herding....as in chasing animals in a predescribed direction....now there is a topic for the day.... 2020 12 6 You have all watched some of these herding dogs . carefully direct a group of sheep into some pen in the middle of thousands of acres of open land .. there is a Basic Instinct ... they do it with great skill and also with the direction of their handler who just makes funny whistle noises tells the dog to lie down run right or run left or come forward .. I'm not too sure what else the dog has to know about other then their own natural instincts . Boiling it down to its very simplest if the animal can see you out of their left eye they will move to the right it's also true if they can see you out of their right eye they will move to the left .. if they're directly in front of you and you move very slowly they will step forward usually that's herdng in a nutshell .. and many dogs have the natural instinct------- it's one of the things that makes them chase cars --- but any rate .. people don't have that instinct .. and I watched yesterday three perfectly intelligent people try and trace one rooster into the barn .and they just could not manage . I think the people had the basic problem of assuming Mr rooster Would just know what they were trying to do and do it ---- when I think all Mr rooster was thinking about was I gotta get away from these strange actin g people. I have watched as many people tried to herd many animals -- the other comical ones are snap crackle and pop--- the three white goats who have a whole nother bunch goals in mind .. including sometimes walking directly toward you thinking you're going to feed them when you're actually trying to chase them some other direction .. It is true you can not chase these goats if you have a BUCKET OF GRAIN IN YOUR HAND....They will be all over you and probably knock you over .. goats have a different conversational technique which I find amusing to watch .. fun to a goat is to stand up on his hind legs , tilt his head sideways and bang his head preferably into another goat .. or dog or donkey .. there once are tiny stubs where once there were horns I suppose .. but this whole action is very confusing to a donkey who thinks they ought to swap breaths .. or to a dog who prefers to sniff preferably the rear end .. I suppose it's about the same as ME Trying to speak English in Germany .. there was no common communication -( well I figured out that 9 train was not nine a o'clock train but nein train meanT no train .) My old donkey Mary , was the one to teach me about breath swapping .. as she would move along the fence line between the barn and the laundry building and the dogs and puppies would be 1 inch away on the other side of the fence and they stand there and breathe in each other's nostrils for a long time . I don't know what it meant but it was definitely significant .. and those dogs never chased Mary .. who was very capable of killing dogs .. but I was confident she wouldn't and she never did . donkeys are used in herds of sheep to kill off Wolves and dogs and they can do it .. it's not with their heels ---they don't kick----- what they do is bite .. that goes back to the Basic Instinct of a frightened donkey to stand still .. which just lets the dog or Wolf get close enough to try and sniff that their nose at which time they can bite him and hang on... wolves are used to scaring an animal and when they turn to run away And grab them by their Achilles tendon . mature donkeys just don't run .. I do have to worry when we have a baby donkey because all they know how to do is run around . -- Well that's a collaboration of ideas To set you off for the day .. this is shating Sunday ..i Was thrilled yesterday that you all made the board sold out .. I always worry--- but so far in the last 15 years the bunch of you with your $10 chicken bricks .. a pretty much paid them salary around here .. I do have a little stash to tide us over in case it becomes a problem .. I certainly don't want anyone to stretch their own budget to buy a chicken brick if the budget is too tight .. but if you can manage it is what keeps us going . I'm not sure where we would be without chicken pooping. That Is very difficult to explain to business people who want me to tell them about our five year plan . |
