself so that the cow is thinking of
going around you. By stopping and backing a couple of steps you are
relieving the excess pressure and allowing
the cow to move forward down the fence.
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