Marcia's English Shepherds

A couple of years ago I had a Suffolk ram who hadn't bothered me all winter (I never trust a ram). Toward spring it was very muddy one night and I was being lazy so I left Molly in the house. That was the first night the ram tried to mess with me. Anytime she wasn't with me he would challenge me, so I chose to clean muddy dog. He would need a reminder once in a while so I'd tell Molly to "get him" and she'd back him off. I felt a lot safer with her there.

This same winter we had a lot of snow so I hayed the critters in the barn quite a bit. Sometimes they would invade the space before I was finished. One night when I was moving extra slow Molly came bouncing into the barn to me (normally she just hangs out and checks out lambs if there are any). I conversationally said to her, "Molly why don't you keep the sheep out of the barn?" and away she goes. I had finished haying when I realized 'no sheep'. What's going on I thought, so I snuck to the barn door. Molly had planted herself outside the door and there were a circle of sheep surrounding her waiting to get into the barn.

She loves baby lambs (she loves all babies) and is almost obsessed by them. To the point where she thinks she should take over from Mama Ewe. Not always a good thing as she got me head butted by a ewe who disagreed with her one time. Once they get a certain size she looses interest.

Years back I had laying hens. These were Gold Stars which are very quiet, mild mannered hens. I would get such a kick out of watching Molly slowing approach them and then her nose would disappear in the feather on their rear as she sniffed them. They were never afraid of her. I also had a crotchety old turken. Upon his first meeting with Molly when she was just a pup he went after her. She gave him wide berth after that until she got bigger. At this point they had a little game they played. He would stomp at her and she would bounce around him barking and carrying on. It was your basic standoff. I didn't realize what a game it was until fall and the time changed. It was dark so the turken was already roosting when I did chores. Normally they won't fly down with just the barn lights on, but he did. Stomp, stomp, stomp, bark, bark, bark. They had to play their game.

She used to bring the horses in off pasture when I had two of them. I would tell her to go get Sundance and she would, then I would tell her to get Strike and she'd bring him in. Now I have to be careful not to yell at Sundance (Strike died a number of years ago--he was in his 30's) to knock it off (Sundance can get squirrelly at times) or Molly tries to jump in and discipline her. The bad thing is Molly's way of doing this is to grab and swing on her tail and I'm afraid she'll get kicked so I have to watch what I say.

Not a lot of work but that's a bit of our life...