A PASSION FOR RANCH DOGS
‘They’ll work themselves to death for you’: Husband and wife duo train dogs at Ranch Dog. Inc.
Jolie Vermette stands on the small hill in the family pasture, whistle between her lips. She makes a series of sounds: Long whistles, short whistles, all at a different pitch. Most humans will have no idea what she is trying to say through the noise she is making. But Kero does. As Vermette whistles, the fouryear-old border collie dashes back and forth around a small group of cattle, driving them toward his master. He takes them right past Vermette without her having to step out of the way. She sends the dog further up the hill, the cattle rarely getting out of step. It’s all in a day’s work for a stock dog. After a short training session, where they are joined by one of Kero’s sons, Jock, the elder dog lies down in the training pen at Ranch Dog Inc., which Vermette runs with her husband Marcel near Outlook. Kero’s tired, but he’s not lying down for a rest; he’s awaiting his next command, craving more work, never taking his eyes off Jolie until he finally relents and goes for a drink of water. “They’ll work themselves to death for you,” Marcel says of the breed. Soon enough, the work is done for the day and Kero and Jock are joined by 10 other border collies for play time; suddenly, the dogs that moments ago were so focused on their jobs look like any others, chasing, wrestling and racing their pack mates. The Vermettes have almost always had dogs through their 20
years of marriage, but it’s been in the past two that they’ve turned that passion into Ranch Dog Inc. in hopes of expanding the use of stock dogs across Saskatchewan and the Prairies. “I always say, ‘One good dog can replace two average men,’ ” Marcel says with a laugh. Jolie grew up near the family’s current home and was always fascinated by a neighbour, Peter Gonnett, and the way he had trained his dogs to move stock. She met Marcel when his family moved from the Kyle area during their high school years, but their paths didn’t cross again for several more years, after both had spent some time at university (Jolie earning an agriculture diploma and Marcel moving on to work in feedlots in Alberta). After Marcel moved back to Saskatchewan, the couple got together, marrying in 1998 and moving to their current piece of land in 2002. They raised cattle and ran a trucking operation hauling livestock, but with three boys (Wylie is now 18, Hayes 15 and Tate is soon to turn 12), the family decided Marcel needed to be closer to home. Marcel took a job with a feedlot operator and sometimes was joined in his work by a collie, Gayle, he’d acquired from Gonnett. Gayle had to earn the respect of feedlot owner Steve Primrose before she became a regular fixture with Marcel. One day they were driving 500 head of cattle near Eston when a young bull got away from the group and headed back toward the near-by river. “Steve said, ‘Just leave him, we’ll get him later.’ I said, ‘We’ll just send Gayle,’ ” Marcel recalls proudly. “Steve and I ended up finishing up and I said, ‘Steve look at that.’ And here comes Gayle and she’s working that steer right up the road. He said, ‘You can keep your dog on.’ And she got a rib-eye steak that night.”
I always say, ‘One good dog can replace two average men.’ ”
MARCEL
Even several years after Gayle died, the Vermettes still speak about her with reverence. “We thought we had good dogs before that, but she taught us what a really good dog can do,” says Jolie. And it was Gayle, to some extent, that led them to their current business venture. For years, as the couple would move cattle with their dogs or compete in stock dog trials across Canada and the U.S. Midwest, other ranchers would ask them, “How’d you train your dog to do that?” or “Where’d you get that dog?” So two years ago, returning from a trial in Cardston, Alta., where they’d heard the same questions, the couple came up with a way to provide resources for people who wanted to learn to train cow dogs and be a place where ranchers could go to get a well-trained dog. Now the Vermettes spend their days with up to a dozen border collies. They work with owners and their dogs or with the dogs alone. They breed some themselves and occasionally will take on a dog that has never seen a cow. Recently the Vermettes took in a two-year-old female who fit that bill. For the first few days, she would just sit in the pen as the couple worked with other dogs. Suddenly one day, the dog got up and wanted to work around training animals. “That second (where she realized) ‘Holy crap, this is what I was made to do!’ — to be frustrated her entire life and then that …” says Marcel, who has a habit of trailing
off when thinking about what he has seen his dogs do over the years. The dogs are workers and employees to a certain degree, but they are also pets and are treated just the same. “They work their way right into your soul,” says Marcel. “That Kero dog when I first saw him … it sounds hokey, but him and I just had a connection,” adds Jolie. “I said to Marcel, ‘He’s got it.’ When I lose him, maybe just lock me in a room because it’s not going to be easy.” As much as they train dogs for business purposes, it’s clear they also simply love the animals. That’s why it’s just as important to them to educate the public on how the use of cow dogs works. Stock dogs have a bad reputation among some because sometimes, they say, a dog has to bite an animal to get it to move — but that’s always a last resort. “It is no benefit to any cattle producer to do any harm to your stock,” says Marcel. “We get paid by the pound and if you’re running your cattle through fences and dropping pounds off, you’re losing money. It’s no benefit to any rancher to use a bad dog.” Education is a big reason Ranch Dog is hosting a cow dog trial at Agribition in Regina on Nov. 19 (7 p.m., Brandt Centre). The International Stock Dog Championship, where dogs move sheep, takes place Nov. 22 at the annual agricultural show. There is a huge cow dog community in the U.S. in states like Wyoming, Utah and Idaho, but the one in Canada is still growing. The Vermettes hope their team approach can make the process speed up. It’s become a way of life for them, and something they want for others too. “They ’ll work their heart out for someone they respect and someone they love,” says Marcel.