TED MONOSON Lee Enterprises staff writer | Posted: Monday, August 18, 2003 12:00 am
KAYCEE - It seems like there is plenty of space on the 60,000-acre Meike Ranch east of Kaycee.
But in fact, a little more space is what Jack Knox ordered during a four-day stint teaching a disparate group of Wyomingites to train their stock dogs.
Overcrowding was Knox's analysis of the situation with Marvin Thompson and Priss last week.
Thompson, a 68-year-old cowboy from Waltman, stepped in with a firm "Hey! Hey! Hey!" as Priss tried to control a half dozen penned sheep by grabbing a ewe's hind leg in her mouth and tugging.
The ewe responded by kicking, knocking over a corral panel and scattering all of the sheep in an effort to avoid the dog.
Thompson stood in the midst of the dust, dung and mayhem. And Knox, in the Scottish accent he still carries after 30 years in the states, offered his thoughts on the matter.
Thompson, it seems, had been too close to Priss when trying to lead her to herd the sheep. Knox said that if Thompson would give Priss more room and freedom to work, she would in turn give the sheep more room to move. According to Knox, Priss felt cornered by Thompson and responded by aggressively going after the sheep.
During their next go round, Thompson stayed back and Priss guided the herd around the pen like an old hand.
Knox's pupils paid $100 for the two-day sessions. The Scotland native uses a training method he says allows the dog to think, rather than forcing the dogs to behave in a certain way.
"I want the dogs to use their brains," Knox said. "I don't believe in breeding brains into a dog and then beating their brains out."
Knox, who lives in Butler, Mo., now when he's not on the road teaching training techniques, urges dog handlers to learn how to bring out their dog's innate understanding of livestock.
"Training brings out what you have in a dog," Knox told the students after they shared a lunch of beef burritos and pasta salad in the shade of some trees next to the lamb shed. "You can't put something in the dog."
Knox's attitude toward the dogs is nearly identical to his attitude toward people.
He talked about how infuriating he finds it when Little League parents will sometimes cheer an effort that goes wrong, a ground ball that gets by. Similarly, an owner will sometime be too generous with praise when a dog has not truly mastered a task.
"I don't tell him how good or pretty a dog is. That's spoiling a dog. If he is good or pretty, he'll figure that out."
Giving a dog room to work is a cornerstone of Knox's teaching.
"When you step off, it allows that dog to think," Knox said. "When you move toward a dog you crowd its mind. When you step away, you open its mind."
He explains that this kind of training produces a dog that does not crowd a herd and allows the members of the herd to think.
"I prefer a dog who can control sheep from a distance," Knox said. "The dog that can stay further away is the one that I am looking for."
The students drink in Knox's advice, awed by his ability to handle dogs.
"He's got like a sixth sense with dogs," said Bruce Pheasant, who lives near Kaycee and attended the clinic with Deke, his 18-month-old blue kelpie.
They also share Knox's respect for the dogs' instinctive ability to manage livestock.
For Stacey Breidenstein, who is originally from New Jersey and now lives in Wilson, training her dog is a hobby, rather than part of her vocation.
Sporting a tee shirt with the collar cut off and sunglasses perched on top of her baseball cap, Breidenstein worked with Wyatt, her 18-month-old border collie.
"He seems to really love herding and I want to make him a better sheep dog," Breidenstein said. She and Wyatt are members of the Canine Athletes of the Tetons.
For Kati Moore, training her five-month-old border collie, Abby, is both a vocation and a hobby. Moore, 24, is preparing to take over her family's ranch when her 50-year-old father retires in a few years.
Although her father was working on the family ranch 65 miles northwest of Douglas rather than at the clinic, Moore said he supported her decision to attend.
"When he needed to train his dogs he just got a book," said Moore, who earned a degree in agriculture business from the University of Wyoming in 2002. "He's never been to a clinic, but he was all for it. I needed a hobby, since I live out in the middle of nowhere."
Gillette real estate appraiser Maryann Moorcraft attended the clinic to train Jangles, her son Mike's Australian shepherd. Her son turned 40 on Aug. 6 and getting the dog trained was a birthday gift. He recently moved from Gillette to take a job as a civil engineer in Cody and left two horses, a cat and Jangles, with her.
"I am not into dogs," said Moorcraft, who was dressed in pastel, sleeveless tee-shirt, shorts and sneakers. "I haven't had dogs since I was growing up on a ranch."
Although she said her son "was real happy and thought it was a great idea," Moorcraft's plans for his future do not involve dogs.
"He needs to find a good woman, settle down and have six kids," she said with a grin on her face.
Despite their differences, by the end of the two-day session, the group of Wyoming residents had developed warm relationships and a sense of camaraderie.
While chatting, C.A. Pecorelli, who is 40-year-old farrier from Jackson, discovered that his father and Thompson, the cowboy, had worked together on a ranch in the summer of 1947. Pecorelli's father, Carmen, had come out to Wyoming from his home in Jersey City, N.J., to work as a ranch hand when Thompson was a 13-year-old chore boy.
Thompson's mother was the cook and she cooked a special dinner of spaghetti and meatballs for Carmen, whose mother sent her the recipe.
More than 50 years later, Thompson remembers both Carmen Pecorelli, who returned to New Jersey and worked in public relations, and the spaghetti and meatballs.
"They had to go into the store in Dubois and special order stuff," Thompson said. "That was real Italian New York food, it's not like going to Pizza Hut."