[Announcer] Funding for this program was made possible by Humanities Texas and Ellen Temple.

[metal door clanging] [upbeat music] ♪ I'm a dog, I'm a working dog, I'm a hard working dog ♪ ♪ Hard working dog ♪ ♪ Now I never said I was a hog, you can see I'm not a frog ♪ ♪ I'm trying to tell you I'm a dog ♪ ♪ I'm a hard working cow dog ♪ ♪ I'm a dog, I'm a working dog, I'm a hard working dog ♪ ♪ Hard working dog ♪ ♪ Now some dogs can fetch a stick ♪ ♪ Other dogs will shake your hand ♪ ♪ All I know how to do is to make them cows understand ♪ ♪ That I'm a dog, I'm a working dog, I'm a hard working dog ♪ ♪ Hard working dog ♪ ♪ Now I'm not the top dog, not much of a bird dog ♪ ♪ I'm not the best watch dog, I'm an awful good cow dog ♪ ♪ 'Cause I'm a dog, I'm a working dog ♪ ♪ I'm a hard working dog ♪ ♪ Hard working dog ♪ [gentle music] ♪ ♪ [birds chirping] [gentle music] ♪ ♪ - I've never lived anywhere else but Houston County.

When you've been here all your life, you can't really describe it that well.

You just... it's just Houston County.

- Houston County is a good place to live.

We got enough rainfall to grow grass.

You gotta have grass if you're gonna have cattle.

That's the reason all the cattle's in East Texas.

[gentle music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ It ain't a way of making a living, it's just a way of life.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - Back up, dog.

[metal clanging] [metal clanging] [blows raspberry] [metal clanging] [grunts] [metal clanging] I am classified as a day hand or custom cowboy, kind of the gypsies of cowboys.

We travel different ranches every day and pin cows and vaccinate calves and cows and pretty well anything to do with the cow, we do.

- Let's see what we got.

- A good set of dogs is better than a bunch of people.

[cows mooing] [dogs barking] All our dogs are designed to do anything from find cattle in the brush to keep the cattle bunched when you're driving them.

If a cow runs off, bring her back.

[dog barking] [cow mooing] [dogs barking] [water splashing] [dog barking] [water splashing] [water splashing] - I'll go around the pen and get the gate open.

[cow mooing] - Pretty well if you're a custom day hand, you have a set of dogs.

[metal clanging] I cannot make a living without them.

[door creaking] [cow mooing] - My name's Caroll Dean Langham.

I was born July 1st, 1942.

Today's my birthday.

I'll be 81 today.

Still can ride a little bit, rope a little bit and still like it.

[cow mooing] Somebody asked me one time, what's the most important thing a cowboy needs?

I said a hammer and nail.

Boy, that'll do it, won't it?

That'll suck it right on down there.

- Where you want it?

You want to cut it right here, or leave it long?

- I'd leave it like that.

- I'll fix that, I got a saw in the truck.

- Just damn near journeyman carpenter.

You very near are!

I didn't know you had all these fancy tools.

- Best Christmas gift I ever bought myself, Caroll.

- Yeah.

[drill whirring] [gentle music] - Old Dunny, he's a red dun, lineback dun.

Yeah, he's 19 years old.

Pretty quiet old horse.

Little bit on the spooky side, but good to rope off of him.

Little bit on the lazy side, you kinda gotta cue him.

Sometimes you might have to put a spur in him.

[chuckles] Get him over there in front of something.

[dramatic music] ♪ ♪ [cows mooing] - Pshhhhh, go on now.

[cows mooing] - Yeah, that's what you told me.

I think it was a myth.

That front one didn't work.

[cows mooing] [gentle music] - These are all American Quarter horses and they're all what they call cowbred horses.

DJ Bennett is the two-year-old guy here.

He does all the starting of every two-year-old on this place.

He takes them and starts them from the ground up.

A lot of the ones he gets aren't even halter broke when they get here.

So he'll have his hands full on a lot of them.

And I take them there at the end of the two-year-old year and start riding them and then kind of decide what's gonna fit me and what's gonna work for the show pen or what's gonna be a ranch horse.

And if they're a ranch horse, we'll ranch on them.

And if they're a cutting horse, we'll try to show them.

[horse neighing] [dramatic music] - Walk, trot, lope, stop, back up, turn around.

I don't care what discipline it's going to, it has to know that.

You know, you can get a horse doing all that, but if he's not comfortable and doing it in a willing frame of mind, you're kind of forcing it.

And I guess that's kind of my foundation of colt starting and two-year-old riding this wolf trot low, stop, back up, turn around, and doing it in a comfortable, relaxed frame of mind and being willing to work with you and not against you.

[gentle music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [birds chirping] [engine rumbling] - So I just feed everyone, get all the colts and the mares up, get them saddled, get them ready for DJ to ride.

[bad rustling] [chuckles] [birds chirping] [gate clanging] Good morning!

[birds chirping] [birds chirping] [birds chirping] - What's he doing?

- Drinking my coffee.

Hunter, are you supposed to be doing that?

Hunter!

Okay, so this is Hunter.

He is two.

Posey, come here.

[laughs] And this is Posey.

They were raised here on this place, pretty much.

They'll work cows or they'll get in the way.

[engine rumbling] Maybe these clouds will go away.

[engine rumbling] [birds chirping] Funny.

[birds chirping] [saddle thuds] [saddle creaks] [birds chirping] [horse neighs] That's it.

This is our problem child.

You know I've never been kicked.

I swear.

I say it all the time.

Never.

I'm just going to go tie these up in the barn.

They'll be saddled a little bit later.

[birds chirping] You a sweet boy, huh?

Let's go.

Let's go, come on.

Let's go.

[hooves on gravel] [shovel scraping cubes] So this is the easy way to do it.

They do it with a bucket, but I'm not strong enough.

[shovel scraping and dumping cubes] [shovel scraping and dumping cubes] - What is it?

- Hunter drank all my coffee.

- Oh.

[shovel scraping and dumping cubes] - Told him this morning to get here at six and get this pen watered down.

I don't know what he's been doing, assing around I guess.

[engine roaring] [upbeat music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - Yeah, I went out there with Hank to doctor some yearlings on a colt.

And I just went out there to rope one, it was just a freak accident.

Horse just slipped down and landed just right or just wrong on that leg and twisted it backwards and broke it and broke the ankle and then broke the middle of the big bone, the main bone in the leg and then the little side bone fractured it one time.

So it broke it in three spots and they had to do a surgery and put metal rods and screws all in it.

And I'm supposed to start walking tomorrow on it, according to the doctor, but I don't know.

I stayed off of it about two weeks and it's still sore.

It gives me trouble, but it's getting better.

[upbeat music] ♪ ♪ - Whoa.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [birds chirping] [birds chirping] [metal clanging] [grunting] - If you see Ronnie, you see Klay.

If you see Klay, you see Ronnie.

[metal clanging] They got the same disposition and they move slow and they get things done that a lot of people wouldn't get done by not getting in no hurry.

[gentle music] - Sometimes going slow is the fastest way to get them pinned.

[gentle music] Now there's a lot of people that won't agree with that.

They think they got to be going wide open.

Wide open ain't for me.

[gentle music] [cow mooing] [cows mooing] [cows mooing] - Pshhhh.

[gentle music] [metal clanging] ♪ ♪ [truck engine rumbling] [truck engine rumbling] [truck engine rumbling] [birds chirping] - We got 12 head that have never been touched.

And so we're gonna get them sorted into these stalls in here one at a time, put a rope on them, get our hands on them.

You know, just get them comfortable, kind of buddy up with them, let them know that we're okay.

We're not gonna hurt them.

[whistles] Horses!

[whistles] Horses!

[whistles] Horses!

Fancy.

Fancy.

[whistles] I'd work some place for the spring and I'd work the summer somewhere then I'd go somewhere and I'd be there in the fall.

I made a big circle.

And I can drive anywhere from China, Texas to, you know, Dalhart, from, you know, Orange, Texas to El Paso.

And I'll have somebody I can talk to anywhere in between or find a job or find something to do anywhere in Texas.

And I always try and stay right there at that shoulder.

All he can do right there is bite me.

He can't really paw me, he can't really kick me.

Trying to do anything else but this would break me, would break my spirit.

I tried one time, I got a real job.

What everybody says, get a real job, get a real job.

I got a real job one time and it... I'll tell you what, it was the most miserable three months of my life.

I generally try and stay, come up here to him with a saddle and let him get a sniff of it from back here.

Ho.

He's been ridden one time.

We've had one ride on him.

This is his fourth saddle, but we rode him Saturday once.

- So like on these colts like this, it's the worst thing you can do is get up there and just get still.

It's real important to get up there and just stay busy petting and rubbing.

'Cause when you get, a lot of people are bad about getting up there and getting too quiet and still and that colt kind of gets to forgetting you're up there and then you surprise them and that's usually when they do something silly.

[kiss smacking] And so it doesn't matter where this colt wants to go.

It doesn't matter what he wants to do as long as he's moving out.

[gentle music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [kissing] [indistinct background chatter]] I'm in trouble, I know.

I had to work yesterday.

Yeah.

[footsteps, spurs clanging] What do you want?

[brush sweeping] [leather creaks] [metal clanging] - Sadie, you're right in my way, girl.

She's what you call an attention freak.

She can't stand it.

Sadie, get out of the way, girl.

[metal clanking] Go over here and make sure our lock gates are set up.

[gentle upbeat music] ♪ ♪ - Bull went bad last year and all my cows was open.

- Good Lord have mercy.

You know that same thing happened to a couple of ours as well.

- I guess we'll get started sorting them.

[cows mooing] Get your head down.

[cows mooing] [cows mooing] [syringes clicking] [cows mooing] You got two hands, you can handle both of these guns.

One in each hand.

[cows mooing] We call him Red or Rojo.

He's a coming 3-year-old.

This horse here, he's the only horse at my house you can walk up to in the pasture, or I can, and catch him.

The rest of them, you gotta feed them in the round pen and then they're gonna run around and blow and snort at you for a minute or two, and then you can ease up there and catch 'em.

But him, he'll meet you at the gate.

[calm music] [birds chirping] - Growing up with daddy, one of his favorite sayings, you know, is cows don't know it's Christmas.

They gotta be fed, they gotta be looked after, they gotta be taken care of.

And so I went through three fiancees and a wife, you know, because they could not understand.

The cows come first, the horses come first, and you just can't, you can't just ignore 'em.

- Well, I haven't really named her yet, but I think about naming her Jessie, 'cause I got a great big sorrel gelding that I call Woody.

And so I'll have Woody and Jesse off "Toy Story."

That's pretty good, huh?

- Yeah, that's good.

- Pasture doctoring, it's a difficult thing to do, especially with those yearlings.

So we ride out there through 'em, and we find one that's sick, and we get that thing away from everybody else, and get it caught and get it doctored without killing yourself or the horse, or the cow.

[birds chirping] Spot a sick one, and you gotta get that sick one kind of cut away from everybody else.

Then you got to be able to get up there and rope it, get it tied down, you know, as quick as possible.

The least amount of stress as you can.

Get 'em doctored and we'll let them back up and hope for the best.

What we're doing here, put that R on them so that we know that we gave them Resflor.

You know, we put the date on them So we know we don't doctor them again until after about three days to see if they're responding to the medicine or not before we give them the second treatment.

[soft music] Vaya con Díos amigo.

[upbeat country music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - This is Josie and that's Buster.

He's about a year-and-a-half old.

Between puppies and a few retired dogs, I've got about 20.

Of course, I guess every cowboy's got their favorite dogs, this being a small herd, you know, you don't need more than three.

But I got two or three more there at the house that I think a lot of, and I got some other good ones, but these would probably be my top three favorites right here.

Even though they're working dogs, I guess you could still call them pets, but I probably wouldn't have as many if I didn't use them like I do.

But I've always enjoyed a good dog, and, uh, especially if a dog has a purpose.

I'm not much on a lap dog, but you know, inside dog or anything, but if a dog's got a purpose, whether he's a hunting dog, cow dog, or even a prison dog that runs them inmates, as long as they got a purpose, that's what I like about a dog.

[gentle music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [cows mooing] [dogs barking] - Frank!

♪ ♪ My wife had all them dogs in the house when me and her got together.

I never had no dog in the house, my dogs stayed in the barn.

Well, they didn't get cold?

I said well I never did ask them if they got cold or not.

They had all that hay down there you could den up in.

I'd say all them dogs made it through December '83, coldest it's ever been since they been keeping records.

Below zero, the chill factor was, for 14 days.

And they didn't never freeze to death, so I guess the good Lord got away with taking care of that.

[wind blowing] [birds chirping] [birds chirping] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [dog barking] [tires on gravel] - I was born and raised in Huntington, Texas.

I went to school there all my life.

Played all sports.

Didn't know anything about horses until I met DJ.

- I guess when I was 19, me and her got together and she started helping me, and we just kind of built it into what it is.

[dog barking] That's a big part of this, and having somebody good that can catch 'em, saddle 'em, put 'em on the walker, bring 'em to you, unsaddle 'em when you're done.

The feedin', like the actual training part of this is the easy part.

- All right, I'll be right back.

You want me to go get you snuff?

- Yeah.

It's hard to put into words.

The foundation is being comfortable, confident, and training the horse for what it is.

You know, I just ride two-year-olds, so that's all that two-year-old year is foundation.

And I don't care if it's a barrel horse, cutting horse, training the individual for what it is, but confidence in the foundation is key.

[kissing] - Some of them, I swear, no matter how much you catch 'em, they're still kinda turds.

[patting] They feed off of your energy.

So if you're real calm, they're real calm.

Hey.

It's not scary.

Is there any saddle you want on any one or does it matter?

- No, it don't matter.

- Okay.

- Don't use Hank's saddles.

- See, that wasn't so bad, was it?

Was it?

[kissing] [tooth rasp grinding] I've been an equine dentist for about two-and-a-half years now.

Just because we have so many horses, it's hard to take them all to the vet.

So it was just easier for me to go to school and learn.

So I'm going to pull these wolf teeth on this mare right here.

You usually do it on all your 2-year-olds.

They're the first molar.

The bit, wherever you set the bit, it hits a nerve right there, which is attached to these, and it bothers them.

So you wanna take them out before you even put a bit in their mouth.

She's gonna be a turd just because she is a turd.

[chuckles] [tooth rasp grinding] [gentle music] [birds chirping] - Starting him today, I'm just let him pack it and be comfortable in it.

He'll chew on it, put his tongue over it and stuff, and no big deal.

Right here, I'm just gonna do some desensitizing.

I don't want him to be overreactive and fearful of this flag.

[kissing] [birds chirping] [kissing] [birds chirping] [kissing] [gentle music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [dog whining] [metal clanging] [metal clanging] - Another day in paradise, ain't it?

[gentle music] - Here, here.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - Jeff, get in here behind me.

Fred, come on, get in.

Get in, Jeff.

Fred!

Come here.

Come here, come here.

Come here, come here, come here.

Come here, Fred.

Fred.

Fred.

Come on, come on, Fred.

[whistles] Come on, boy.

Fred's about a year old.

Come here.

This is only like his second time to be out, so that's why he was staying by that horse.

Sometimes it takes a little while.

Sometimes they don't never get with the program.

Get in.

That's when you find your little kid that wants a dog.

[cow mooing] - We're in Augusta, Texas and we have penned our cows this morning.

Our cowboys, Klay Curry, he helps work our cows every time we need to get them worked and palpated and the calves cut out of them and separated so what today we're doing we're gonna worm them and put fly spray on them and cows that's open we're gonna have them palpated by the vet.

[generator engine rambling] [cow mooing] [cow mooing] [cow mooing] - Be patient.

[cow mooing] [Rachel] Well, Klay, you wanted me to wait.

[gentle music] ♪ ♪ [crickets chirping] - Pain in the ass.

[thudding] Ah, she's pawing.

She just wants to be with everybody else.

And when they get irritated or whatever, they'll sit there and they'll paw stuff.

The irritating thing a horse can do is sit there and paw and make noise and be aggravating.

I think that's what she's doing.

She just knows she's getting on my nerves.

[metal clanging] [gate creaks] [leather squeaking] You go out there and you're wide open across the pasture.

You rope a yearling, horse slips over the rope, it all comes tight, everything comes down on top of you.

You can't think about all that because when you think about all that.

[grunts] You're not there!

You can't get anything done because that's what you're thinking about.

[grunts] [cow mooing] So I just take it and I... flip her over.

[grunts] Get the other 10 on this side.

Take it off and I just move my foot out and walk over and make her get up.

[sighs] Wish her all the luck.

I'll keep my chalk back here.

And in here, I keep all my syringes and just another bottle of medics.

You know, I only got four holes right here.

And that second treat I give three shots.

But anyway, get my syringes out and I keep extra needles and extra packs of cigarettes and pens, just kind of whatever I might need.

[wind, leather squeaks] [dramatic music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I tell you what, I hate zippers with a passion.

[cow breathing heavy] [cow breathing heavy] [exhales sharply] [gasps] It's a workout for sure.

[gentle music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ I'll be 40 in September.

It's the only thing I've ever wanted to do.

And I wake up and that's the first thing I do.

I'm excited every day to get up and go out there and rope something.

"Don't you get tired of it?"

No, I don't get tired of it.

It's what I dream of, what I dream about and crave.

People don't understand it, but they don't have to, I guess.

[gentle music] I got a pen of colts back here, I'm gonna run one in here.

They've been haltered once.

Get a halter on him and try to get a saddle on him and then take him out here and the rest of them out like that.

See how it goes.

[gelding gut grunts] [gelding gut grunts] I'm just gonna let him run around.

Try not to give too much ground when he comes around me, that way he don't learn that, that that pressure and that disrespect is gonna offend me.

I'm just gonna take my rope here and see if I can't get a loop on him... without stirring him up too much.

[birds chirping] I try to ease it up there, you know, just as gently as I can.

[horse grunting] Watch out there!

Watch out!

[metal clanging] [horse grunting] [birds chirping] [birds chirping] [birds chirping] I'm not here for anything but this horse itself.

That's why I do this.

I don't do it for the money, for the fame, or anything.

I do it because I love this animal, this creature right here.

One of the worst injuries I've had, you know, my face is titanium all the way, you know, pretty much gear down.

You know, I don't have any teeth, and you see my nose, it come from, you know, dealing with a horse nobody else can ride.

I wanted to get on him.

I loved him, you know, I loved that thrill, and I had no fear for years.

I come across one one time, and some people that already, they whooped on him, kinda just made a man, a man killer out of him and he didn't even try to buck.

He just flipped over the top with me and stood up and stepped in my face and crushed everything, knocked all my teeth out.

You're all right.

You're okay, Chad.

Come on, Chad.

If it wasn't for DJ, I would have died right there in that arena.

[panels clanging] [horse grunting] The one we just turned loose, he hadn't even had a halter on him, I forgot.

Everything else that had on him had been touched, but he hadn't been touched at all.

So that was the first time he's ever been touched.

And so that's kind of what some of that more flightiness was, you know, he hadn't been handled at all.

And so, now he has.

[gentle music] - By just showing him he's capable of moving his feet.

But we're wanting him to stand here and get confident, seeing Hank step up there.

And then like go ahead and get on him.

And when he sees Hank out of this other eye, this colt's liable to do something a little silly, but he just needs to keep putting and keep moving.

But far as that bucking and broncy stuff, like we don't really have that.

We approach it more like from a horseman's standpoint, 'cause we have them all year.

There's no need in rushing them and cramming them and allow them to do all that.

[gentle music] ♪ ♪ [cows mooing] Get in here.

Get in here.

As long as I can cross the creek, I don't care how they cross it.

[cows mooing] Get in here.

[cows mooing] [dogs barking] [cow mooing] [metal clanging] I met Caroll Langham when I was just a little kid.

He's always been around here.

Him and my grandpa were friends.

I'll say this about Caroll Langham.

We worked together several years.

He never hollered at me.

Never cussed me.

But you knew when he was mad.

Because all he would do is, [sighs] "Well, I ain't ever in all my life ever seen somebody do this.

I don't know what you were thinking, but this ain't what we do."

I always want to please him and make him happy.

[cows mooing] - Two-thirds of the cattle in Texas is in four counties right here around where we live.

And you can work in two places or three in one day, you know, just from one place to the next.

You can work two or three little old sets of cows in a day.

And they're plenty of work.

These boys work seven days a week.

They never run out of a job.

- We call it a starve-out period.

And when you first start out, you just... You barely make ends meet because, I mean, you're jumping from helping this one guy to helping this guy and going from here to there, working for a little bit of nothing just so you can go because the thing is, you're competing against grown people.

I made it through the starve-out period, and like I said, at one point I was Caroll's right-hand man whenever he retired, I was his right-hand man.

[cows mooing] [stick rattles] [cow mooing] That little old doggie there, his mama died when he was born and he stayed around there and sucked on her three or four days while she was laying there dead.

He'd been stealing a little milk off of these other cows.

I see him slip up behind while another calf is sucking.

I'm gonna care for him and get some feed in him.

- What are you doing Raggedy Ann?

[Caroll] That's my little doggie.

His mama died when he was born, but he's been stealing a little milk.

I'm gonna put him on there with 'em.

[gentle music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - Smokey, Barry, Craig, Scooby, and Yodi, and Sam.

[metal clanging] [whistles] [gentle music] Kat's, his name is Kat.

He's 12, gonna turn 13.

I started riding him about a year ago.

He's fun to ride and, um, when I'll go out there and he'll run up to me.

[gentle music] ♪ ♪ It's fun, but sometimes it can get... You can get nervous about cows running off, cows running over top of you.

[gentle music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - Get your hand on the gate.

You're beat.

- I know.

- You know.

You better spur that donkey to get ahead of it.

[kissing] Run for your life, folks.

[kissing] [metal clanging] She did outstanding.

She does good like every day.

Ain't that right?

[gentle music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [Announcer] Funding for this program was made possible by Humanities Texas and Ellen Temple.