Thyme For Ewe Maggie

She's my sweetie. I really don't know what I'd do without her. She's dirty from taking the bulls through puddles to put them back in the pasture yesterday. Her ruff is normally pure white.

This was taken the in September of '99. She has a definite collie face. Her ears tip at the top when she perks them up. To get her to perk them in the top picture I said, "Mags, where's the cow?" COW??? THERE'S A COW?? She's eager to work. When the bulls are loose Mae moos. One moo wakes her up and brings her to her feet and to the door. Two moos brings her barking to me as if to say, 'Hurry up! I have to get them.'

This weeks she's gotten much more aggressive with them. They'll roll her over every chance they get. She's finally gotten angry enough over this to nip their noses and surprise them. As they get bigger they get more outgoing (like they should be out going on the trailer as far as I'm concerned......). One day this week I hit them each with a rock and they think she did it. That was enough to convince them they'd best keep moving.

Kristin is excellent with Maggie and Taylor is learning. One of the goats jumped the fence yeterday while Taylor was outside. She asked to take Maggie.......hmmm....it's just a goat....ok. I warned her about the goat being stubborn and not caring if Maggie was on her. Taylor unplugged the fence, put two strands down, left one up to keep the other animals in and put Maggie to work. They were back in the house in five minutes and Taylor was very smug about it. lol "I knew we could do it. You didn't need to worry."

We're heading out to the Blueberry Festival. I'm going to work in a booth with Steve for a couple of hours and then we're going to Helen's for blueberry pie! I'll have a bite for you! I'll answer your other two letters later on. I have a couple of questions.

Warning~Blatant outright "look what my dog did" brag. For the new folks, Maggie's my American Working Farmcollie. She's a year and eight months old. She doesn't have formal training. She works on instinct and the few commands she and I have worked out.

I needed to move the buck out of the pature and into the goat pen so that I could move the does out of the pen and into the pasture. Nobody wanted to do it. He stinks horribly. Egg customers come to the door asking "what's that smell??" On Monday I opened the gate and tried to get him to come out on his own. He's been snapped by the fence and herded back in enough by Maggie to know he didn't belong out here. I got a can of grain. No way. An ear of corn? uh huh. Nothing.

Maggie's intimidated by the goats. Put her on the bulls and off she goes but those goats are not her thing. She'll do it if I force her but I have to watch her to make sure she doesn't give up. I made her try to move the buck. I sent her in, she barked, she came back. Sorry Mags, that doesn't cut it. Back she went. This time she moved him out of the pasture in less than a minute. I was impressed. He headed up here to the house. He knows where the grain is. She ran in front of him, he ran her over, she rolled, jumped up and turned on him so fast I was shocked! She ran into him, sent HIM rolling, was nipping at his feet as he was scrambling to get up and then stayed on him until she'd taken him to the pen. He was so surprised by her that he ran all the way to the pen and JUMPED the fence. I've never seen him jump anything. He doesn't even stand with his front feet on the fence because he's hit the hot wire. It's Friday and he's still in there. He hasn't tried to get out even when I open the gate to bring in their grain. He stares through the fence at Maggie, bristles up, snorts and stomps but if she walks to the fence to see Buddy he goes to the opposite side.

I'm so darned proud of her!