Here at the ranch, March goes out like a lion, but it came in as a snow bunny. Sometimes people drive too far up the canyon and get stuck in the mud from the drifting snow. Earlier this month, one pilgrim showed up at the house on a Saturday night after hiking six miles in the dark. He was cold, shaky, and very grateful for our wood-stove heat and hot chocolate — so grateful that he returned a week later with a thank-you card and a gift of jerky.

Excuse me as I pause and brag about my son, Sam, who was honored in the finals of the Sterling Scholar competition in Salt Lake City last week as a runner-up in mathematics. He’s pretty good at numbers. Once Sam even looked over our calf-sale payment and found an error that would have cost us a thousand dollars. He has been good at math since he was 4 years old when he would add up the coins in my husband’s pockets to the exact cent.

But back to weather and dirt roads. The other day Arsenio showed up at the ranch on his four-wheeler and asked if I could pull him out with the tractor. When I arrived at his pick-up, his heeler puppy was sitting obediently in the bed where Arsenio had left him. He would mount the four-wheeler when told, and herd and heel when commanded. I was amazed because my heeler pup Mad-Eye — his sister from the same litter — is still trying to learn her name and how to find her way home. I was eager to learn his secret to dog training.

Arsenio said he spends all day with him, and feeds him morsels of food to reward his behavior. The word of the command is less important than the tone of his voice, which is fortunate because otherwise the dog would have to learn Spanish. The puppy stays in the truck when he hears the tone of stay. He obviously interprets different tones for “come here,” “sit,” and “chase the cows.” As the puppy pays more attention to the master, he can anticipate the rewards and disapproval. Arsenio never hits the dog, and by using food as a reward, he has his attention during the day, only filling his dog dish at night. While this may seem primitive, I remember Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew” where the husband used starvation tactics successfully on his bride.

I bounced these ideas off of Russ, the owner of Mad-Eye’s mother. He nodded and said that he used to have a really good cow dog when he was ranching in Nevada and spent all day with the dog. The dog he has now hangs out more at the house, with litters of puppies to nurse. I was surprised when Russ told me that she was the same dog, just the time and attention had changed. Still, because he had put time in early, he knew the dog could respond to him when commanded.

In that respect, raising dogs and children are similar — you need to reward them. If you put in the time up front getting them potty-trained, to learn to stop barking without cause, to learn respect and courtesy, then it is easier later on. If you work hard on your first child, the other children will think the rules are unquestionable. Teach them early. My daughters learned to read before they entered kindergarten and to hoe the garden before they could read. And if you teach them to add up coins, they might just learn higher math.

When Sam was 5 years old and on his way to have a tooth pulled, he needed to take four pills a half hour prior to arrival. While I was driving, my mother tried to persuade him to swallow the pills, but Sam was at first suspicious and then recalcitrant. Finally, my mother offered him a quarter and Sam accepted the offer. But to her chagrin, he downed one pill and demanded a quarter for each pill. He informed her that they added up to a dollar and he would take nothing less. She paid.

Now if I can just get Mad-Eye to value the morsels in my pocket.

Elizabeth B. Mitchell, along with her husband Alan, operates the Bennion Ranch at Benmore.