Beau - Pet Detective

Our neighbour has put 50 sheep on our property as we have way more grass in our top paddocks.  Atilla thinks all his Christmases have come at once and spends most of the day watching them and moving them off the fence line if they dare to come too close to the house paddock.

Currently there are a number of lambs in the flock - including 3 tiny ones born just a few days ago. 

How's that for cute, cute, cute ......... I swear I am going to rethink eating meat or at least may never eat lamb again cos I will keep seeing these babies in my head.



Look - even their wiggly little butts are cute

And who could resist this face ?

 We lock the sheep into a smaller paddock at night to keep them together and maximise their chances against any roaming foxes.  Then we let them out during the day to do what they do best - eat !

Last night when we brought them in, one of the tiny lambs was missing - L's favourite and the one he regards as his special charge.

 

A bit of a background story on this one first :

On the morning that this little one arrived, L was letting them out of the night paddock when he noticed it on the ground, not moving, and the mother taking off with the other sheep at a rush to get out the gate. He picked it up and found it was alive but very weak - I'm a sucker and would happily have taken it and bottle fed it, but L. decided that the mother was going to attend to her duties so started yelling up the paddock - get back here and feed your baby, NOW.  Of course this worked a charm, not !  So then he starts chasing them, in his work clothes complete with fancy shoes, and yelling in his best impression of a school teacher (thankfully he is not!) 'I mean it, if you don't come back now then I will chase you all down and lock you all back in the paddock again and none of you will get out until you start looking after this baby you bad mother.'  That's the way to do it, punish everyone until someone confesses.
And so that's just what he did.

At this point it begs for a video to be inserted of L in his work clothes running around the paddock rounding up the sheep - if dogs could cry laughing Atilla was doing it - but I was too busy laughing myself to think of videoing it, dammit.   Anyway his plan for sheep domination worked, the sheep were locked back in the paddock, mother finally started feeding lamb, lamb was able to stand up and we both went 'awwwwwwww.'
(Not sure what L's clients thought about the sheep poo all over his shoes as he was too late to change them.)
Anyway, a happy ending, until this little fella went missing.



The life of a modern day sheep man is indeed lonely !



Did someone mention sheep man ?



Oooh .... it's sheep man !

We searched the paddocks with our neighbour for ages, but couldn't find any trace of him.  At this point we were thinking maybe a rogue fox out in the daytime grabbing the opportunity of an easy snatch - although it seemed strange when Atilla had literally been at the fence watching them for most of the day and hadn't barked at all.  We chalked it up to happening on one of the occasions when he went off duty to eat or hang about with me.  Even though Cruz took over his shift at these times, Cruz is not a barker and isn't as hard wired and obsessive over the sheep as Atilla either.
Both the kelpies were crying for a bit of active service in the paddock to help look for the lamb (ACD and BC would happily have been in that too !) but there are too many hazards in the long grass at the moment, not just the fear of snakes but there is an old gully that runs down the middle of one paddock with a partly underground water course that goes into our dam.  There are holes opening up everywhere after all the rain and I don't want to risk the dogs running into one of the holes and injuring themselves, especially as once there are sheep in the equation, all care and self preservation goes out the window. 
It worries me enough having my horse roaming around up there as it is.  Speaking of which ..........

Enter Beau - my old horse and fellow paddock dweller along with the sheep.

Once he saw me in the paddock he came over for a rub and the chance that there might be food involved.

On many occasions I swear this horse understands exactly what I say to him - or maybe that's my rationale for carrying on conversations with him and not feeling like a crazy woman.  So I've explained the situation to him and promised him several carrots if he joins in the search and comes up with the goods.  And he did on both counts!

About 20 minutes later when L. was helping me move some agility equipment (Sheep Man also doubles as Agility Ken ) we heard Beau making a fuss up the top paddock and looked up to see him pawing (hoofing?) the grass.  Up popped a tiny white head - so sheep man headed up there post haste to rescue him.
And Beau was very pleased with his carrots as a reward.  And now expects one every evening without fail as payment for his services.

Agility training has been a little slow lately, can you tell ?

After having 2 and a half months off thanks to my accident, the kelpies are in desperate need to get back to normal training again.  All this lying around the house is making them soft.......