Spring time snow storm

We have quite a bit of deer bones and scraps that I have been feeding Arie all through the winter. In the below pictures she is enjoying cleaning up any left over meat sticking to a leg bone. These pictures were taken just days ago after we got a big spring snow storm here in the northwoods.

Arie gets every bit of meat off the bones as shown in this picture. And eventually will gnaw the bone down to pretty much nothing.

Here she is relaxing after having gotten her fill.

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Last week I heard Arie howling for the first time. Some fire engines were going on a call, sounding their sirens which made her howl. I was surprised at how much she sounded like a wolf. She had a long, deep and drawn out howl which sounded remarkably like a wolf.

And speaking of wolves I have been hearing reports that the wolf pack is back in the area as people have been hearing them in various places. They had moved on the better part of last year and now they are back which makes me glad we have Arie. I realize she alone would be no match against a pack but, she can at least alert us if any comes anywhere near the animals.

I noticed something recently as Arie is spending more and more time with the main flock. She likes to lay amongst the sheep when I throw down fresh hay as shown in the picture from the last post. The thing I noticed is she almost mimics the sheep when they munch on the hay. She sees them doing it and now she has begun nibbling on it too. The first time I saw it was on a night like in the below picture, Arie was all stretched out being lazy, she worked her self over towards some fresh hay and began chewing on it. She wasn't eating it but, it sure seemed like she was imitating what she saw. I thought that was a very interesting thing. I've never seen anything like that, up until now that is, since she has done it numerous times since.

Doing great

I've been thoroughly enjoying watching Arie behave well with the sheep. I've always enjoyed seeing ruminants out grazing and it is the same for me to see Arie hanging out with the sheep doing her job with her naturally protective instincts.

She has been doing very well. Yesterday a sheep came up to her which made her a little playful. The collar is equipped with a warning tone so I briefly activated that and she instantly refrained from her playing posture.

So far so good! I can hardly wait until she can be fully trusted and spends her first night with the main flock.

On duty

In the below pictures Arie is only alerting to a cat but, she needs to be watchful to keep our animals safe from predators. She is a fine watch dog!

Interesting turn

For several sessions I did not have to use the collar at all. Arie gets it! She has minded her manners well. But, the other day when she was out with the sheep I was doing some work on my truck. I couldn't see the corral very good from where I was at so every little bit I would walk over to check on everyone.

Well, one of the times I looked I was shocked to see that Arie had somehow gotten Pixy, one of the ewes, down on her side and was playing tug-o-war with one of her hind legs. It just so happened I did not have the transmitter with me so I ran in there and reprimanded Arie verbally. I took her by the collar, put her in a smaller pen and closed the door. So then I went and checked on Pixy who had gotten up and ran to the other end of the corral. Upon inspection everything seemed fine with the ewe other than a small limp. Arie had not bitten down hard enough to break the skin.

I was convinced that Arie was only playing since if she had been serious Pixy's leg would have shown it. At the minimum the skin would have been broken.

Arie was still eager with excitement so I ran to get the transmitter for the shock collar then let her out of the pen. Right away she wanted to continue her play so I gave her a correction. I stayed out there for a while and in all she got 3 corrections. In one session she made up for all the past days where she did great. But, with the last correction she no longer was interested in playing anymore.

The next day I put her back in with the flock and watched them closely. Arie kept her distance and was content to explore the corral. Once I saw she would be good I went about my business, keeping an eye out from a distance. Probably an hour went by and movement caught my eye, the sheep were running around I my first thought was that Arie was running them. After checking them out I couldn't believe it. Pixy was now running Arie.

The day before, I had strongly suspected that Pixy might have started it, because she is one of the boss ewes and has battles now and then with the other sheep. Pixy was chasing Arie all around the corral but, Arie was minding her manners and did not attempt to play or defend herself other than some gentle mouthing as seen in the second picture below.



Pixy would charge at Arie and she would do her best to side step and evade the ewe's butt.

I was proud of Arie that no matter how much Pixy pressed her, she would not retaliate.

Today she was out there for over half the day and all was well. She did not try to play or chase. Pixy tried a little bit to show Arie who's boss but, Arie was very good natured about it and dodged any attempts by Pixy to dominate.

I'm happy with this new training tool. I never was a fan of shock collars but, in this situation it seems to be a good fit. So far we are seeing positive results.