In search of every clue to the better training of oxen, I had carefully studied Drew Conroy’s The Oxen Handbook several years before I was invited to Plimoth Plantation in 1990 to help with a session on training oxen. At that time I had been working oxen for nearly twenty years.
I knew Drew Conroy would be there with a team. I knew he was still a young man, a product of New England’s excellent and much coveted 4-H Working Steer program. I had never met Drew. To spot him I watched each teamster bring his team up the lane.
One team stood out for their sharp responsiveness. The force of the teamster’s confidence in working his animals immediately caught my attention. His oxen reacted quickly to every command, although they did not appear to be frightened. His commands were clear and unwavering. Of course that young man turned out to be Drew. My own ox driving has improved significantly as I have studied him and his methods of working cattle. What makes this guy click so well with teams of cattle?
Drew’s enthusiasm for working oxen has the same irresistible strength as his authority over them. It is not surprising that the students at the University of New Hampshire honored him for excellence in teaching. His excitement is contagious. He frequently comes to Tillers training center in Scotts, Michigan, to help teach classes in ox training and driving. Drew challenges students with one training exercise after another. He uses stories and slides to stretch the brains of students after their legs will not chase after another steer.
The first time Drew came to teach one of our classes in 1992 he must have spent most of his nights reading to satisfy his driving curiosity. Our library of international literature on oxen attracted him like a moth to a night-light. He would be reading quotes to students next morning at breakfast. He was fascinated by the similarities with which people handled ox problems, even though they had never compared notes or seen each other’s work.
But intellectual curiosity alone does not make a great ox driver. Commanding a team of oxen twenty times your weight without lines or leveraged bits is not just an intellectual exercise. An ox driver must be extremely attentive and observant of his/her team. But the teamster must also have will power and determination backing every action and cue to convince the ox that he is following a worthy leader and has no need to question or resist commands. Teachers of draft animal driving, such as Les Barden and Lynn Miller, emphasize this point in their focus on first training the teamster.
Drew, it seems, was born with this requisite determination as part of his personality. Perhaps he has the same self-doubts we all suffer from, but he hides that human frailty. I assure you, no ox sees it in him. I have seen him repeatedly convince problem teams around the United States and in Africa of his superior determination. Verlyn Klinkenborg, after researching oxen at Drew’s side for several days while writing “If It Weren’t for Oxen We Wouldn’t Be Here” for the August 1993 Smithsonian, skillfully described Drew as “purged of uncertainty.”
This determination in Drew’s character is, I am convinced, a key to his success with ox training. While you may not have inherited it from your parents, Drew will teach you its utility. He will urge you to never let a young ox run away from you, even though you have no lead rope or line on him. You will ask, “How do I do that from the side of the team?” You will certainly have moments to wonder as you take on your first team.
If you have the opportunity to watch Drew, you will see him reach out his arm and goad a half-mile to flick a team on the nose to remind them that they just ignored his command to stop. If they are beyond the long arm of his goad, he will project his voice three-quarters of a mile to bring them to a stop. If they should be so foolish as to ignore that, he will pretend that he let them run ahead until they are about to hit the next tree or the side of a barn. Then he will cleverly command them to stop just before the barn or tree slams into their foreheads. Drew urges ox drivers to use every bit of the environment for the education of the ox.
Drew would not be nearly the ox driver he is without his deep appreciation of cattle. He must know the names of half the cattle in New England. He immediately spots each animal’s many traits. He knows the boundaries within which cattle feel comfortable. He provides repeated reinforcement of positive behavior. I suspect that when a nine-year-old Drew was training his first team late into the night through all the lanes in the forest, he got as much satisfaction from an approving lick to his hand after a long venture as his oxen gathered from his approving, “Good boys.”
Mark Twain once quipped, “He who grabs a bull by the horns, learns twice as fast as he who reads a book.” Although Drew draws on his university resources to focus light on aspects of ox care, you can be certain this author has been where he asks you to walk. Drew speaks of oxen from exceptional personal experience. It is our great fortune that he has had the patience to put it down on paper.
— Dick Roosenberg
Tillers International