Trust

[Baystatetom]

I forgot to mention:
Don’t beat them up after you catch them. As far as they know they just got hit for being caught. If you can run beside them with a 2×4 while they are bolting, yell whoa and let em have it. Joking of course but you get the point.
~Tom

[Kevin Cunningham]

I’m not going to scrap the whole project and that was never my intention. They are too young to even make good beef anyway. I might be a bit hotheaded and I do worry about that when working with the animals, but they are a good reason for me to get a better control over my anger. After all I can throw wrenches at a tractor all day long and only hurt myself, but with animals I have to keep my cool. I know that anger is not a good trait for a teamster, but I have many of the other qualities that I think make a good teamster. And I do have the persistence and patience to work through these problems. And most of this problem is my inexperience. I have never raised a calf let alone oxen. I have raised lots of other animals though and that give me some idea, but honestly maybe I am not familiar with the development stages of bovines.

My steers are young but since I work them everyday, twice a day, they are learning and developing quite quickly. I have no idea how they compare to other animals since I have absolutely no frame of reference, but I can generally assume that I am putting it as much or more time than a well trained 4H pair. I am also amazed at how much they can do at this stage, and we already rely on them for work on the farm. When they were down because of Joe’s shoulder injury I realized how much labor they are already saving us. So most of the fault is my own because I am already treating them like a trained pair, not quite, but a little bit. I am going to reevaluate my expectations and adjust from there.

And I am getting better at controlling my anger when they run. The second time they ran I found it impossible to control, and I lost it, but this time I not beat them. I still was pissed but I did not take it out on them. And I did go back to work. After all they had to pick up all the rocks that were scattered on the field, I just added some more weight so they couldn’t run again. It is going to be hard to control my instinct to run, though. When they have taken off, I don’t even think about it, I just start running too. It triggers something deep inside of me that will be very hard to control. Hopefully I won’t ever have to have that experince again.

[Tim Harrigan]

@Kevin Cunningham 34037 wrote:

… I know that anger is not a good trait for a teamster, but I have many of the other qualities that I think make a good teamster. And I do have the persistence and patience to work through these problems. …I am going to reevaluate my expectations and adjust from there.

And I am getting better at controlling my anger when they run… It is going to be hard to control my instinct to run, though. When they have taken off, I don’t even think about it, I just start running too. It triggers something deep inside of me that will be very hard to control. Hopefully I won’t ever have to have that experince again.

Kevin, I know you have the traits to be a good teamster. Almost all of us come to this craft molded by the modern mentality that we are in control…of the pace, the speed, the outcome, all of it. If we stick with the craft, and take it to heart, we will leave it having been re-formed by the process. But it is not always easy. I told Andy, ‘training a pair of steers is easy compared to training your mind’. Your mind is the unruly part, not the steers. The first thing you need to develop is patience, you can’t rush that anymore than you can rush the development of your steers. When you get really pissed off, look in the mirror. You will see who it is that you are pissed off at. If you still want to slap someone around, go to work.

Cattle are flight animals. Humans are predators. When your team runs, and it triggers something in you that you find hard to control, what do you think it does to them? We all make mistakes and do things we regret, sometimes out of anger, sometimes from just not being as aware as we should be. The key thing is, don’t make the same mistakes over and over. Don’t have one day of experience over and over and over.

I have no doubt that you will be a good ox handler. You may think, as Andy probably did a while back, that we roughed you up pretty good. If that happens it is because we see you trying to get over a hump, and we sense you need a little nudge or maybe a full-out body slam. Don’t feel bad unless we go silent.

[Kevin Cunningham]

I am not hurt at what you have said as it is the truth, and I know that the truth is often very hard to hear. It is these animals and these people that act as my mirror. I have really liked what you said in these posts and the previous ones with Andy because it really has made clear to me that the “team” is three not two, and I myself am a part of the training. This is something that I very much want and need in my life but like all the good learning experiences and the good teachers, they can be hard at first but looking back these are the things that I will remember and really make a part of my life. I could go about my life and never look at these parts of who I am and how I got to this place, but I think that my life will be better and rich for facing some of these demons. When instinct comes to the surface then we know that we have hit a really deep spot and this is were real change comes from.

[Carl Russell]

@Kevin Cunningham 34039 wrote:

…….. I could go about my life and never look at these parts of who I am and how I got to this place, but I think that my life will be better and rich for facing some of these demons…….

As many of you know, I tend to be broadly philosophical. To some that is not what they are interested in. For many people, the issue they want to face has to do with physical aspects of the way the animals are acting, etc.

This statement above comes across my field of view like a that moonrise last night, so bright, so massively present, so full of truth.

Learning to become a teamster does require that we are instructor and student at the same time. It is really hard to see the difference between when we are teaching and when we are learning.

When I started this endeavor I was young and deeply committed. I did have some great guidance, but I also felt a huge degree of pressure from people who scrutinized my choices. At first I was energized by the feeling that I had something to prove, but I was not aware of how much that affected my own appraisal of what I was doing, and how it affected my leadership of the animals I worked with.

Yes we can place expectations on animals that may be beyond their capacity, and yes we can place expectations on ourselves to perform at certain level, but we also need to address the learned behavior of involuntarily gathering expectations from our families and communities. We all suffer from this in one way or another. Sometimes the expectations are not a bad thing, but it is the subversive way that they seep into our lives, riding with us without our even knowing it.

One of the most profound realizations that I came to when working animals is that they are always present. And to be affective as their leader I need to be present too. I began to realize that when they didn’t act according to my preconceptions it was precisely because I had not been as present as I could have been. I don’t mean that I wasn’t standing there, or that I wasn’t looking at them, but that I was not clearly aware of the circumstances of the situation I was in.

I also became aware that when I lost my temper it was actually because I felt out of control of the situation, not just my emotion…… not so much out of control, but really threatened by the fact that I had lost control of the situation, and that led my to an uncontrollable anger.

What followed next for me was reflection on why I was so distracted……. and it turned out to be the high expectations that I felt I needed to place on myself as a result of what I believed was expected of me from my family and community. I realized that even if they weren’t actually there in the minds of those people, I had developed a habit of trying to respond, sometimes revolting against, them.

My commitment to working with animals forced me to address these issues face on. I found that I had to drop the tendency to place such high expectations on myself. I needed to actually start every day with a blank slate. Open my eyes onto a whole new world. I obviously start where I leave off, but I have learned to come to my animals with no expectations. I don’t mean I let them disrespect me, but I am calm, honest, open, and unpretentious. This is extremely attractive to them, and it provides me with a completely un-tinted view of what I am doing with them.

I didn’t mean to highjack your thread, but your comment touched a nerve, and I felt the only way to speak to it was with personal reflection.

Carl

[Baystatetom]

I am a red head and have that temper that we are famous for. I have learned though that nothing good happens when I lose my temper, especially with my oxen and kids. However there was a few times when I was a kid that I gosh darn earned the spanking I got. Just the other day my off steer tried my patience to the end and I broke my goad over his nose. Almost immediately my heart sank at the thought of what I had done, but that steer was on the top of his game the rest of the day. He was on the spot following every command the first time I said it like a star pupil. Maybe my discipline was too harsh but it worked well and put both of us on the right track for the rest of the day. Like Yosemite Sam when I say whoa I me whoa!
~Tom

[Kevin Cunningham]

Wow, this discussion has been more valuable to me than anything I have ever read on draft and has made me think about how I train my animals in a very deep way. I printed it out and put it in my oxen folder. Super valuable advice and thoughts. Thank you all.

[oxman]

Dear Kevin. I feel for you. It is so easy to prevent runaway to the point where you can direct your team from a 100 feet away, but once this bad habit is learned it is another matter. It takes time and advanced training to achieve a semblance of success. While you should never trust your team, you can achieve a satisfactory relationship with your steers. The “tricks” you need to learn and in turn, instruct your team with would take more time and space than is allotted here. Keep trying, be watchful, discover what is their “want” for running, and curb it, or make it unattractive to them.

Carmen

[Author]

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