At Vista, we are committed to breeding the best stock possible,
and that goes for our stock dogs as well.

The Utopia ranch, known to locals as Valdina Farms, is composed of a wide range of terrain and vegetation types. It has been said that everything that grows in this part of the world will either stick, bite, or kick, and some do all three. An exaggeration, but thick mots of thorny brush are certainly common, and that is where the less cooperative cows choose to hang out at gathering time. Locating these outlaws without dogs can be very difficult, but capturing them without the dogs is next to impossible with limited manpower. The Blackmouth cur is a tremendous asset to our operation, making it much easier to gather cattle in a timely fashion.

The best thing about our Blackmouth Curs is that it doesn’t take much of a trainer to get them to handle the cattle properly. Most of what these dogs are capable of comes from generations of linebreeding for the right instincts. The presence of the dogs also invokes the herding instinct of the cows, making the use of the dogs even easier. In fact, once the dogs begin to bay on a group of cows, it is common for other cows to be drawn to the barking. We often have other outlaws "turn themselves in" when they hear that their companeros have been captured.

The cur style of cattle handling that we employ places the dogs in front of the cattle to regulate the forward movement of the cattle and the handler behind the cattle to push them to the dogs. The aggressiveness of the dogs is generally regulated by the behavior of the cows. The faster the cattle try to travel, the more pressure the dogs place on them, and the more relaxed the cattle, the more relaxed the dogs. Direction changes are accomplished by the handler positioning himself on the opposite side of the cattle from the direction of travel desired.

We began breeding Blackmouth Cur cow dogs in 1997, after acquiring our three original dogs from Dr. Charles Long of Overton, TX. The Blackmouth Cur is our breed of choice, because of their ability to ‘wind’ or locate cattle by scent in large brushy pastures, and because of their natural instincts for working out in front of the cattle. One man with a handful of curs can easily clean a 1,000 acre pasture of remnants in one day. The only luck involved is in picking the right direction to start hunting, so that it doesn’t take all day.

Most of the current Vista pack is the result of several matings of Al and Tillie, two of the original dogs that we purchased from Long. The mating of closely related animals is common when behavior traits are desired, and our curs are no exception. Tillie, who traces back to Risinger stock, was sired by an excellent, natural lead-dog, Spike, who is also Al’s grandsire. To date, these pups have shown exceptional ‘wind’, ‘bay’ and ‘lead’ characteristics, and most of them have made solid working dogs.