Over the years

In August of 2019 at Pistton Fair I decided to go with my papa to pull my steers. What is that called, you ask? This is an event where we pull a certain percentage of our cattles’ weight. At the time, I wanted to go to the kids class, this is where kids under the age of 16 can all pull in a class together but sometimes they also have a weight limit on the steers so it’s not unfair. Unfortunately, my cattle were too heavy so I decided to just go in the “small” class which was hauling 75% of my steer’s weight, this is the class for 17yrs old and over so I was going against adults.This in theory doesn’t sound like a lot but it was. I figured that I had worked my steer enough and that they could haul said weight, but they could not haul it as well as I thought and had blocked up on me. What do I mean by blocked up? That means they just gave up on me and didn’t want to go any further and just stopped doing what I asked of them. That being said I went home and worked on a tire which was a light load. Because I had made them loose all courage so they thought that they could not even haul the lightest of loads. This is when I knew I really messed up because I had a 4-h show coming up and I could not even haul 50% of my weight.

After having that mess up with my steers I worked and worked and worked my butt off and I was finally able to see results but when I got to the fair, the drag that my steers were pulling got caught on a rock so they thought they could not haul it. The ring conditions also differ how bad the drag will go. Yes I made the mistake by hooking my steers on such a heavy load but the ring conditions do not help much either when the cattle are trying to haul the weight. I most definitely have learned from my mistakes at the two events with my steers. I’ve learned that even if you think you are ready but still questioning it, maybe give yourself a little more time to work on it and it will eventually get better. I worked and worked after all this and learned my lesson. I showed them the rest of the year at fairs and they got better and it was like they never struggled in the first place. All of this definitely taught me a lesson with all my new teams! I worked slowly and gradually had them haul more and more weight and they loved to pull weight and I had so much fun doing it. After all my hard work and learning my lesson my steers and I won every pulling class this year. I for sure definitely ended with a bang!

“Cow Sign” by mrbill is licensed under CC BY 2.0