[Ag-eq] The BlanchRanch Bulletin

[Jewel]

As the readers of this series may remember, two years ago, my dog Guideon lost his marbles and 
started killing my lambs.

How he was getting out of the yard I did not know and I received no definitive help from sighted 
people that would lead to

my solving the problem, Suffice it to say, over a period of 3 months, he killed 8 of my lambs; 
Fortunately:  a very poor

choice of word and if I could think of another I would use it:  they were * my lambs, and not my 
neighbours, which they,

very well, could have been as there is only a plain, unelectrified, sheep netting fence between my 
flock and his.
Not before time, I contacted the vets and they said that one of their staff would come over and see 
if she could spot where

the weakness was.  By observing Guideon's behaviour and witnessing that his attention was 
concentrated on one particular

gate, she concluded that this was the most likely place where Guideon was getting out.
I was not in a position to, physically, replace the gate, so I pulled up one of the six-foot gates 
that I had from the old

dogruns that had been pulled down when the new sheds were put up.  I leaned this gate against the 
existing suspect one so

that it provided an overhang on Guideon's side, and, sure enough, his escapes came to an end, until, 
that is, the day came

when I was working in the paddock where the lean-to was, and needeng a tool from the backyard, 
pushed the overhang aside,

got the tool and pulld the overhang back into place.
However, all this pushing and pulling had been noted by my super-intelligent dog and it had provided 
him with all the

logistical information that he needed, so, without my having moved more than 5 feet from the gate, 
he had pushed it aside,

and was over and gone.
Past experience had proved,  beyond measure, that when he was in one of these killing frenzies, 
without batting an eye,  he

would tear into a sheep that was right in front of me, but as long as I couldn't get hold of him 
there was nothing that I

could do, and getting hold of him was something that he took good care to see didn't happen.
All the shouting in the world fell onto deaf ears.
The final straw came when David, my nextdoor sheep-owning neighbour,  saw Guideon attack and tear to 
bits one of my lambs,

and he, quite rightly, fearing for the continued wellbeing of his own sheep, demanded that the dog 
be shot.
Believe me, readers, during these dreadful months, eight times, I had been on the verge of having 
Guideon killed but each

time I reminded myself that, without his invaluable assistance, in so many other respects, leading 
the life that I do would

be, quite, impossible.

In a last ditch hope of forestalling an official order that the dog be destroyed, Evan and Owen, my 
two brothers, came from

their homes in Central Otago and, using the panels and gates that had formed my old dogruns,  put up 
fences that even an

agile dog such as Guideon could, no longer, jump or clamber over.  Provided the gates were always 
kept securely fastened,

with the exception of a couple of hiccups:  more of that in a moment:  , Guideon's unwonted escapes 
have been brought to an

end.
Part 2:  THE   HICCUPS.

Warning:  Hiccup #1 contains some * actions, on my part, which may cause some readers to judge me as 
being unfit to own

dogs, but it was Guideon's * actions that gave me no alternative but to do what I

did.---------------------------------------



In August of last year, 2017, one of my ewes tried to hurdle a fence, but her attempt was 
unsuccessful when one of her hind

legs passed between the 2 top wires and she was left, dangling.
I do not know how long she was in this predicament, but as she was in  full view of  any motorist 
passing on the road and

noone came in and told me of her plight, I assume that it was, probablly, overnight.
When I got her out of the fence, she was not a very happy sheep;  the hindleg that had been caught 
was dislocated at the

hip and the wire had cut, deeply into the fetlock joint.
My neighbour was able to reposition the dislocated hip joint, but I called the vet in to see what he 
could do for the

damaged fetlock.
He gave her a long-acting antibacterial injection for the wire gash, but he thought that the outcome 
would be that I would

be minus one sheep and have a, severely, damaged bank account.
The health of my bank account, such as it is, was of some serious concern, but I wanted to do what I 
could for the ewe, so

I told him to go ahead and do what he could for her:  stopping short of a lethal injection.
The next time he called, he said that, despite his injection, infection had set in and could he put 
her down?
I still withheld my permission and instead, asked him to use some ointment in which I have always 
had a lot of faith:  :

Rawley's Salve, or Rawley's Man and Beast as it was called when I was a child and I still call it by 
that name.
Probably, he thought that I was fighting a losing battle, but he agreed to do as I asked, and the 
next time he came in, the

sheep was not out of the woods, but the bad smell had gone, and the hoof was a lot better;  instead 
of it staying doubled

over when she took a  step, it was beginning to work as it should.
He said that there was no point  in further visits from him and that, if I wished,  I should just 
keep doing as I was: i.e:

 bathing it in a solution of zinc and disinfectant and then applying  the Rawleys.
At this point, Guideon makes an unwelcome reentrance into my narrative.
I have omitted to say that I was keeping the ewe in the barn, and one evening when I went in to 
attend to her, he barged

past me, and, in a flash, had grabbed her.
In his usual style, he was tearing at her, but, fortunately, she was carrying a very thick fleece so 
he was just getting

mouthfuls of wool.
I rushed back and got hold of the ewe but, in the struggle, I was pulled over and I could not get 
hold of the blasted dog;

however, once I had regained my feet, I did and, there being a fibreglass rod at hand, I thrashed 
him, and made every blow

count.
I know that it hurt him a lot less than it did me, because on the occasions that my blows missed the 
dog and landed on me,

they did hurt, but, unlike him,  I wasn't protected by a thick coat.
I short-chained him to one of the stancheons, and left him in the barn with the sheep overnight.
When I went in the next morning, my word! what a different dog he was!  clipping a lead to his 
collar, I walked him up to

the sheep.  He walked up very quietly, and she was unafraid, sensing that he presented no threat!
I have been accused of abuse but I had no alternative;  severe action was called for and  it had to 
be telling and

IMMEDIATE!
Keeping it in mind that he had been within a breath of being killed 9 times in the previous 2 years, 
I don't think that my

action was unwarranted as it saved his life:  a life worth saving!

--------------------------------------------------

Hiccup #2.

February 2018.  Now, I don't keep a track of Guideon's movements every moment of the day:  he may be 
under my desk, in his

bedbox, or out in the yard, but in one of those places he * will be, so it is not necessary to be 
checking for him at

regular intervals.  however, several times of late, he has been appearing beside me in places where 
he had no business to

be, and I couldn't figure out how he was appearing where he was.  It seemed that he must be getting 
out under the house,

but how, in all that's wonderful, could he be doing that?
My house is a villa built in the early part of the 20th century and is on foundations that keep it 
about 2 feet from the

ground so there is, or was, when I bought the BlanchRanch in 1986, a clearance under the house of 
that dimension.  Having a

whole raft of dogs when I moved in, I had that gap, completely covered with sheets of corrugated 
iron, so how could he be

getting under the house.  On a couple of occasions, I thought that I heard a bump come from under 
the floor, but my hearing

is so unreliable and defective these days, that I could not swear to having heard something or not!
Anyway, leaving him in the yard, I went out to collect the wheeliebin, and when I came back inside, 
Guideon had gone!
Immediately, I rang Keith who is one of my 8 neighbours and the one that I have most to do with and 
asked him if he could

see Guideon in the paddock or  were the sheep disturbed.
I rang him back a few minutes later to say that I had Guideon and it  didn't look as though he had 
been attacking sheep.
And this was the story that he told me.
When I had rung him, he went out and there were only 2 sheep of the 13 in the paddock.  The rest 
Guideon had rounded up and

brought up into the barn and divided them:  or perhaps they had divided themselves:  there were 7 in 
one part of the barn

and 4 in the section that Keith calls the lambing bay as this seems to be the ewe's favourite 
maternity unit.
Guideon was still with the sheep but, when he saw Keith coming, he hightailed it back to the house, 
and Keith took note of

where he disappeared from sight.
Now, this convinced me that G was getting under the house so some of the barricading must be 
missing; and so it was, and it

had come about in the following manner.
A month ago, one of my household waterpipes was leaking and I called a plumber in to deal with it, 
which he did, most

satisfactorily.
However, to get at the point at which the pipe was leaking, he had had to remove the said 
barricading, and had failed to

put it back.
This happened a month ago, so, possibly, Guideon has been coming and going to and from the sheep all 
that time.
Has he been practising sheep handling all this month.
He, certainly, had made a very proficient job of rounding them up:  he did miss 2, but who is 
counting, and put them in the

barn as though he had been doing it for years!
Bloodthirsty sheep killer turned very gentle sheepdog:  amazing, but true!  Just another thing to 
add to the list of

amazing things that have happened and continue to happen on The BlanchRanch!