[Ag-eq] A very long post

[Tracy Carcione]

Wow Jewel.  I thought sheep-killing was an automatic death sentence.  I'm
glad you got him a reprieve.  Sounds like even a good beating hasn't
deterred him, but at least it may have made him think.
Tracy


-----Original Message-----
From: Ag-eq [mailto:ag-eq-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Jewel via Ag-eq
Sent: Saturday, August 12, 2017 3:56 AM
To: Charlie Tarantola; A list for guide dog owner/trainers
Cc: Jewel
Subject: [Ag-eq] A very long post

the complex nature of a dog's mind!
WARNING:  the following, very long, post  contains aspects of violence and
bloodshed!
It all started 2 years ago, shortly after the ewes [lady sheep[ had dropped
their lambs.  At that point, I had had Guideon 

for 4 years and every year of those 4, the mummy sheep had had babies, and,
in each of those years,  Guideon had appeared 

to be uninterested, but in that 4th year, everything changed.  He started
escaping from the backyard, how I did not know 

and asking sighted people for assistance in finding how these escapes were
brought about proved no use at all.
Over a period of 3 months, he ripped apart a total of 8 lambs:  fortunately,
if that is the right word, they were all my own 

and he had not cross the fence into the neighbour's sheep paddocks, but
there was no guarantee that he wouldn't!
I had had suspicions as to the impregnable nature of one of the gates, so
had used one of the dog run gates that had been 

taken down when I had had the old sheds pulled down and new ones put up in
their place.  I leant one of these gates against 

the suspect one so that the top 2 feet leaned over into the yard, and, sure
enough, his rampages came to a halt, but one 

day, I wanted to go through that gateway so, having tied Guideon up, I
pulled the lean-to gate aside and went through.
Yes!  I had tied him up but I had not blindfolded him!  He saw me * pull the
gate aside and that was all the knowledge he 

needed.  
He has always shown the keenest interest when aspects of technology come to
the fore.
He loves my PowerFit machine and will step onto it and start it on his own;
If I have a computer technician here, Guideon 

stands beside him, watching his every movement!  and so, to an extent, does
his grasp of how things work apply to what I 

was talking about:  to whit:  escaping.
He saw me pull the lean-to gate aside and that was all he needed to know;
he couldn't pull it but he could push and that 

is what he did, and I was standing only a few feet from it when he did.  He
was gone in a flash!
My neighbour who owned the adjoining property saw Guideon kill his, that is,
mine, not my neighbour's,  last lamb, and 

being, rightly, concerned for the welfare of his own sheep, knowing that
there was a sheep killer living next-door, demanded 

that the dog be shot!  I had said every time he killed a lamb:  7 times in
all:  that I would have him shot but I always 

took a step back when I said this because, although, with the state of my
balance and walking, Guideon, no longer,  

performs the duties of a guide dog, he is of so much help to me, in other
ways,  on The BlanchRanch that, leading the life 

that I do without him would be impossible!
I was visited by the stock control officer accompanied by David Brown, the ,
quite rightly, incensed neighbour  demanding 

that the dog be shot!
I explained how important the dog was to me and that Evan and Owen, my
brothers, said that they would come and do something to improve 

my fences.  we agreed that the decision at to Guideon's fate would be held
over and would rest upon whether the new fences 

would bring his killings to a stop.
The boys used the panels and gates of the old dog runs and they have been,
on the whole, 100% successful.
Guideon's wish to kill lambs has, by no means, diminished and he has killed
once more in the past 2 hears, but it was not 

that my fences failed but that he took his opportunity to  bolt past me when
I opened an unrelated gate, not knowing that 

he was right behind me just waiting for that moment to be given to him.
Heaps more folks!  Now we come up to this year 2017.
During the winter months of very little to zero grass growth, I keep the
hseep confined to the barn area and hay feed them.
One day, I had just filled up the hayracks with their ration for the next 24
hours, when I became aware that Guideon was 

with the ewes.
I could hear them running around and Guideon's panting but, as always
happened when sheep were in his mind,  he was deaf to 

my commands, and then a man who was delivering concentrates for the sheep
came and asked if I was aware that one of the 

gates was on the ground and my dog was attacking the sheep?  Well!  I,
certainly, was aware that my dog was attacking the 

sheep, but how the gate was on the ground without a human having put it
there was beyond me, but, of course, it did explain 

how Guideon was out with them!
He isn't quite so dangerous with the ewes as he is with lambs as there very
heavy fleeces protect them to some extent, but 

if he was able to rip at one in a series of attacks, he would be able to get
through to her and finish her off.
Well, the man rehung the gate.  It had one of those gudgeon and pin hinges,
and it was just a simple matter of lifting the 

gate and it would come clear.
I said * simple, that is, * simple for us, but not so for the rest of the
animal kingdom, or that was what I thought, until 

a day or two later when Keith, my over-the back-boundary-fence neighbour
told me that he had seen two of my * brainless * 

ewes working as a team with their noses under another similar gate trying to
lift it, but, in this case, they couldn't 

because the gate was tightly wedged in by the wall of the barn, but it was
they who had lifted the other one off.
now I have hammered a nail into the post above the pin so there is no longer
any  way that that gate can be lifted off its hinges unless the nail is
removed!  needless to say:  well why say it then?:  I am careful  not to
leave a hammer within reach of the ewes!
Come to think of it,the hole that is in the top of some gudgeons is there so
that the farmer can twist a piece of wire through that hole to forestall his
cattle lifting it off by sticking their horns through and lifting it that
way!  but I did think that the ewes were pretty darn clever about getting
down and dirty and using their noses for the same purpose.
As this post was headed "The Complex Mind of a Dog", I will skip over some
invents in which Guideon took no part, but I 

will just have to add here that one of my ewes suffered an injury brought
about by her trying to win a gold medal in the 

long jump and just failing to clear the barrier and was left hanging, by one
hind leg, from the top of a fence.
I have had her isolated in one end of the barn while she was recovering from
the injury, and just a couple of days ago, I 

opened the gate to go down to see her, and Guideon scented * lambs:  [one of
the ewes having had twin lambs last week] and 

at, close to the speed of light, bolted past me, but his evil plan as to the
lambs was thwarted for the lambs were in the 

paddock and he was in the barn and all the gates were closed.
However, he was in with the injured ewe.  
His plans for the lambs having been thwarted, he started in on the ewe, but,
this time,  things didn't go his way!
His usual way of killing was to go straight for the throat, but the throat
of this ewe was protected with a very wide, 

heavy collar that supported a large bell and other pieces of metal, such as
a mountaineering carabina which I could use as 

a handle.
Guideon was trying to get a bite at her, but all he was getting was a
mouthful of wool, but his desire was, most certainly, 

very obvious. 
After having been knocked down a couple of times, , I managed, for the first
time when he was engaged on mauling a sheep, 

to get hold of him, and I thrashed that dog to within an inch of his life.
I knew that my weapon, a fiberglass rod couldn't injure him, but I also
knew, from personal experience, that it could hurt: 

 but not hurt him nearly as much as it did me when one of my blows missed
the dog and hit me on the shin, and  I didn't 

have a thick coat to protect my shins while the dog did!
I hooked his collar to the hitching post where I tie the sheep when I want
to inspect them:  I haven't got the knack of 

sitting them down like shearers do: and walked away and left him there all
night!
He was a very different dog when I went into the barn to get him the
following morning.  He walked around very quietly and 

when I took him near the ewe, he made no aggressive move toward her and the
ewe seemed to be quite unafraid of him, 

sensing, perhaps, that he posed no threat!  This is not to say that he has
been CURED!  I will NEVER trust him with sheep 

large or small, but he may, and I say that with a measure of hesitation, be
a little less determined to bring about their 

unlooked-for demise!  
You who have had the internal fortitude to stick with me will be relieved to
know that a para or two will have me finished.
Yesterday, I was shifting the sheep around from paddock to barn and as the
injured ewe's foot is as well as it is ever 

going to be, and after receiving a vet's bill of 440$, I have let her out to
rejoin the rest of her buddies.
Guideon was, safely, in the house, but he was aware in some way I know not
how, which is why I called this opus "The 

Complex Mind of a Dog" that I was with the sheep, and when I opened the
backdoor, he did what he had the last time,  

whizzed past me like a bolt of lightning with, I have not the shadow of a
doubt,  pictures in his mind of lambs throats!
Now!  he can't get out of the backyard;  he had done nothing wrong, and as
he had not, of course, I had not done anything 

to make him think that he had;  but he behaved as though he was guilty of
the most heinous crime staying just out of 

fingertip reach, until, after several hours of self-imposed, quite needless
punishment, he presented himself at the 

backdoor,
I thought that it was a pristine case of the complexity of which our dogs'
minds are capable:  "I have thought BAD  

THOUGHTS, ergo, I had done BAD  THINGS!"

              Jewel

    
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