Tompkins Corner Chronicles

I managed my first infliction of injury the other day.  One night late April we had 4 calves born in the night.  I went out to check genders and got numbers written down.  Then we go to the barn utility room and make out tags, yellow or white for bulls, and pink or orange for heifers. Then we give the calf the same number as the mother so its easy to match them up later.  We also band (castrate) the bulls within the first day or two. I was running the Safety Zone Calf Catcher, and I've probably caught between 100-200 of them this year while my dad did the rest.  This one poor bull calf I had to chase down a little while before getting him into the cage and slamming the gate on him, and from there work him.  He ran into the left side of the cage and went down, which is somewhat normal.  I jumped out and tagged and banded him, he was slow to get it which sometimes happens.  Upon finally getting him to stand up I see he has a back left hoof dangling....

 Upon returning to the ranch I've felt on a number of occasions that I have a lot to learn, mostly in moments working with my dad when he sees something I missed, like the signs of a heifer in early labor or being shown by the previous hired man how to change the bearings on a tractor tire.  I for sure have as good of a foundation as one could have coming into a job, having done a number of things up until high school,  Yet I'm lacking in certain technical skills, like welding, or oversight skills like herd and land management.  But its exciting to have things to work toward.  I'm an old dog learning new tricks.  But, I didn't really want to talk about myself with this post.  I've been trying to get Baron (our currently 10 year old dog), acquainted with moving cows, and maybe even more so get the cows acquainted with him.   He hops and spins and whines when I move toward a pickup or 4-wheeler, hoping to come along.  He has obedience down...