Farm Fresh Blog

Puppies will be puppies, and Briar is no different.  Her problem however, is that she is caught between two worlds.  She is a sheep, and she is a dog.  Sheep don't have needle-sharp teeth. Sheep don't wrestle.  Dogs do.  Puppies have to.  So on Saturday while I was selling goats and didn't have time to watch her, little Briar wrestled with a lamb and bloodied up his ears.  She was playing.  She was having fun.  He was not.  I pulled her out of the pasture and let her beat up on Blue Heeler for a while.  He is tougher than Hulk the lamb.  Blue Heeler can take the abuse.

Then I got sick, so yesterday I didn't feel like standing in the cold with Briar to supervise her sheep activities, therefore, she spent the night with the sheep, but in an exercise pen so they were safe from a bored pup.  So this morning, armed with a frappuccino, Briar, the sheep, and I headed for the pasture.

Briar was full of energy. She was like a little cinder block on meth!  Happy, happy, happy puppy!

She zoomed.  Well, she's a little big for zooming.  It was more like boucing and lumbering. She chased birds.  She chased chickens. (and got a bucket tossed at her) She chewed on sticks.  Then . . . she decided to play with her lamb buddies.

  And we are bowling for sheep!

   Mom screams, "NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooo!"

  Briar drops to the ground.  "I'm bad?"

  "Awww man . . . I'm bad!"

She looked so pitiful.  She even closed her little eyes as I screamed at her.

"Awww man!  I wasn't gonna hurt 'em.  They're my friends!"

The sheep settled down.  They're not really scared of her anyway.  That's the really scary part.  They completely trust her.  The biggest, meanest ewe actually watched Briar bloody up her lamb on Saturday and gave no indication that it was happening.  Her attitude seemed to be, "Well it's Little Briar, I'm sure everything will be just fine." The ewes have completely forgotten that Briar is still a predator - a baby predator, but still a predator.

The problem was that no one has actually informed Briar that she cannot play this rough with the lambs.  They break easily. She was really upset that she got in trouble.  I chewed her out.  Then I let her up.  She ran over to sniff butts and make friends again.  

That lesson should last until she is bored again - about 5 minutes.  It's going to be a long 2 years until she grows up enough to trust her with them.  But she is trying, and that is really all we can ask.