Graduation day at Cowboy U

In search of lost doggies.

It’s graduation day at Arizona Cowboy College. In order to get our diplomas, we need to ride out into the desert to help George, a 75-year-old rancher and neighbor, round up a dozen or so meandering cows. The day is hot and the ride through prickly cholla and scratchy mesquite dangerous.

We ride for hours, up and down drywashes looking for strays snoozing beneath the shade of some scrub. Viejo knows exactly what he’s doing. Me, less so. But Viejo and I have now come to an arrangement: I just let him do what he’s good at and don’t bother him too much.

I spot a cow and give the Old Cowboy the gentlest of nudges and he canters off, picking his way through the desert with no help from me, herding the lost doggy back into the fold. Together Viejo and I find five lost cows and head them back safely to George’s ranch.

By the end of the afternoon, my muscles ache, my skin is chaffed, and my eyes are dry and red. But I’ll tell you what—when Rocco hands me my Cowboy U diploma, I feel like John Wayne.