Sweetie the sheep dog...

Sweetie the Sheep Dog!  We have a new addition to the funny farm...SWEETIE!!  (Doesn't that name just make you want to retreat and avoid any contact with sheep...yet somehow with her sweet face the name fits!) So you may be wondering how we came upon Sweetie since we have not had a sheep dog on the farm before.   But it turns out that my hubby has found a new hobby...CRAIGS LIST!   For a guy who loves the classifieds, the "Swap Shop" (local radio show where people sell their ju...I mean treasures) this is like the ultimate treat!  Anyway while on Craigs List the other day he comes across this sheep dog.   An Akbash/Anatolian cross (a big white short haired sheep dog).   I haven't got a picture of her yet!   Soooo anyway Tim has me send an e-mail and ask how much they want for the dog...to which they reply a good home and they want the dog to keep working as they have sold their livestock that she was looking over.   So Friday night we load the whole gang up (Firecracker included) and road trip to Peyton, Colorado.  The next day Sweetie is turned out with the sheep and she just starts paroling the perimeter.  Although, the sheep were not sure why there was a dog in their pen.   So I was laughing telling Lance that the sheep would run from her.   And he says that her nature tells her  that she is one of the sheep.   However, the sheep do not know that she is one of them...so they will take off running--to which Sweetie says what are we running from!!   And she runs with them only to make the sheep think she is chasing them instead of just running with them. . Then this morning at my kitchen table,  I look out and the sheep are staring at the house...which makes me suspect.   I get up and look out and there is Sweetie up by the house (not where she is supposed to be)...but sniffing around up close to the porch where Bo likes to keep his bone stash.   Well my first thought was that her and Bo might get into a fight.   But she seems to respect that this is Bo's territory.   I think she was hungry because she won't eat out of her dog food container yet and so I coax her back to the pen with some leftover Thanksgiving rolls.  After returning, she immediately patrols while I head back to the house--only to watch her crawl through the panel gate.   As I watch her,  I see her find a dead bird to which she sneaks off as though she is hiding from Bo.   Upon checking things out a little more she heads back to the pen to watch over the sheep that she is supposed to be taking care of.    She was afraid the other day when there was some shooting going on...and so I think about how she shares some of the things that we battle every day...hunger and fear.   Oh our hunger might not be for food but we hunger sometimes for things we cannot or should not have.  A hunger that sometimes takes us away from where we should be.  Other times we lose our way because of fear.  Fear of things that we do not understand...or sometimes fear of things that we understand too well.   But living with hunger and fear is not the life our Master wants for us! Anyway I think Sweetie will add some new adventure to the Pfeiff's Funny Farm... lyp