An early morning scare

There are times when I make a decision that seems so good, reasonable, and well thought out at the time, only to have it blow up into a mess when it actually plays out. That's exactly what happened this morning. Let me explain....

Lisa is no longer much of a herding dog. She was my first working dog, and I made all of my mistakes with her. Even after training and retraining, I realized that the biggest mistake I had made was in the disposition I had chosen for my dog, and so I eventually retired her at the ripe old age of about six years. Lisa has a mind of her own and, unlike Coda or Chance, is not at all interested in working as a team with a human partner. Actually, I don't really think she wants to work with any partner. Lisa likes to do what she wants to do at any time or place that she wants to do it. She has finally agreed to generally follow my household rules, but not in order to please me (which seems to be more the case with my other two dogs) - instead, she follows my rules because she knows that punishment awaits her if she doesn't. She will still push the envelope as far as she can, though, punishment or not!

You should also know that all of our dogs are afraid of thunder - mightily afraid. We do medicate them for storms, and we actually began doing so early enough in their lives - in the case of both of the boys, Coda and Chance - that they will actually work the sheep in a storm if need be. It doesn't happen often, but it sure is comforting to know that if I need to bring the sheep in during a fierce storm, I won't be trying to do it myself! Of the three, Lisa is the most storm phobic - there is no way she would help me in a storm.... no way!

So, this morning, thunderstorms were popping up on the weather radar all over our state - most were very limited in size, but they created a lot of thunder and lightning as they went by. I was gettting ready to go outside and finish my chores when I saw the western horizon darkening - I knew a big storm was on its way in a short period of time. I still had to exercise the dogs for at least twenty minutes before they went to relax for a while in their crates, and I also needed to fill the creep house with grain for the lambs to eat at their leisure during the day. I didn't want to get caught in a downpour walking the dogs, but I also didn't relish the idea of filling the creep house as buckets of rain dumped down around me, either.

I decided that the thing to do was to try something I had done many times in past years when I had a similar situation: take the dogs on a walk and frisbee-catching session as we moved closer and closer to the rock pasture where the lambs were grazing. Once I got near the pasture, I could put them all into a "down-stay" and go in myself to fill the creep building. Once I was finished and out of the pasture, I planned on releasing them from their stay and continuing on the walk. This way, I could kill two birds with one stone - both walk the dogs and feed the lambs - before the worst of the storm hit!

Unfortunately, Lisa had her own plans for the morning.... We began the walk as usual for our morning routine: I threw the frisbee and walked, while the dogs retrieved the frisbee and did their 'business.' We all slowly worked our way away from the house and towards the back of the property. This time, however, I was carrying the bucket of grain for the lambs as I walked, and we were accompanied by the sound of distant thunder. The thunder was obviously making the dogs ill at ease, but they were still willing to walk and fetch, so we moved towards the rock pasture.

It didn't take long before Lisa figured out that we were headed for the rock pasture and the lambs, and decided to "help out." As she raced into the pasture where the lambs grazed, it was obvious that she was up to no good: our dogs are taught to wait at the gate for us to enter first, but she threw herself under the bottom wire of the fence and immediately ran for the lambs, barking all the way. The commotion caught the attention of the other two dogs, and all three began running around and through the group of lambs, panicking the flock. What a mess!

I called. I threatened. I tried not to scream at them (it gets the dogs too excited and tense), but I can't say that it didn't happen. I ran to try to catch them. When something like this happens, there isn't really much you can do.... The dogs are too fast and too smart to be caught. Eventually, the fun for Coda and Chance wore off, and they obeyed when I asked them to lie down and then to leave the pasture. Lisa, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with me! This was fun for her and she had no plans of stopping!

I watched, helplessly, as she charged the group of lambs again and again, scattering them to the corners of the pasture, only to regroup them and start again. It was hot and muggy, even for morning, and this crazed running was really not good for any of them, dog or sheep. I was getting more and more worried.... And then it happened. I watched as Lisa charged the group of lambs yet again, and this time, one of the black ewe lambs dropped onto her side in the tall grass and did not get up. Oh, I had to stop this, and fast!

It took me several more minutes before I could get Lisa's attention - it was finally a good strong clap of thunder that drew her attention away from her quarry. When it broke her concentration, she suddenly felt the rain and wind, and heard the storm all around her as it gathered strength. Suddenly - and thankfully for the lambs - all she had on her mind was to race for home to get away from the storm, and that's just what she did!

Oh, ... and that black ewe lamb? Well, as soon as the coast was clear, she lifted her head to take a good long look around. Seeing that the crazy dog had indeed left for home, she hopped right up and rejoined her flock-mates like nothing had happened. When I, too, turned away and left for home, she was the only sheep in that pasture that wasn't panting heavily after the early morning run. Who says sheep aren't smart?! At the ripe old age of two months or so, she has already figured out that the best way to avoid trouble with Lisa is not to play her games! If only I could figure out a way....

Our working dogs

I have to admit that I couldn't do what I do with my flock of sheep without my dogs. I know that a lot of shepherds say that they can move their flocks using a bucket of grain, but my sheep are too wary to fall for that. Most of them will come in, but a few stay back and watch to see what we have planned. When the others see the few outside, they become nervous and run out of the barn, too, so that we then need to get more grain to try to bring them back in. We eventually got to the point where we knew we could not move the sheep reliably, so we got our first dog, Lisa.

Because she was our first dog, I made a lot of mistakes with Lisa - both in selecting her and in her training. She is still around now, seven years later, but retired, having gotten to the point where she is more trouble than help. Because border collies need a productive job to maintain their sanity, she has developed the task of protecting me from the rooster when I collect eggs from the nesting boxes. This isn't something I would have thought of on my own, but she has embraced it as her task in life since her retirement and, since it has created a kind of peace in the household, we go with it.

Coda was the next dog to arrive and is now, at five years of age, our main dog. Although I am constantly reminding him to slow down while he's working, he can do just about anything I need with little instruction. He is tough enough to move the most ornery rams, and yet can be gentle and patient enough to move even the youngest weaned lambs. I am afraid that he is a once-in-a-lifetime dog: he is just that easy to work with. I used to think that he read my mind, but I have come to realize that he must read my body language and often knows what I need him to do even before I even tell him.

Besides being so good with the sheep, Coda also knows to steer clear of the llamas. We have one llama protecting each group of sheep. When I take Coda into an area to move sheep, he keeps an eye open for the llama and, although he will move my sheep as needed, he will also keep from being killed by the resident llama. Chance isn't so savvy and the llamas are my major issue with him right now....

Chance is the youngest and also the smallest of our three dogs. Being two years old, he doesn't yet have the experience that Coda has developed, and I don't think he realizes that being too close to the llamas is a danger. He becomes so involved with working the sheep that he loses track of where the llama is - and that can be fatal! When I take Chance into the flock of sheep, I have to keep an eye out for him, to keep him away from the llama. I am hoping that, eventually, with more experience, he will figure all of this out for himself the way that Coda did - but he hasn't done it yet. Right now, it can still be a heart-stopping experience to let Chance work the sheep.

Of our three dogs, Chance has the most unusual personality. If you were to meet him in the house, you would think he's still a puppy - he's much too playful and immature for you to consider him a working dog. Yet, if you take him in among the sheep, all of that silly puppy behavior drops away, and the working dog comes to the fore. If you met him in the pasture with sheep, you would have a hard time reconciling the dog you saw indoors with the one you met in the fireld - he is that different.

Many people ask me if I have a favorite from among our dogs.... In fact, I do have a favorite. The problem is that my favorite changes by the day. Actually, it probably doesn't take that long to change from one to another - it can be minutes! Coda is definitely my favorite for certain tasks with the sheep, but Chance is actually better at other times in moving the flock. Lisa can be a doll - or a stinker, depending on her mood. Overall, life with three border collies isn't easy - they have way too much energy to simply be household pets. Yet, for our lifestyle, I can't imagine doing what we do without them. Their intelligence and drive make working the sheep infinitely easier, and our lives away from the flock infinitely more interesting.....

Weaning - or so I thought

Weaning day is always a big event - for the lambs and for us. For the last couple of years, we have split our lambs into two groups - the early group and the late group - and weaned each group at a different time. Because there is a six-week span from the first-born lamb to the last straggler, we thought it might work better to wean the first, larger group last Saturday, and then wean the last dozen or so lambs in three weeks.

There are a couple of advantages to dividing it up like this. First of all, when the lambs are weaned, they miss more than just the milk. In fact, the milk is the smaller part of what they miss, in my opinion. It seems that the biggest problem is the lack of adult leadership and "mothering" from their moms. By weaning in two groups, we leave the later-lambing ewes in with the lambs, allowing them to continue to provide that leadership for the whole group of lambs. That way, the lambs are not out there alone in the dark of night without an adult to assure them that it is all OK.

And, of course, they do miss the milk a bit. By six weeks, though, they are not drinking much milk at all, and what they drink has dropped in nutrition over the weeks to provide very little of what they need - they are actually better off without filling up on the milk, and instead filling up on the grain and alfalfa or grass.

So, Saturday we weighed and evaluated all of the lambs for breeding and pulled out about three-quarters of the ewes, sending them to the south pasture - which is almost as far from our east pasture as you can get. This was important because although we were locking the lambs and the remaining nursing ewes into the barn for the weekend, after that, we knew they would be grazing the east pasture - we didn't want any escapees making their way back to their mothers in the south pasture!

After sending the ewes off to their south pasture to "dry up," we enclosed the area right in front of the barn with sheep panels (42"high made up of 4" squares) to keep the lambs in for the weekend. We gave them bales of alfalfa and dishes of grain and called the job done - or so we assumed!

The first problem appeared within an hour, and it was named Gianna. All of our lambs learn at a very young age that they can get under our high-tensile fences because the bottom wires are not electrified. I actually kind of like this because they can get to very nice grass that the ewes can't eat up, and they always scoot right back when we come along. They never go far from their flock, so I don't really worry about them. Eventually, they grow big enough and old enough that they don't continue their fence trick - they stay within the fences...that is, except for Gianna! She learned the Houdini trick as a lamb and continues to this day to make her way out of the pastures to graze. Like the lambs, she doesn't stray far, and she scoots right back under when we come to "talk to her" about it, so we haven't worried about it much - until Saturday!

Gianna is a very protective mother - the kind we really like. She takes very good care of her lambs, and both she and her lambs always have exceptionally lovely fiber - which is why she is still here! This year, her daughter, Jezebel, is no different: she is our largest lamb with extraordinary fiber, and an overprotective mother! As soon as we got Gianna over in the south pasture, she began making her way under the fence, across the swamp, under another fence, across the pasture, under the last fence, and up to the enclosure where Jezebel waited, calling and calling. You have to understand, they hadn't even been separated for an hour yet!

Thank goodness, we had the foresight to enclose the lamb area within the panels (See the photo at left of Gianna outside the panels with Jezebel jumping inside, trying to get out!) Otherwise, moving Gianna back to the south pasture would have been that much harder! As it was, it took two people and a dog to convince her that it was time to return to the ewes.... And it took three more times before dark, as she kept making her way over to the barn. Finally, once it got dark, her better instinct prevailed, and she decided that it was too dangerous for a ewe to be traveling cross-country alone - but that was no longer true at sun-up on Sunday morning!

All day on Sunday, we had the same problem. Luckily I found that if I sent Coda, my main dog, out to push her back under the fence before she crossed the swamp, that he could do so without my even leaving the front porch. All of Sunday morning, that is exactly what we did..... And then, in the afternoon, I realized that he no longer even needed to go down into the swamp to push her back in - she would go in on her own when she saw him in the front yard, on his way over. Before long, she would pop back under the fence as soon as the front door opened - and then it got dark and we had a reprieve for the night!

I have to add that, during all this time of trying to keep Gianna in, the lambs were doing fine! The ewes called their lambs, and the lambs called their moms for the rest of the day on Saturday, but by Sunday the ruckus had pretty much stopped. By this morning, even Gianna had given up and all was peaceful, so I decided that I could let the lambs and the few ewes with them out onto the east pasture to graze a bit. What a bad move!

As soon as I opened the panels, a whole flurry of lambs ran for the west pasture gate and scooted under.... This was terrible! The rest of them moved into the east pasture as I had hoped - that was the gate that I had left open for them. Those that made it into the west pasture were only two fences and a swampy area away from their moms! What a mess!

I quickly put up panels over the west pasture gate so that no more lambs could get through, and took Coda out to convince the lambs that hadn't yet made it under the first fence that they had to go back. Unfortunately, he couldn't catch them all... six lambs had gotten all the way through to their moms in the south pasture. Grumbling, I hooked up the trailer, and Coda and I went for a "ride" (Coda's word) to the south pasture.

Luckily, the lambs are still young and small enough for me to pick up and carry. I caught each one, including Jezebel (who weighs nearly 50 punds), and put them into the trailer. While we worked, Coda and I had to keep watch for Martin, our new llama, who is now in that field. As one of the sheep's protectors, Martin is not used to the fact that Coda is allowed to work the sheep and is not a threat, so we had to begin that training, too, as we gathered up the lambs. Within about 45 minutes, all of the lambs were in the trailer on their way back to the east pasture.

So far, so good - no lambs have escaped since Coda and I dropped off the six about an hour ago. I can only hope that now, when I say that a good number of our lambs are being weaned, that it is still true, and that I have no more trailer trips in my near future! So, now to begin planning that final weaning group....