A Little About Meat Rabbits

 

So, a little about rabbits, better known to me as rabids. (More about that later)

Rabids have decent sized litters (mine have 5-11) and they grow quickly. I like to process them at 5 lbs so about 12 weeks old. That gives me the greater number of choices in how to prepare them. There are some really delicious recipes online. I have yet to try one we haven’t liked. Our rabids replace chicken in our menus. They are cheaper to raise, easier to process and taste very similar. Babies are cute. Housing requirements are pretty basic and easy. Cleaning is also pretty easy, just rake it up and dump in your garden. Unlike chicken manure, rabbit poop is a cold fertilizer so can go directly on your plants without harming them and it has LOTS of nutrients for the soil. Every part of our rabbits are used, except the pelts, as young rabbit’s skin is too thin to process, although it can be sliced up and dried for dog treats. I will be harvesting a couple of older rabbits and hope to try my hand at processing those hides.

My dogs love the rabbit heads, ears, feet, livers, kidneys, hearts, etc. The flaps are supposed to make good jerky, otherwise they go to dogs as they are rather tough and chewy to eat.

Those are the “pros” of raising rabbits. Now for the “cons”

They can and will try to eviscerate you, given the opportunity, and their claws are deadly sharp, like a cat’s. It is important to wear sleeves (I have special sleeves just for rabids) and know how to properly pick up and hold them (Like a football, but that is no guarantee of safety)

One of my does was suffering from the heat this morning, because her litter insisted on climbing and laying all over her. I was going to be nice and give her some relief by putting her in a cage by herself, under a nice, cool, vine covered arch, and just put her with the kits at night when it is cool.

She decided I should have a mastectomy instead, leaving my arm sored, and my breast and stomach bleeding.

Guess who is going to be the first of those older rabids being harvested soon?

BEWARE

and it's almost July!

 Time flies, so they say. Boone is now 8 mo old and a bit over 100 lb. He will be somewhere between 130 and 150 at maturity.

He has exceeded all my expectations. He can open the backdoor from both inside and outside the house, has opened the bathroom door for me, picks up things I drop or point at on the floor and keeps me upright when walking. He loves people and his public access manners are impeccable. His only challenge is fitting under the table at certain restaurants because of his enormous size, but he makes it work. 

He is very attentive to me and even though this breed is highly and rightfully frowned on as Service Dog prospects, he is exceptional.  It works well for us because LGD breeds are notoriously expert at energy conservation, so he is content to sleep most of the day while I am confined to the bed or recliner due to pain. He doesn't have the exercise requirements most breeds do. He's perfectly happy to make the 4 hour drive into town then quietly lay under the table or on the floor of a Dr's office, which for Fen was absolute torture. As long as he is at my side, he is content. He is much like Heath in that respect, but where being accosted by strange dogs, which has happened more times than I can count due to people who feel entitled to pretend their untrained pets are Service animals, was extremely upsetting to both Heath and Fen, Boone is not bothered in the least. While he doesn't exhibit the stranger and dog aggression of most LGD's, he does have their fearless demeanor. He knows he is the baddest dog on the block and doesn't feel in anyway threatened or compelled to prove it.

My illness has progressed to the point where it dictates every second of my life and battling the accompanying depression is now a losing battle. I have finally broken down and seeking counseling, if for no other reason than to have the luxury of sitting and talking to another human face to face as my isolation for the past 15+ years has completely prevented that. I kept myself distracted for a very long time by staying busy with multiple crafts, ie: stained glass, crochet, sewing, jewelry making, rock tumbling, soaping, candles, baking, embroidery, gardening, you name it, I probably did it. I ran out of RA meds a month ago and they are unable to get any to me until sometime next week, so my hands have been in pretty terrible shape and I haven't been able to do much, other than read. I feed the rabbits in the morning and read the rest of the day. It's not much of a life, clearly. If not for Boone, I don't know what would become of me. Driving to town is excruciating anymore. Just being in the vehicle has me undone before we even get off the dirt road from the ranch, so there is no looking forward to any more trips to see my family or friends...those I would usually see all moved anyway so I guess it doesn't make much difference.

We did have a visit from one of our daughters and her kids. Boone really enjoyed having the children around.

Fen and Boone wear each other out every morning and evening while Randy does chores. I have a message in to pain management agreeing to have a device implanted, in the hopes it changes my life. Here's to hoping! Meanwhile, my little poneh will keep me going as best he can.

til next time!

The Journey Continues

 

Boone is 4 1/2 months now and is already enormous. Just guessing but I would bet he's close to 70 lb already. He's on IAM's large puppy food and eats 5 cups a day. Ouch!

Fen's food lasts almost 3 months. Boone's doesn't quite make it a month, I had to get an emergency delivery from Chewy, as we obviously can't just go to the store and buy dogfood. As he has bonded so much to me, more than to Fen, I am having to send him outside more as I don't want him resource guarding me from Fen. I hope to pick up a couple of bottle lambs this week that we will butcher when they are big enough...actually I plan to butcher 1 and sell the other two, hopefully getting enough to help pay for a couple of hair sheep, that will be permanent. I really miss my sheeple. Especially Rosemary. She was the absolute best. Anyway I will move Boone outside and the lambs can hang out with Mister, on the other side of the fence from Boone as he is too young to be with young stock. This way he can bond to livestock, and I can take the lambs to the round pen to let Fen do a little herding practice. Win-win.

Fen had a hard month this past month. Because of the roosters attacking him, he developed a fear of chickens. Of course I killed both roosters, so sadly unless I can find a dog friendly one, no chicks for us. He's been attacked by ranch dogs, so he has also developed a little fear and a bit of reactivity to strange dogs (but it doesn't stop him wanting to go out front anyway *sigh*) which is not acceptable in a Service Dog, so we are also working through that. With Boone out back, in the house with me is

Fen's safe space, although he still prefers to be out playing with Boone or standing in the open front doorway, watching all the other dogs. He runs in and shuts the door if he gets scared and watches from the window, then opens the door again when he feels safe. He's the funniest dang dog!

Although he has proven to be pretty resilient, I still want to work at restoring his confidence, because even though his overly exuberant personality used to drive me crazy, I have come to be very fond of it, along with his clownish ways. He's a hard dog not to love, not that I would try. Our beginnings were a little difficult as it was right after Heath's death and Fen had some baggage, but we worked out all the bugs and I am crazy about him. He's a great riding partner, and chore partner, and even though he isn't fond of doing public access still, he's a pretty good Service Dog for his age and limited experience.

I've been making a LOT of sourdough bread, and loving it! The bread bowl recipe wasn't really what I wanted in a sandwich loaf so I finally found another recipe, that I have labelled "THE ONE". It's a little bit of a learning curve to make bread using such a wet dough but it's actually a lot easier than yeast breads. There are a few things I highly recommend having on hand before you start.

Of course you need a really active starter. I keep 2 jars going. One is in the fridge as backup and it gets fed once a week. The other jar I keep out and the day before I make bread, I pour everything out of the jar and either use or dispose of the discard. (don't pour it down the sink because it will clog your pipes when it hardens. It is great for your compost pile as the yeasty beasties help keep it going) Then I feed what is left in the jar which is just the stuff sticking to the sides and the bottom. I feed equal amounts of flour and water by weight to make enough for what I need the next day. It makes for a super happy bubbly starter that doubles itself in just a few hours, even in our very chilly house.

Another must is a kitchen scale, as to be successful, you need to measure your ingredients by weight not volume. I have this one:

I like it because I can fit my mixing bowl on it if I need to, and still read the weights. It's plenty easy to tare and to change units of weight, and easy for me to read, even with my terrible eyesight, which is competing to be as bad as my hearing.

A dutch oven is also necessary. I have two and I'm glad I have 2 because we are easily going through 2 loaves a week and I want to be able to give some away to ranch family...and also try and ship some to my kids as I have heard you can actually ship sourdough without it getting stale.

The first one is just some cheap cast-iron I got on sale through a magazine ad when I was in my 20's, the second was my grandma's and then my mom's. It might even have been my great grandma's originally, as these things last forever and ever. They both measure 10' across at the top so are probably about 9' inside.

Three other things I would not do without are a 

1. a dough scraper. Mine are stainless steel and flat on the bottom, fine for dividing dough but a pita to try and scrap wet, sticky dough out of a bowl. I recommend the plastic, rounded edge ones.

2. bannetons to let the shaped dough sit in to ferment

3. a bread lame to slice it so it will allow the dough to expand when cooking

Amazon has a pretty nicely priced kit with all the stuff except the DO right now.

 I recommend watching a few videos on making SD. especially any that show you how to do the stretch and folds or slap and fold. Then if anyone is interested, just leave me a comment and I will post recipes.

We very nearly lost Mister last month. It began with an odd swelling on his mid belly but it wasn't "pigeon fever" aka "dryland distemper". He also had problems with his mouth. He went completely off feed, right away. I flushed his mouth with peroxide, which he didn't appreciate but it seemed to help. A few days later, he was eating some, but his face and chest was horribly swollen and the edema continued all the way to his sheath and down his hind legs. I couldn't find my thermometer (as my tackroom is pretty much non existent. Stuff is there, but you cannot get to it, much to my annoyance. ) One of the ranch wives who has worked for a vet for years said it looked like either heart or renal failure, but in his condition, we all agreed that 1. he would most likely not survive the trailer ride and 2. we couldn't afford the tests anyway. Nothing was likely to help him.

My friends on FB were all helping me to pray for him, the cowboys were on standby for if he started to suffer. I was praying to not have to make that decision and that if it was his time that he would just lay down and go quietly, with dignity.

A week later, he was eating fine, he was running and bucking and demanding his breakfast before we fed everyone else, and very little swelling was left. Now he is back to his old self, looking and feeling amazing. I am so grateful that he survived whatever this was. I will still have to face that day, sometime, but that day is not today. I pray when it comes, he will go quietly into the night. I pray we will have another summer of riding ahead of us as he and Fen and I had such great times last summer though they were far too few.

lookin' good old man!!

Til next time, your friend Petey, (aka Kim) and the critters

2024 Already?

Those of you who knew me when the blog was active, know that my health took a dump and I quit blogging. There was also a great deal of depression, which comes with my condition, and I would not subject my readers to what I felt or wrote. So in short, I got pretty flakey with my blogging. I will probably continue to be flakey about it, as my condition is incurable, but manageable at times I will try to write when I am able. 

Fen came home shortly after I lost my Heathen. It was a little challenging as his temperament is very different than Heath's was and his energy levels are HIGH. His mind is going constantly and I can hardly keep up. 

He was 5 months old when he came to us, and technically had 3 owners in that short time. He knew how to counter surf and demand bark really well, but at least he was housebroke. So there's that.

Every morning at 5:30, he would demand breakfast, getting louder with every second he had to wait, and of course I had to comply because waking TheMan is a big no-no. Interestingly, his demanding has taken the form of climbing in his crate and quietly waiting to be served by his inferiors. (That's me) 

Also, if I am slow in feeding him, he makes scary faces at me.

Then he would begin his extortion. He would find a plethora of things he knew he shouldn't have, and threaten to destroy them if I didn't "purchase them" with cookies. 

Every cloud has a silver lining. As Fen was consuming a fortune in cookies with his criminal activities, he was also learning to bring me anything he had, that I asked him to, as well as learning to hand me things. It translated really well to his picking up things I drop and handing them back to me, as well as bringing items I request.

Ten months later, I still have to feed him at 5:30 every morning, but now he nuzzles me to wake me up, instead of screaming at me.

 I had a REALLY great summer! I fought like crazy to get stronger. I have been out of the wheelchair for over a year now and I don't want to go back to it. I started in spring by doing a TON of pruning overgrown bushes, and trying to find what plants survived the years of neglect while I was housebound. Not many did. But I still have roses, and hollyhocks seed like crazy here and even though they have overtaken the yard and choked most everything out, they are pretty.I planted annuals and stuff from seed to make me happy, and got a garden in (late, because the stupid pig was living in my garden and TheMan procrastinates a lot, and moving pig was no different) We had lots of squash and tomatoes. I canned straight tomatoes and made a bunch of the best Marinara sauce I have ever tasted. It was too late for the brocolli and peas, the greenbeans were tough and the basil and everything tender was destroyed by a locust invasion. But I. Had. A. Garden. And I have plans for next year. Everything else had a bumper crop. The raspberries were amazing. Fen was picking and eating them off the canes himself. Then there were millions of tiny apricots. (nothing got pruned)Then blackberries. Then more of the best peaches in the world. (Everyone on the ranch agrees, this peach tree is magical) I had tons of beautiful apples, but have no idea what kind because we bought the tree with three different kinds grafted on, but that was when we had goats and they broke into the yard and broke the trees and only this one of the grafts made it. They ate the tags so we are clueless but they are the best apples I ever had. VERY crisp, and both sweet and tart so perfect for cooking, canning and eating. And lastly, my elderberry bush produced tons of beautiful medicinal berries for me to dehydrate to help us battle colds and flu this winter. I'm learning more about natural medicines so am encouraging the yarrow and prickly wild lettuce, and what I always considered weeds, are now going to be given a prime spot in my garden. I spent time with Mister who is 29 this year. He still looks amazing and feels good as well, so we took a couple of rides when we could get Randy to saddle for me. We didn't go far, because the locusts were all over the ranch and Mister wasn't enjoying them jumping up in his face at all, but I am grateful for every second I got to ride. I hope next summer we ride much, much more. I am still battling to gain strength and endurance. I haven’t gained a lot of ground, but today I lifted 59 lb Fen onto the grooming table. ( He’s like Pigpen, he hates to be groomed) The fear of doing this, is that the surgeon who reattached my bicep tendon (which tore completely off of my shoulder while lifting my saddle onto Wimpy’s back) said if I tear it off again, he won’t be able to fix it, because I have had so many rotator cuff tears there is nothing to attach it to. Therefore, I get nervous when I have to use my arms for heavy stuff, like cleaning the floor of the chicken coop after TheMan threw straw down to combat the mud. Anyone who has had livestock, knows what a huge mistake this is. Common sense should tell you that straw in mud turns into adobe brick.As we aren’t building any structures in the near future, adobe or otherwise, I am desperately using a garden fork to peel up the heavy stuff in layers before it’s too late. Then I proceed to push (or pull) the heavy manure bucket full of the stuff to the front of the yard by the garden where Pig is spending the winter, for TheMan to empty. I won’t risk losing the use of my arm for that. :) Then I wrestled Fen and carried him from the end of the couch to the grooming table where I proceeded to clean him up. I had to risk it because his nails were getting too long So I’ve been trying to stay busy between flares. I’ve been cooking, cleaning, painting the kitchen, taking care of meat rabbits aka rabids, training the dogs, etc. I have a lot of sewing projects to complete but my hands need to be in better shape for that. Fen has been helping as he is able and the spirit moves him. Our stove AND washing machine went out in November, right before Thanksgiving, and right before a very good friend came to spend a week. We muddled through just fine though and several weeks later, we had a new stove and new washer/dryer, courtesy of the ranch Last night I made sourdough bread bowls and homemade clam chowder for dinner. The bread bowls I started yesterday as they needed bulk ferment overnight in the fridge. It was a new recipe and it is AMAZING!! I’m posting it here.

 https://myculturedpalate.com/sourdough-bread-bowls/ They really were excellent. I tied tea towels to hold the shape when they were rising for last time before baking, but this recipe was so excellent, I am going to invest in little bannetons for them. We have a new LGD puppy, who is not going to be an actual full time LGD, but a farm dog. When Bruno passed, the predators slaughtered all my chickens and ducks in one night, the same week, as they realized he was no longer here. We now have 5 young hens who are just beginning to lay, and two roosters, soon to be just one…and I am not willing to lose them, so Boone, the Anatolian puppy is here. He weighed 43 lb at 12 weeks of age. Fen is 59 lb at 15 mo and is a little overweight.

 Fen is thrilled to have someone to play with and its working out well, as Boone sleeps outside in his big crate, with the door open. Fen gets to go out when he wants, and in when he wants, Boone is allowed in for a little while each day to socialize with us. I will be using him for counter balance because I have fallen 8 times in the past few months for no apparent reason, and have nearly fallen about 2 dozen other times. Whatever is causing it, (one Dr thinks its a crystal in the ear, another thinks it’s my meds ) Fen is able to pick up on it by sniffing behind my left ear. He checks me out daily and if he only does a cursory scan of my ear, I never have a problem, but on the mornings he is fixated on my L ear, at some point that day, my balance fails me.

It's all a little scary but it is what it is and I will deal with it. 

Meanwhile, Boone has gone from 43 lb to 55 lb in less than a month. He's already bigger than Fen as of today. All I can say is, he grows on ya.

LEFT BEHIND

The summer of '22 and winter of '23 were one of the worst. Both of our sweet Maremma Livestock Guardians died. First Mr Potamus, then only months later, his brother Bruno. On the heels of these losses, softened only by the fact that they were both elderly at 12, came the loss of Heath who was only 7 years old.

Since he was 8 weeks old, we have never been separated except when I was in surgery. We spent every living minute together. I had no idea he was sick, when a lump came up on his chest. Fearing it was a foxtail abscessing, I took him to the vet. A biopsy was done and came back as angio sarcoma. A rare and aggressive cancer. Three weeks later he was gone. I have never been so devastated. I would have given everything I have to have gone with him as the loneliness, the isolation, the hardship of not having his help, the loss of a being I loved so deeply and loved me back unconditionally was excruciatingly painful.

Knowing I could not cope with the isolation here unless I had a dog, at the very least, for company we began looking for a companion. Nothing can ever replace Heathen but I needed something living to spend my days with as I am utterly alone. I only see Randy in the morning while he eats and watches TV, and at night, while he eats and watches TV. The rest of the day I don't hear or see another living thing. Heath's breeder, and the breeder she got his mother from began discussing the situation with Heath. Coincidentally, she had recently repurchased a puppy that had not worked out in its home. He is a very active, highly intelligent, independent puppy. They felt he might make a Service Dog prospect for me so they pitched him and we made the 7 hr drive to pick him up. We enjoyed a too short time with my friend then returned home with Fen. Another oddity. I didn't name either dog. Heath and Fen are both habitats. Fen is a distant cousin of Heath. Fen was a little over 5 mo old.

Fen

Fen quickly began finding jobs for himself. He added a new cycle to the dishwasher, instead of prewash we now have a Fen cycle. I began to attempt to clean up the back yard. The water troughs I used as planters were filled with grass and as I would tug it out and shake the dirt off, Fen would grab another and violently shake the dirt off of his as well. I got a 6" chain saw and began cutting back the overgrown badly neglected rosebushes and he chewed on the canes. Anything to be of service, really. 

Aside from counter surfing and demand barking he didn't know an awful lot other than what his breeder, an amazing woman and a pillar of this breed, was able to teach him.  I began working with him and was surprised at how smart he really is.

It took no time at all for him to learn to hand me things. It took less time for him to realize if he stole something he knew I didn't want him to have, it was a guaranteed swap of treat for item. I awoke every morning to collect contraband on my lap.

He has a very sensitive nose. He can find a toy antler with rack wax on it anywhere, inside or out. I used that to teach him to find my phone and kindle by placing small pieces of tissue with a couple drops of EO inside the case.

He learned the basics of sit, down, stay is barely a concept with him, but TheMan has to have his hip replaced and the ortho wants his teeth worked over first so Fen's first outing was to a dental office. We spent a great deal of time laying on a mat or taking short walks. He actually did pretty well, going from barking at the first two people he saw, to ignoring people coming and going and paying scant attention to two very noisy children in the waiting room. On the way home, we got stuck in Jordan Valley for the night because of a traffic accident blocking the snowy roads.

The following morning we woke up to this:

Life with Fen has been interesting and a bit demanding. He is rarely quiet. But because of him I am forced into activity.  He cheers me up...

 Has helped me make soap to thank the many friends on FB who helped me survive Heathen's loss and donated to the cause so I could afford to buy Fen...

There HAVE been times we both thought I might strangle him...

He is the stealer of socks, neck pillows, tupperware containers, glasses and chairs...

He woke me up enough to finish embroidering my ballcap...

and encouraged me to clean the carpets...

We have done some canning,

and gone to the Dr together, where she was talking with her hands and Fen kept trying to give her a high five...

In 6 short weeks, he has learned to take off my socks and hand them to me, to find my phone and kindle, to pick up anything I drop or ask for by pointing, (I dropped both a flat canning lid and a credit card which he quickly picked up without being asked, as I didn't think it possible) to pick up and put his toys away with some help, to let himself out the back door as well as open and close the bathroom door for me when I am in a wheelchair, how to help me get clothes out of the dryer and a few other simple tasks. As I said, he is exceptionally intelligent and he loves to work. I do believe when he matures he will be a stellar Service Dog. 

I still grieve Heath, I still cry at night because I miss his presence. Fen isn't Heath, Fen is Fen and I love him for who he is, but there is still a void that cannot be filled.

It is going to take time.

I hope to do all the things with Fen this summer that I had planned to do with Heath, starting with riding again.

Til next time,

Petey aka Kim&Fen

 

Done. Here.

 Well, I painstakingly wrote a blog that was very difficult and painful for me to write, regarding the sudden loss of my Service Dog, Heath.

Google saw fit to delete and destroy the entire post, not even leaving me with a draft of it. As the pain in my hands is extreme, it is too great a cost to write again. I am pretty much done here with this.

THE HAPPY HEATHEN-The puppy days

 My last post was dark and depressing, and I ask your forgiveness for that.

I have finally sat down and pondered my life and realize I need to once again, live in an attitude of gratitude, in spite of my pain or circumstances.  God has been patient with me and for that I am grateful. His thoughts are higher than mine and His ways are higher than my ways. He keeps me on a need-to-know-basis as far as the "why" in my life, and apparently I don't need to know.

So the following posts will center around a critter God sent me, that has made life tolerable and kept me afloat through the dark times. 

To all of you who recommended an English Shepherd years ago, when I did the post about getting a new dog, I thank you. And to Jennifer Keuhn and Mary Peaslee, I owe you my deepest gratitude. 

When Heath (The Happy Heathen of Shepherd’s Way, named for his sunny disposition) first came home with us at 8 weeks, it was a 7 hour drive. He settled into my arms and never complained. He let us know he was very uncomfortable a few hours into the drive and we pulled over and took him out on his leash. He pee’d immediately. We were impressed. He never cried, not even that night. It was as if he instinctively knew, he was created, just for us.

I began his training right away, along with basic obedience. Using positive reinforcement and a clicker, after he learned to sit and lay down, I began teaching him to pick up his toys and give them to me. Then drop them. Then put them in his toy basket. Little did I know how helpful this would be to me in the future, as I was looking forward to having him help me with sheep and calves, not to be my service dog. He was and is, a very quick learner with a very biddable attitude. He loves to just be a good boy. At 12 weeks he was putting his toys away in the basket and learning to open and close the back door. 

Of course, during this time, he was also learning more obedience commands, and reinforcing what I had already taught him, never working more than two minutes at a time, but working several times a day. This suited him well, as herding dogs have a lot of drive and energy and need their minds kept busy. I never punished or spoke harshly to him, and he seemed to thrive on that. When he did something wrong, like biting or chewing on things, I would just tell him “you know you can’t do that” in a happy voice, hold him on my lap and let him teeth on the big knot to the shoestring I wore around my neck with the clicker on it.

The Maremmas would come in to visit and in terror of his little needle sharp teeth, would both hide on top of the ugly pink leather couch together, out of his reach. Once he was able to hop up there, they quit coming in for awhile.

 Once, Heath escaped my notice and made it to the back pasture where the sheep were. The Livestock Guardian Dogs, amazing creatures that they are, worked as a team to protect the flock and bring him back where he belonged. Mr Potamus got between Heath and the flock and Bruno sacrificed himself to deal with Heath. He engaged him and redirected him, bringing him back through the gate to me.

We had some meaty chickens that ran loose in the yard during the day. At night we had to round them all up out of the bushes, etc to put them in the shed. It wasn’t long until 3 mo old Heath was walking the chicks into the shed himself, one at a time. He enjoyed doing it and liked going out to check on them and watch them during the day.

There was one chick that had deformed legs, not unusual for the fast growing Cornish X, but not a big deal as we processed them at 8 weeks. I was surprised one day when Heath opened the back door, walked in and handed the chick to me, unharmed. Then he just sat and looked at me as if to say “fix it”. He brought the chick to me daily until we finally decided to dispatch it.

He was our chief rabbit herder as well, as many of them escaped the shelter we raised them in. He would either hold one down with his front feet, or if it was small enough, gently pick it up and bring it to me. We had a lamb born with a crooked neck that was unable to nurse. I have a disability that was beginning to manifest itself at that time so we kept the lamb diapered in the house so I didn’t have to go outside and find her, so I could bottle feed her. Heath nurtured her and slept with her.

One day when cleaning house, I heard a strange noise. I looked at Heath who was just laying in his crate. I heard it again. It was definitely not a noise a dog would make. I called him to me and the mystery was solved when he reached back, picked up a young bird he had found and brought it to me. He had carried it in himself and chose take a nap with it. For a herding breed, he is amazingly gentle.

He enjoys other animals, calves, ducks, rabbits, sheep, goats, chickens...

He has, from the very beginning, lived up to his name as a very happy, Happy Heathen!

Til next time, God bless you!

Petey & Heath