Harold Lamb with border collie

Item information

Title:

Harold Lamb with border collie

Description:

Transcribed from accompanying material: Release August 7, A.M.; Livestock Dogs Save Farmer Money by Tom Wood, N. C. State College; Garland--Hogs and cattle on the Lamb farm near here lead a dog's life--a sheep dog's life. For 11 years, Harold Lamb has been raising border collies. He uses them to work his 23 Herefords and 100 Poland Chinas. "My dogs save paying two or three men to handle the stock," says Lamb, a 1950 graduate of North Carolina State College. Four dogs do the work: Rounding up the stock, moving and penning then. Sarge, 11, and Rex, 5, are males. Ginny, 8, and Pat, one, are females. "It's just naturally in 'em to work stock," says Lamb. "They are really Scottish sheep dogs, backed up by hundreds of years of training with sheep." Go with Lamb to his barnyard when there's not a cow or hog in sight or hearing. Watch him send the dogs out to get the stock--with a simple command. In a few minutes, you'll see the hogs and cattle wandering in with the dogs at their heels. "Sarge is my best-trained dogs," says Lamb. "Once I had four cows to bloat up on wilted clover. He found 'em and warned me in time to save 'em." Faced with balky hog, the dogs take no nonsense from him. They'll grab a 200-pound hog by the ears or nose and drag him until he gives in. The collies are excellent watchdogs, too. Lamb recalls the time some friends came to fish on his place when he was away. "Ginny kept the men at the pond for quite a while before I got there and let them go," he says with a chuck. While he's not raising livestock dogs commercially, Lamb has sold quite a few. Ginny bore four litters of half a dozen pups each before Lamb had her spayed. He gets up to $50 per pup. Lamb believes that making a companion of a dog is the most important factor in training it. "You've go tot spend time with them while they're pups to get them to mind," he says. "I keep a dog with me everywhere I go on the farm while I'm training it." Gentleness is his key word in training. "You can't punish or scold them," he warns. "They just get mad and sulk. They'll sit down and refuse to do anything." One of the toughest commands to teach is for the dog to get ahead of an animal that's moving away from it. But Lamb has no trouble. His dogs seem to understand human talk. And they obey because they love him. Lamb has shown his dogs at the Southeastern Fat Stock Show at Wilmington and at the Clinton Livestock Show. How can you tell a good livestock dog? By whether he can stare down a lead animal in a herd," Lamb says. "If he can't, he's 'loose-eyed' and no good at working stock."--Tom Wood--7/32/62

Topics:

Agriculture
Community and Extension

Subjects:

Border collie
Farms
Livestock

Original Format:

Black and white print (photograph)

Item identifier:

ua023_007-003-bx0010-003-016

Created Date:

1961

Location:

Garland (N.C.)

Digital Project:

University Archives Photographs