I experienced a real privilage this year when I was got to meet the horseman Bryan Neubert at a sheepdog training clinic I was giving at the Hunewell Ranch in Nevada recently. Bryan grew up next door to the legendary Bill Dorrance in California, and spent much of his life around Bill who was a mentor for him. Bryan also worked some cattle jobs along with Ray Hunt and Bill’s brother Tom Dorrance. he went on to become close friends with Tom and travelled and worked with him giving clincs.
I first came to know about Bill Dorrance and his famous brother Tom when I was working on a ranch not far from Cache Creek in British Colombia, Canada. I was about nineteen or twenty years old that time and in the winter evenings I would often read some of my boss’s books. I read about the Dorrances but I picked up a small book by their friend Ray Hunt called Think Harmony with Horses and it really resonated with me. Ray’s ideas went on to form the fundamentals of my philosophy on training working dogs.
Article about Ray and the Dorrances https://westernhorseman.com/culture/flashbacks/game-changers/
Ray said things like set it up to win or make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard or recognise the slightest try. These were ideas that stuck with me. I might be trying to open up a dog’s flank or widen an outrun or teach him to point on his outrun and Ray’s words come to me, knowing when to apply and release pressure and make a language me and my dog can use.
I got to have dinner with Bryan the night before making this interview and he told me a world of stories that kept me on the edge of my seat and provided great amusement as well as food for thought. In this interview Bryan tells stories about Bill and Tom and situations that give an insight into how they approached things and of the feel they had for situations. Bryan is the kind of fellow I like to call when i have a dog problem or question. the horseman Bryan Neubert has the kind of thinking that i am very excited by, the answers come indirectly from these kind of converations. As Bryan says ”the answer might come when you’re not within a hundred miles of the horse”
the Horseman Bryan Neubert is also a dogman and he likes to train stockdogs to work cattle. Bryan often sells his working dogs at the Red Bluff Dog sale http://redbluffbullsale.com/1-23-2019-red-bluff-stock-dog-sale/
