Driving the herd

Cattle wrangler Pete Jones is on call to deal with rebellious Rapp bovines

What better place than Rappahannock County – known to feature more cows than people – for two modern-day cattle wranglers like Pete and Kristen Jones to land?

The married couple, who moved to the county in recent years, make a living in Rappahannock and surrounding counties by riding, roping and herding – all the savvy talents required for cattle work. They regularly aid some of the county’s large-scale cattle farmers while also tending to their own herd, which they keep on rented land. The duo also responds to the occasional call for help from a livestock owner with cattle on the loose or in need of help dealing with an unruly cow.

When summoned, they arrive with a stocked horse trailer and a couple of border collies, Dottie and Chobo, intuitive in the task of herding.

Pete Jones, who hails from Clarke County, started working as a cattleman around age 15. Over the years he’s become skilled in the process of herding cattle on horseback and roping –  catching livestock with a lasso.

“I learned how to rope hanging around some old gentleman,” he says, referring to his early days in cattle work. To perfect the skill, Pete says it just takes practice. “People have let me fail and make me correct the problem – just time.”

After he met Kristen, from Winchester, at a church function, she took an interest in his line of work.

“I’ve only rode horses for four years and I got into that because I met him,” she says.

As for Dottie and Chobo, Pete says cattle herding comes naturally with the breed.

“I’m a firm believer that if a dog’s bred to work, it’ll work,” he says. “If it’s not, you aren’t going to teach it anything to make it work.”

Pete says their herding dogs didn’t need much training and that the border collies rely on their instinct when managing the frenzy of the herd.

The couple says the bulk of their work includes tending to their own cattle and helping regular clients. However, they’ve gained a reputation as cattle wranglers in the area and receive intermittent calls from farmers in need of their specific skill set. They say responding to calls like these comes with a fair share of risks.

“It’s the emergency ‘I’m in a bind’ one-time random calls we get from people we don’t work for regularly that more than likely it’s a situation where you need to be on your A-game,” says Kristen. “We definitely rely heavily on the dogs in situations like that.”

When these one-timers are in urgent need of a cattle wrangler, they’re often referred to the couple by a local vet or stockyard.

A few dangerous scenarios dealing with rebellious bovines over the years have resulted in falling off of a horse a handful of times and a horse being gored by a bull’s horn. The steed recovered, fortunately.

“There’s definitely been more than one close call,” says Pete. “It’s just part of the job. It’s something you learn to watch out for and learn how to read a cow and learn how to read a horse. There’s definitely always that risk.”

He notes that significantly more people are injured by cattle each year than by sharks or bears.

However risky the job can be, Kristen says the thrill of “wild cow catching” is the most stimulating aspect of their profession.

For Pete, he finds “shipping and receiving cattle” to be the most fulfilling part of the job.

“Especially if it’s with the same outfit that you helped bring cattle in – you get to see them leave and see what a season’s worth of work has done,” he says.

They love what they do and hope to own their own cattle farm in the county one day.

Since moving to Rappahannock, the couple says the warm welcome and support they’ve received from the county and the farming community has been astounding.

“The county shocked the hell out of us – just how well we were accepted by the county so quickly, that was really nice,” says Pete.

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