Canine Psychology

I enjoy trying to figure out dog psychology. I'm sure dogs would laugh, if they understood my conclusions, but, hey, I try anyway.

I often compare Dierdre's actions with those of our previous two dogs, Rousseau and Dreamer, both Lab mixes.

Today Dierdre accompanied me to the gate to take out the mail (as usual). I realized as she stood there, inches from the open gate as I came back in from the mailbox, that I never worry about her trying to bolt. She doesn't ever try to escape, unlike the Labs who took pretty much every opportunity to sneak out any open portal.

That's not to say Dierdre doesn't go through the open gate sometimes, but when she does it is with calm deliberation. She saunters out, clearly implying she has every right to do so. She'll investigate nearby bushes, the trash barrels, etc. and sometimes ambles further afield than I would like, but it's always with the attitude that it's natural, that of course she should be doing this, with nothing furtive about it. And when she comes back in, usually at my insistance (we don't allow our dog to wander loose), again it's with an air of virtue because she's Dierdre, she's entitiled to do these things.

Wool Washing & Tomato Plants

I had quite an audience today while washing wool. With the wind, I thought it was on the chilly side, but my spectators (heavily furred and wooled as they are) hung out in the shade.

Dierdre watched attentively from her lookout under the deck. About a dozen sheep lounged under the cedar tree, most surveying me with interest, including Herbie, whose fleece I was washing.

While the wool soaked, I repaired part of the garden fence that came down over the winter. I wish Dierdre could have helped; I could have used an extra pair of hands, and Mark wasn't home. I'm sure she would have tried, but pulling on woven wire fence with her teeth seemed a bad idea to me.

I finally bought a couple tomato plants at the farmers' market yesterday: Silver Fir Tree, a Russian heirloom variety, and yellow pear. I haven't planted them yet, but I sure hope the weather continues to warm. It got down in the 30's for a night or two last week.

The wool I just washed is still drying, but the pictures below are from the same fleece.

Prescott Highland Games

I attended the Prescott Highland Games last Saturday as a vendor. I also demonstrated spinning with great success. It's always fun to do so. A fair number of people have seen spinning wheels but very few have observed them in action. People are astonished at both the simplicity and the complexity of the process: in my hand I held wool, and a few moments later, it had become yarn on the wheel's bobbin. To many of them, it's almost magic.

Dierdre made it very clear she wanted to go with me to the Highland Games. She jumped into the back of the truck and sat there while I loaded it.

Unfortunately, she had to stay home. It would have been too complicated to take her. For one thing, they had sheep herding contests, and she definitely would have felt she should be in charge (oops, make that participate).

Below are some of the items I wove for the event. The first scarf and the bags are MacColl tartan. The second scarf is a Robertson tartan.

http://www.highcastlecrafts.com/bags.html

http://www.highcastlecrafts.com/scarvestablerunners.html

Scout

Scout is pretty smart. (Whenever I make statements like this, assume they are followed by "for a sheep.") Just like his mother, Clare, he's inventive, a good problem solver, and one of the first to get into trouble. In fact, clever and trouble-prone are probably synonymous when referring to sheep.

So when I fed him yesterday, it wasn't too surprising to turn around and see he had a wire tomato cage stuck on his head. It didn't appear to bother him much, though. I had to insist he stop eating in order to pull it off him, and as soon as I freed him, he went right back to the hay.

What do you call a sheep who gets his head stuck in a tomato cage?

Mine.

More Sheep Tales

When Mark and I got home the other day, we saw sheep scattered about the upper section of the property. It was close to 7:00 p.m., well past their dinner time, and they had gone foraging.

I was driving, so Mark got out and opened the gate. As I pulled the car through, several sheep baa-ed and approached the car. By the time Mark had latched the gate, the sheep had blocked the driveway. He yelled at them to move. He shooed them. He waved his arms and yelled some more. They stared at him and then looked back at me and baa-ed. Apparently they weren't going to let me out of their sights until I fed them. Of course, that wasn't going to happen anytime soon, if they didn't get out of the way.

I called to Mark and suggested he let Dierdre out of the house. She'd move them! So he unlocked the front door and called her. She ambled out a few steps, looked at him, looked at the sheep, and started back into the house. Gesticulating, he urged her to go herd the sheep. She stared at him and didn't move.

I stuck my head out the car window and called Dierdre. Her response was immediate: she raced down the two porch steps and into the middle of the flock. In less than a minute, the driveway was clear, the sheep were running toward the barn, and Dierdre was looking at me proudly, a job well done.

Poor Mark. The sheep ignored him, and the dog wouldn't obey him. Dierdre likes him, but she's definitely chosen me as her person. I had thought the sheep came first in her eyes, though, but it turns out I hold that lofty position.

Last summer Mark fed the sheep a couple days when I wasn't feeling well. Dierdre always goes with me to feed them, so Mark tried taking her along. She went out onto the deck, laid down, and watched him walk to the barn. She calmly surveyed him while he got mobbed by hungry sheep, showing not the slightest interest in helping. He learned how valuable her assistance is, since I don't get swamped by sheep anymore. Twenty or so large, strong sheep who are intent on grabbing the hay from your hands can easily knock you over, and they don't care if they step on you once you're down (believe me, I know).

Although she really likes her sheep, apparently it's the team of Dierdre and Diane that truly makes her happy. I feel honored.

Such Silly Sheep

I've been so busy lately that I've neglected my blog. However, the sheep have been busy, too, providing all sorts of fodder for writing.

A few weeks ago I woke up in the middle of the night hearing a lamb baa. It sounded like she wanted her mother. I tried to go back to sleep, hoping the situation would sort itself out, but the baa-ing persisted. After about 20 minutes I surrendered, got up, put on shoes and a jacket, grabbed a flashlight, and went outside. Dierdre accompanied me, of course.

The night was bright--the moon almost full. Dierdre and I walked toward the barn, where the crying lamb had retreated. Just as we neared it, the lamb and several adults appeared from the far side of the building and approached us. The lamb stopped baa-ing, so I figured her mother was part of the group. We turned around, returned to the house, and went back to bed.

In the morning, we went out to feed the sheep as usual. (You notice how I speak in the plural; it's pretty much a given that Dierdre accompanies me where ever I go!) I heard that same lamb crying again. Hmmm, this wasn't good. And, sure enough, I quickly discovered why: there were half a dozen sheep trapped in the hay storage room, the lamb's mother, Frejya, among them.

Now this was bad for several reasons. One, the incarcerated sheep had eaten part of my stored hay, which meant I was going to have to buy hay sooner than I expected--definitely an unwanted expense. Two, the almost half-full bag of COB (corn, oats, barley, and molasses) was stored in there, and it had disappeared. That meant they had eaten close to 20 lbs of COB--definitely not good. Three, they were hot and thirsty from being stuck in a small room with only a single window to allow their hot and humid breath to escape. And four, they had removed storage container lids, torn open two trash bags full of empty feed bags, and pulled loose from the bales a fair amount of hay, and all this debris had collected in front of the door.

Between the mess and the crowd of sheep, I couldn't get the door open! Not even an inch.

I grabbed a shovel, put it through the open window, and tried to push some of the junk out of the way, but it didn't work; I couldn't get enough leverage to budge the compacted hay. I thought about climbing through the window, but I was going to have to stand on a chair or something to reach it, and the area in front of the door slopes steeply. I figured that was too risky.

What to do....And meanwhile the sheep inside the hay room were baa-ing to be let out. The rest of the sheep were loudly complaining because I wasn't feeding them, and Dierdre was jumping and barking, upset because she couldn't get into the hay room to reach the sheep she knew were in there. Oh, and I was supposed to be leaving to drive to Phoenix within the next half hour. My stress level was definitely rising.

Then I suddenly thought of a neighbor boy who sometimes feeds my sheep for me. At 13 years old, he could probably get through the window without needing a step up. It was kind of early in the morning, but I called him anyway. His mother said he'd be right over. He and his older brother showed up about 15 minutes later. One climbed through the window, while the other handed him the shovel I'd been trying to use. He shifted the debris in a few minutes and got the door open just wide enough to admit (or exit) a sheep.

Now, being sheep, they of course wouldn't move. They'd been whining about being stuck in there, and now they wouldn't budge, despite some forceful pushing from the neighbor. Dierdre to the rescue! She charged in and very quickly convinced one of the rams that the dog-free outside was much preferable to the Dierdre-dominated inside, and he bolted out the door. Being flock animals, the others followed at once. Hmmm, five of the six culprits were rams....

After that, every time I fed the sheep I checked and double-checked the door was secure.

A few days later my feed guy delivered more hay. As he reached the barn on his small tractor, pulling a trailer piled with hay bales, I caught up with him. We looked in the hay room, and what did we find? Yep, a room full of rams, with the door wedged shut again and the same scenario: loud unhappy sheep in the hay room, rowdy, hungry sheep outside, and a frantic dog wanting to reach the miscreants.

This time I had an idea, though. My feed guy pushed a hay bale off his trailer and placed it in front of the door. Using this large and stable "step stool", I climbed through the window, shoveled away the additional refuse the sheep had found, and pulled open the door. Dierdre repeated her how-to-remove-sheep-from-a-small-space maneuver and cleared the room. We unloaded and stacked hay, while the escapees hurried to a water trough; it's thirsty work eating illicit hay.

Since then I've devised a new way to fasten the door, and so far no one has broken in, although I've seen evidence that they've tried. Such silly sheep!

Hey, Don't Eat That!

Dierdre keeps eating the COB (corn, oats, barley, and molasses) I bought for the sheep. Do all animals have a sweet tooth?

I rarely give the sheep COB, but I wanted the nursing ewes to get some extra calories, so I purchased a bag. All the sheep (including the rams who certainly don't need to put on weight) love it, as do the hens. But the dog?

A Beautiful View

I took this picture on Tuesday, just two days after we had 7" of snow. I'm glad it melted quickly; I'm ready for spring!

Marzipan

Heloise lambed yesterday, and we named her baby Marzipan! She is a white ewe, and she's big. Heloise excels at motherhood; she's attentive without being overly worried.

I went out several times yesterday to check on mother and lamb. While I was quietly watching to make sure Marzipan was nursing successfully, Hermes, her father, poked his head through the barn window. I'm sure he just wanted a pat on the head (he's our love sponge), but he made an extremely cute picture peeking in at Heloise and her little one. He's a huge ram, so I'm not surpised Marzipan is big.

PBSD

I think the hen Dierdre laid on is suffering from PBSD--Post Briard Stress Disorder! She's still moving slow and looking kind of groggy. Poor thing. But the hens have always recovered from Dierdre's herding imperative in the past, so she should be fine.