After attending a saloon session at a cow buyer’s convention my wife made the astute observation that cattle persons have the disgusting habit of swearing terribly. I couldn’t agree more and I think it’s time that we all made an effort to upgrade the quality of our swearing.

When done properly cussing is an art form and in many situations around the ranch it can help you achieve your desired objective. For example, suppose you are gathering cattle in steep country and you are riding the ridge kicking cattle off the sheer slopes. Invariably there will be a cow about half way down the hill that refuses to budge and practicality dares you to come and get her. You are faced with a dilemma. If you ride down to get the cow you will then have the arduous task of climbing back to the top of the ridge. This is where a dog and a few proper cuss words of encouragement can make life a lot easier. “Get that barren bleep you no good, flea bitten, louse laden, chicken eating, lop eared son of a sheepdog!” Please note that it is not necessary to use off-color words. These are everyday terms that are clean enough to use around women, kids, female preachers, extension agents and mother-in-laws.

Cuss words can also come in handy to relieve stress and ease pain. If you are exhibiting a 2,000 pound bull in the show ring and the bull accidentally steps on your arthritic toes it is not necessary to use language that would make your mother hide her head in shame. Merely say, “Yeeeooooow!” followed by the words, “Oh, my,” as the bull gradually grinds your toes into the tanbark. There now… doesn’t that make you feel better?

After being turned down by your banker for any further credit because he wanted to see your cash flow statement and a five year plan and all you had was a cigar box full of tobacco stained receipts there are several words you can use to express your displeasure without offending him thereby destroying the possibility of borrowing any more money from him in the future. Among these creative cowboy cuss words would be: “I’ll be darned, gosh, jeeeeeminy crickets, oh my, golly jeez and dad gummit.”

Any stockman worth his salt knows that animals often react positively to the proper swear words. When attempting to catch your horse if he bolts and runs from you just as you were about to get the halter around his ears you would do well to remember these simple words: “You ewe necked, broom tailed, slobberin’ no good bag of bones, if you don’t halt right this minute I am going to sell you for glue.”

I know that stops my horse, Gentleman, dead in his tracks every time.

Sometimes cussing can just flat make you feel better and improve your outlook on life. I know that when I was exhausted from pulling an enormous calf, thereby saving both the cow and calf from further distress and possibly even death, the cow then flicked her manure drenched tail right across my face. When I opened my mouth and said “SHOOOOOOT” my wife says it left a much better taste in her mouth than if I had said the more common four letter word that starts with s and ends in t, although that would have been far more accurate.

Admittedly, there are those rare occasions when the proper terminology will allude you. For example, say you are loading a bunch of steers and you follow a particularly stubborn beast up the loading ramp by grabbing its tail and shoving on its posterior with your knee. And suppose that the ungrateful steer responds by kicking you squarely in the shins or even worse, right below your bulging belly and belt buckle for winning the calf roping at your county fair. At this point you may have a hard time finding exactly the right words to express your feelings because you can hardly catch your breath. So, simply turn to your wife and whisper between clinched teeth, “Dear, would you please say something appropriate?”

I’ve been surrounded by a variety of animals my entire life including our turtle who we called Rock because he moved about as fast as one. Our Rock is not to be confused with the gag gift that was popular called the Pet Rock® which came long after our pet Rock. We got Rock as a baby and he was the perfect pet as we never had to feed him or pick up his poop. Fact is, we only saw Rock about once a year.

We had way too many cows and sheep to individually name and granted, they were treated more like a commodity than a pet. But there were many creatures that became so special they became part of our family. Nine times out of ten they were lovable little babies that were handicapped, orphaned or their mother took one look at them and headed for the hills.

One of our favorites was Two Car, so named because the leppy calf spent the first few months of his life in our garage. We were leasing a ranch but we lived about 30 minutes away, that was unless the bridge was out, which it often was in winter, which meant going to and from the ranch took an hour and a half. So when Two Car’s mother died giving birth to him it became a lot easier to feed him three times a day at our house which was right in the middle of a subdivision. I can only imagine what the neighbors thought when Two Car started bawling in the middle of the night for his midnight feeding. Eventually Two Car became quite the celebrity and everyone who heard about the orphan wanted to have their picture taken as they bottle fed him. When the bottle ran dry he’d try to suck their kneecaps off.

One little lamb will live forever in our hearts. We never knew what caused Angel to be unable to stand on her own four legs. We’d had lambs do this before only to start walking after a few days, but Angel never did. I made a sling for Angel and hung her from a tree with her feet barely touching the ground. We gave the poor thing a bottle three times a day for three weeks but we were gradually losing her. Usually I reluctantly took care of euthanizing our dying creatures but this is the one animal I never could bring myself to do it. So we took Angel to our friend the Vet and asked if he would give Angel the needle after we’d left. I bet he thought my wife and I were big wimps. To this day I often blame myself and wonder if we’d have given Angel one more week maybe she would have found her footing in life.

People who’ve never been around a baby pig might think it odd that a person could fall in love with such a creature but then, they never knew Pancakes. We got Pancakes because she was the runt of a big litter and the man who owned her had a hard heart. I guess you could say we saved Pancake’s life, but she rewarded us daily with a good dose of comic relief. Not to mention the occasional nightmare, like the time she erupted from under an avocado tree and charged the entire local chapter of the Daughters of The American Revolution as they left the monthly meeting, arms filled with pieces of my mom’s cream pies. There was carnage and whip cream everywhere. After such an escape there was only one way we could lure Pancakes back into her pen and that was to bribe her with some of my mom’s pancakes.

One of the highlights of my life these days is eat lunch monthly with a rancher I’ve known since college. Tiny is a big man with an even bigger heart but at our last visit Tiny looked exhausted but with good reason: he had five calves on the bottle. Trying to get a good laugh I told Tiny some of the names of the orphans, leppies and bummers we’d raised but he easily won the day when he told me the best name ever for an orphaned animal. I spewed soup from every orifice on my face when he said… “Michelle No-mama.”