Farm Fresh Blog

Someone's in the pokey!

Poor Briar is also ready for Clover to have her baby/babies because until she does, Miss Big White Dawg is in lock-up. I'm just being cautious since I had a friend who was losing newborn lambs to an overzealous Livestock Guardian Dog.  Briar has always been great with baby goats and lambs, but I don't take any chances because she is a Very Big Dog.

 Big Babysitter

Once babies are born and mobile, I return Briar to the flock. She never fails to be a doting babysitter, but I still worry about how she'd behave when a ewe or doe is giving birth, so I err on the side of caution.

Therefore Briar stays in an outside kennel, in the back yard, or in the garden (which true to the neighbor's prediction, has become another dog run! I promise I will replant it next Spring!)

Now here's another problem:

Big White Dawg has recently decided that Lily the Uppity Border Collie can be killed as easily as a squirrel, a rat, or an oppossum.  YES! I KNOW! What is she thinking?!!!

A few nights ago Briar and I were doing a midnight check on the goats. As soon as we returned through the gate into the back yard, Briar launched an attack on Uppity Lily, who was waiting in the back yard at the gate. In Briar's defense, it is highly likely that Lily did a sneek bite to the back of her leg as this is a common behavior which Briar normally ignores.

Regardless of what started it, Briar grabbed Lily by the back of the neck and started shaking my beloved 30 lb Border Collie like a terrier with a rat. I had Briar by the collar but she was so powerful I couldn't get her off Lily.

Trace the Troll Dog zoomed in and attacked Lily's lower body while Briar shook her.  All I could do was scream for Other Half to come help me get Briar off Lily. (It is a very helpless feeling to realize that your dog is so big that you cannot control it.)

Other Half came in kicking and we got Trace and Briar off Lily. Except for having peed on herself, Lily was okay. She had not attempted to fight back, she'd just hunkered down and weathered the storm.

Holy crap! Although I can certainly understand why the rest of the pack wants to vote Lily off the island, (teacher's pet/dictator/uppity bitch), killing Lily is not an option. It's a fast way to meet a bullet.

Briar is slow to anger, but is a force to be reckoned with when provoked, and she is even more touchy of late because of the unrest in the flock. Since I don't want to lose Lily (or Briar, since Other Half would shoot her if she killed Lily) we must remain vigilant about keeping a grouchy giant away from a know-it-all-in-charge-of-the-world-pint-sized-dictator.

 "That's what I'm sayin'!"