Friday, September 2, 2011

The Morning From Hell

I really did intend to blog regularly but it seems I am so busy living life I don't find the time to write about it. But after this morning's adventures I am too buggered to do any more living life so writing about seems like the best option for now.

I started my morning a little later than usual but it was a perfect spring day, blue sky, chirping birds, you know the normal country stuff. I headed off towards the dam with my 6 dogs and our 2 visiting dogs. The dogs all know their way around now so as soon as I turn through the gate towards the dam they race off down there and are usually swimming happily by the time I arrive. This morning as I approached the dam I could here lots of barking and see dogs running around the dam like a velodrome. As I got closer I saw a Mum and Dad duck with about 10 babies swimming around in the middle of the dam. The dogs were taking turns to try and get them while the rest where barking encouragement from the bank. All except Dexter the retriever it seems he is only interested in ducks after they have been shot and his prize bone was much more important to him.

Now if I want all my dogs to come with me I yell "Come on Everyone" but with so much excitement happening this didn't work. The only other option was to call them off one at a time. This also proved to be a bit of a problem because the first dog would come but then when I called the second the first would go flying back to the duck hunt. I managed to get about 3 dogs to stay with me so to keep them occupied I said "where's the sheep" and they ran off towards the sheep paddock and away from the dam. It was then fairly easy to get the others to come to me and as they raced off towards their mates at the sheep paddock I apologized to the ducks and strolled off to catch up with the dogs.

As I approached the sheep paddock I realized that Fergus and Stanley had taken me seriously and instead of sitting by the fence watching the sheep like the others they were both in with the sheep. This was all too much for one sheep and he cleared the fence in his attempt to get away. This was a mistake as the other 6 dogs were sitting there waiting (well 5 really Dexter has no interest in live sheep either). Then it was on, the sheep was running, the dogs were running I was running and yelling and throwing things. For some reason no one was listening too me. Fergus and Stanley thought this chase was much more fun and left the sheep paddock to join in. There is a lot of rubbish around our place (clean up is on the to do list) and sheep and dogs were running through rusty tin, wire, and broken glass. By this stage just strange gurgling noises where coming from me as I had visions of a mauled sheep and injured dogs and huge vet bills

Eventually the sheep went down and the dogs formed a perfect circle around it with only Madi and surprisingly enough Stella having ago at it. Now things where a bit quieter I could think straight and went back to the task of calling a couple of dogs off, shutting them up and then going back and getting the next couple. Finally all the dogs were safely away but the sheep just laid there, was it going to be roast lamb for tea. I went to check him out and he was all in one piece and with a bit of coaxing he got back up. I'm sure he has vowed never to jump a fence again.

Disaster averted, emergency over I headed back to the house for a well earned cup of tea. I don't think I will need any more exercise for a week.


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