A cattle handler describes leaving a gate halfway open and using his horse as a movable gate instead. This cuts down on repeated gate work and dust, keeps cattle calmer, and reduces strain on both animals. He worked with a colleague named Davey, who trains a young filly for the same purpose.
Most of the time when people are sorting in an alley, they have somebody in a gate and they're constantly opening and closing the gate. And over the years, I've gotten to the point where I like to just have the gate open to where it's going about halfway across the alley. And then use my horse as the gate. I can go ahead and let cattle go by me if I want them to go by me, or just get out of the way to where they can turn in the gate. Takes less movement. Less effort, and you can get the job done just as fast, if not faster, than having the gate open, or rather closing it. This set of cattle had been kind of jammed on for a couple of years, got to the point where they wouldn't go by a guy, so we're just kind of Taking our time, and Davey's working on that filly a little bit, letting her work some cattle in the alley without it putting too much pressure on her or the cattle, either one. Neither one of us are having to do any big moves, just kind of set them up where they can go ahead and go where we want them to without stirring up a bunch of dust.
