The sheep rancher who helped start the Steamboat Stock Dog Challenge keeps a sharp eye on the the sheep, as well as the dogs herding them.
“Everyone thinks about the dogs, but we make sure we have promises that they’ll take good care of the sheep,” says Tom Maneotis, a second-generation Oak Creek sheep rancher who is supplying 185 young sheep for the Steamboat trials next weekend.
“They’re all healthy yearling ewes that need to be well-fed and well-watered. If they’re not taken care of, I’m not taking them back next year.”
His protective instinct is inborn. Maneotis’ father, Andrew, founded the family ranch during the height of the vicious Colorado range wars between cattlemen and sheepmen.
“He was one of the first sheepmen in the county,” Maneotis says. “It was all cattle then. There were a lot of problems.”
There were threats from the cattle ranchers, and sometimes more than words. Angry cowboys dynamited the Maneotis homestead. More than once, the ranch was peppered with bullets, including one that took out the elder Maneotis’ left eye and another that lodged in his back.
“He was 80 when they X-rayed him and asked how he’d gotten a bullet in his back,” Maneotis said. “We didn’t know it was there. He’d had it in him for 50 years.
“It was a tough deal. It took years and years and years for cattlemen to accept the sheepmen. But everyone gets along now.” — Claire Martin
