Wednesday, November 20, 2013

wow...it's been a long time

Guess I've been lax on my blog. Have a couple things to post about though.

1st. we had to put Mike down. He ate part of a rug I put in the kennel for Reign, who won't sleep in his house. It was stringy and it ruptured the intestine. It was kinder to put him down as the vet did not think he would survive the surgery. We are still recovering from his loss.

2nd. Zed is the pup that was abandoned on my road and ended up in a junk pile on my property. I tried to find his owner to no avail. He's almost a year old now and will stay with us. We have no idea what kind of dog he is, but he's a funny one. He loves water like the Border Collies. He's very smart, but in a different way. He does very odd things. He likes to get up on the shelf (outside, where I put the dog bowls after they have eaten) and lick out the bowls. Usually he knocks them off the shelf, but once he lined them all up in a row on the patio. Last night I left them on the top shelf like this. The one on the 2nd shelf turned upside down, was Mike's. It's hard to see, but there are two large bowls and 4 small ones inside the large one's.


I heard some bumping around and went out and saw Zed messing with the bowls. Then they were arranged like this. Large bowls still on the top shelf, small bowls on the 2nd shelf. How in the world did he do this, and so neatly? He must be a very orderly dog to always arrange the bowls neatly.


This is Zed. I figure he was almost 4 mos when I found him as he had no adult teeth yet. He should be almost 1 yr old now.


3rd. My granddaughter, Eileen is now 14mos old. She loves purses and likes to put them on her arm then wave bye bye. She also does this with my keys. She's into dressing up and pretending to go somewhere.


Two purses are always better than one.


and can't go out with out accessories. In a pinch any old bracelet will do.








Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Crue's first lamb experience

I never let Crue around the lambs last year. He actually hasn't had much work at all in the last year for various reasons. I wasn't planning any lambs this year, but my "horribly mean, dangerous" ram gave me two last parting shots right before he left last year and I now have 2 lambs.

The first lamb who is now 3 weeks old has a very outgoing and friendly Mom, so he is very outgoing and friendly himself. I don't especially like outgoing and friendly in my sheep, but as I am only keeping a very few to keep the field mowed and the dogs worked occasionally its not a problem. I have been bringing either Seth, who is semi retired, or Meg in with me to keep the sheep off while I pour their feed. While the sheep were eating and I'd gathered the eggs from the chicken house, Seth was up near me sniffing around and all of a sudden the little lamb came bounding up to Seth and sniffed him all over. Seth is used to lambs and actually loves them so he wagged his tail and said hi. Meg does not like anything blocking her view of the sheep while she is keeping them ON their feed so she ignores the impertinence of little lambs getting in her face. I decided to let Crue do the job of holding the sheep back while I fed and then I called him off and let him lie there watching while I gathered eggs. The little lamb came bounding up into Crue's face. At first Crue looked at me not knowing what to make of this situation. Sheep move away from Crue, not run up into his face.


Then he tried pretending the lamb wasn't there.



Then he decided maybe lambs are ok and he decided to make friends.


After they made friends, the lamb tried to hump on him and Crue got confused. So he tried to play with the lamb and went into a play posture wagging his tail. At this point Mom looked up from the feed trough and decided that was enough fraternizing and went over to the both of them stomping her foot. Play was over and Crue decided to go back to being a good sheepdog and do his job. 
I've never had a lamb be this forward with my dogs. Usually they hold back with their Mother's. But this one's Mom has always been unusally friendly so maybe its a passed on trait?