Cattle Work with Taxi – Day 1

I have been given the opportunity to rotate and check the cattle alone, for the next 2 or 3 months and yesterday was the first day.  I took Taxi, who has only been around cattle once or twice.  Our focus was using the Parelli patterns to help him be calm, connected, and responsive before we headed out.  We used follow the rail at walk, trot, and canter until he was blowing out and off we went.  He had a few moments of high headed tenseness in the beginning when he saw the big equipment working, or something off in the distance moving, or the grasses moving when the pigs were running from us, so I matched the feel of his energy and touched his whither, but waited briefly until I could feel he was with me then we moved on.  He also tested my leadership (he is a strong Left Brained Extrovert) quite a bit in the beginning, but I used the Me Too and Bother Bother methods that Linda Parelli teaches, as well as a strong focus and released when he tried and kept feel, timing, and balance in mind consistently.  Pretty soon he was thinking about moving forward rather than heading home 🙂  By the time we got to the herd, he was ready, emotionally, and that went great.  They moved toward us as a herd, ready to follow us, and he was okay with that.  Also, we moved a few away from us gently so he could feel that and then we had a nice relaxed ride home.  All in all, a great first day and I have a program in mind to help him over the next few months.