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Guard Dogs to the Rescue


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Dear Stockmen/women,

 

Eleven pm last night, Anne came home from an evening with the ladies and woke me. "The sheep are in the yard."

 

When extracting a ewe from the flock that morning, we'd left a gate open and there they were, fifty or so, threatening Anne's garden.

 

So I get up, dress (last time I went out in my undies. Nope. I wasn't going to do that again) and grabbed a flashlight and Fly.

 

Our farm lies below the dirt county road and 20,000 acres of State Game Commission mountain.

 

When we came out, Anne (who'd neglected to dress) rushed to her garden while I flashed my light around hoping they'd gone back when Anne drove in.

 

Nope, they were on the lane that leads to the county road so, cleverly, Fly and I got in the truck to get up on the road and come around behind them.

 

OK. Turned onto the lane coming down. No sheep. Had they gone back? Nope.

 

So fifty sheep were somewhere on a narrow country road. The banks are steep on both sides of the road and sheep may risk the lower bank but don't like going up the mountain. Usually.

 

I get back on the road and just past our property line I spot them.

 

Here's the problem. They're spooky as hell, have never been on this road before, fill the road and take off at a dead run from the car or a dog. Some dogs can squeeze between them, others =hopeless. I didn't know which category included Fly but really didn't want to chase them miles down the headlight tunnel finding out.

 

So I got past them in the truck as they were planning to climb down and join my eastern neighbor's cows. Fly jumped out. They're off again west.

 

Normally I wouldn't mind them going over the bank and down but we've got half a mile of two strand electric fence on the shoulder and they'd take that with them and tangle and it'd be a hell of a mess. So I'm hoping to catch them at an opening. For a moment I'm hopeful at the rightofway our setout people use for the trial. I cut the lights, get out cautiously and dim my flashlight to open the cemetery gate but quiet as I am, they spook again and off down the road. Back in the car and edging past running sheep. I stop about fifty yard on above western neighbor's property and they start down the bank onto him. I flashlight the way for Fly to get down there - nasty legbreak slope - and she turns them back onto the road and away they go.

 

So back in the car and after them. They are stopped at the rightofway/cemetery gate:our two guard dogs are standing there.

 

They tell the sheep to chill, relax, think. The sheep go in the cemetary gate and Fly and I go home and back to bed.

 

Donald McCaig

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