Learning from Sheep

This stories begins last month when I was asked if I wanted to come out and help ultrasound a flock of yearling ewes.  Fitting shepherd help in between my own personal lamb checks, when I arrived, the party was already underway.

The sheep were moved, race was filled, sheep filed past the ultrasound man who checked to see which were pregnant and which were open, meaning they did not take when the ram was around. 

Try as I might, I could not see a darn thing!  First, the fellow running the machine knew what he was doing and could do it real fast. Second, I did not know what a lamb fetus looked like on the screen.  These ewes would be two and a half months in on their "five months minus a week" adventure, so I had no idea what 'that' would look like on a blip screen. 

It was time to get to work, the Sheep Boss had things to do, so I filled part of his shoes and worked the pens, filling the race......all without a dog. Yep that is right, I spent the whole day in the muck and lanolin without ever pulling a dog out of my truck.....and I learned a whole lot in the process!  These were yearling ewes, not used to being run through the system and they were bred so calm, efficient work was my challenge with reactionary, young, impulsive sheep.

Actually, thinking back, I did have a dog...but it was the Shepherd's old Huntaway who pretended to work for me while taking his master's whistles.  Rocky pushed the mob while I ran the gate to the smaller pens that fed the race.  It was a good day's work and I did indeed learned.

On days like this, I don't get to think about "bad" sheep.  Not that there aren't baddies, but the job still needs to be done....so a girl has to think, observe, work it out and take input from those who have been working sheep their whole life and might actually have part of their brain that is sheep.  Maybe. 

These Dog Days of Winter are griding on me.  Finding the joy in "it is what it is" can't be brought to the top by Vitamin D and a tanning bed and I am having to dig deep to have decent phone conversations with understanding friends.  I need some dry dirt, ankle high green grass, sunshine to the degree that turns my skin brown and not beet red from its wind-whipped, cold, face grip.  I find my brain getting lost in bad sheep stories and wonder, could a person take a moment and think outside the box of trialing to find a suitable answer that allows, not a perfect run, but well handled livestock?  Can I prepare; myself and my dogs, to the degree that communication between the two of us allows us to accomplish tasks great and small, without blaming the sheep?

I think back to a day at the Hopland Sheep Station where a rogue ewe was bringing out the 'light' in dog after dog.  Some were complaining and encouraging the shepherd to make a taco out of that ewe.  I will never forget what the shepherd said.  She said, "In this country, filled with predators, that ewe will wean lambs every year.  Why would I want to make her into a taco because some of your dogs can't work her?" Hmm good point: weaned lambs, year after year = $$$ for a person who raises sheep for a living.   It was also interesting to watch the dogs and handlers that could manage that ewe; or those like her......paying close attention to how the task was accomplished.

Questions flitter through my head....how often are rogue sheep created on the trial field by lack of attention to detail; or rash methods allowed by the dog?   How can a dog be guided to work sheep, to allow for the sheep to get through the course, even if one is a little rogue? Is my dog doing something to create rogue?  Am I doing something and/or allowing something to create rogue? Is gripping on a rogue sheep going to de-rogue said sheep?  And in that rare occasion where there really is a rogue sheep, can my team get it done or is walking without sheep complaint in order?  From that time on sheep can I find communication details to work on, so the next time I can run rogue-less?

"You cannot speak that which you do not know. You cannot share that which you do not feel. You cannot translate that which you do not have. And you cannot give that which you do not possess. To give it and to share it, and for it to be effective, you first need to have it. Good communication starts with good preparation." -- Jim Rohn

Dear Lord, I need spring........

Seize the Day!