Duane, I agree, a good dog is worth his weight in gold. One man with good dogs can accomplish what it would take three or four good cowboys to do. Being able to send them down into the brush and have cattle coming out to you saves a lot of work. My family runs around 600 cows and backgrounds a couple hundred stockers a year. We've just got "chasers" now, they aren't the dogs we used to have.
Nope, a groundhog wasn't much for him. We don't have badgers here, though go a couple of hours north and you'll find some. Working cattle is all we used dogs for growing up, so those are the only other thing I saw him work on, unless you count the neighbors' dogs. His hard headness and not wanting to mind is why he wasn't taken out every time. But when you needed a little something extra, that catahoula would get the job done.
Good dogs can get those weanlings dog broke pretty quick, with few exceptions. But a 1300 lb Brangus cow that's been in the back pastures all summer and doesn't think she needs to take her baby to the corral for the fall working, there's a different story. They seem to need re-educating from time to time. I've seen lots of cows come out of the brush with torn ears and bloody noses, with those border collies heeling them everytime those back feet hit the ground.
It gives me no greater pleasure to see a cow so wound up that she wants to fight the horse, suddenly have an attitude adjustment where she's running and bawling, with the dogs heading her toward the corral. Sooner or later, they decide getting chewed on is just not worth it. I've seen hot cows that want to fight sour some good horses for that kind of work. Good dogs save time and make it a less hostile work environment for sure.
BTW-I enjoy your posts Duane. I appreciate your insight into the world of decoy dogs. It's also good to see folks who appreciate what a good stock dog can do on this board.