Paging Bo Peep, Paging Bo Peep

It was a fleeting thought -- a bleating thought, if you will -- as I drove down yet another gravel road, past yet another field of sheep: "Maybe I should study sheep."

I had already made the astute observation that sheep really DO say "baaaa," so I felt I was off to a good start. And I had been monitoring sheep behavior regularly. For example, I noted the presence of what I call the Sentinel Sheep, the one who warned the others of the presence of an intruder and who notified said intruder -- me -- to "baaaaack off." (Can you find it in the picture above?) And as I thought about it I've long had this attraction to sheep (please do not go there!). For example, when I thought I was going to be a mother, I planned to decorate the baby's room with lambs. My favorite tea cups and matching plates have sweet little sheep on them. A special Christmas ornament that always makes me smile -- again, a sheep. There is something about their faces that I find both endearing and which just cracks me up. Take a look at this one:

Awaiting her turn for the ultimate indignation -- shearing of the butt.

I have taken my research into a shearing shack

and out onto the farm where I got to participate in moving a herd (are groups of sheep herds? hmmm, more research to conduct) of sheep

from one farm to another down the only highway in the area.

Of course my participation was limited to riding on the back of an All Terrain Vehicle, with a freshly broken toe, asking a million questions about sheep behavior. "So, are there sheep hierarchies? Is there such a thing as an Alpha sheep?" "And just what is it about sheep and the Queen?" (You'd have to have read about me visiting the Parliament to think that was funny.) Here's a picture of Jim, the farmer tolerating me that day.

I had stayed with Jim and his family the night before as part of a program -- Servas -- that encourages cultural exchanges (more on that another time). The dogs used to herd the sheep are not the fancy border collies you see in sheep documentaries (I wonder how many of those there are. I'll have to look into that.) But they are eager to do their work.

In fact, one farmer had his dog on the back of his ATV as he did a vehicle herding of the sheep. I commented that this certainly was a modern way of doing things? And he replied that no, the dog usually does the work and had worn the pads of his feet down the day before. But since he was so eager to do his job, the farmer let him jump on board, so he could still participate.

My favorite sheep experience came on a lonely gravel road in the Catlins, the southernmost area of New Zealand's South Island. Two sheep had escaped from the field in which they were placed. Somehow -- and I don't know how because I never saw a gap in the fence -- they had managed to get on the other side of it and were in the road.

Now sheep are very, very skittish. And you can't talk to them, as I tried over and over, trying to assure them that I meant them no harm in my enormous steel frame. So, for half an hour we conducted this ballet which consisted of me slowly inching the car forward and them running in the road, alarmed, until one of them (and I know this one was the original instigator, sort of like that friend in junior high school who convinced you that skipping school would be fine when you had never done it before) got a great idea, "Hey," she said in sheep sign language, "over here!" And they would run up the hill, expecting to be able to run free, but then see the fence, "Oh dear! A fence! Over here!" and they would run to the other side of the road and meet the same fate. "wait! I have an idea! Over here! Ohhhh nooooo! Another fence! What now?! Over there! Ahhh, how can this be?! Another fence?!#$!@&*!!" This went on and on (hmm, researcher takes note, sheep do not appear to be very smart) until finally I inched past them, cooing calm words of safety.

But then the road turned out to be a dead end and I had to turn around and do this dance one more time. This time, however, the human demonstrated that she has the capacity to learn from past experience and just drove through.