This is the finale to my previous post “I Lost a Sheep” and I would encourage you to read that before continuing. As a recap, I was doing a herding demonstration at a family fun day when a sheep escaped and ran away through the town of Chestermere. I left off where I officially lost the sheep on train tracks that were surrounded by poplar trees. The first thing I did naturally was to call my wife who was with the other sheep back at the camp. “Sam, I lost her. She’s gone”
“Well get back here, the other two are trying to jump out”
As I’m making my way back I call my dad, who owned the sheep, to update him.
“Dad, we had a wreck. I lost a sheep.”
“Which one?”
“The big white one”
“Oh I didn’t like her anyways”
That did make me feel better. As I walk back, through mansions and beachfront homes, I pass the fire truck that was heading to do a demonstration at the same fun day. When I eventually get back I have to approach the organizers and tell them what happened.
“I’m sorry but I have to leave early, I lost a sheep.”
“Oh, where is it?”
“I don’t know, somewhere around Cheatermere.”
“…… I lost a sheep was not something I expected to hear today.”
“I aim to not be boring”
At this point I have to load the remaining sheep back onto the trailer. This of course meant that I had to wrestle the sheep and drag them into the trailer. Now the previous crowd was mostly gone but there were some kids left to watch me pack up. As I wrestle the first sheep to the ground and start dragging her away by her front feet, I hear a kid yell at me.
“What are you doing to her!?” He says with complete sincere horror.
“It’s ok, I’m just getting her into the trailer.”
Once both were in and the children were scared I started loading the rest of the set up. I tell Samantha that we might as well hit the food trucks and salvage what we can out of the event. Now there was a small inconvenience with said food as the dogs had to ride inside the cab with us since we didn’t have any kennels with us. Again, not a huge deal but we did have to pay defence over our inappropriate number of tacos. Once we’re pulling out I tell Sam, “there was a road that ran along the tracks, let’s see if we can see her. Hopefully we don’t, because if we do, we have to try and catch her.” We get on the road and go over 2 miles scanning the neighbouring fields all the while. Until we see her, standing in a field catching her breath. Immediately we park and approach an acreage that was adjacent to this field. Luckily for us this acreage is entirely page wired in with solid mesh gates and all. Even more lucky, was the gate the faces the field that she was currently in. As we approach there is a guy working on a project vehicle the yard of the acreage.
“Is that your sheep?”
“Yes it is” I say with virtually no voice left.
“It has been standing there for a couple hours now.”
“Yah, she had a bit of a run and a bit of a swim.”
The guy was gracious enough to let us bring our trailer into his yard, as well as the sheep. When we go to chase her in I realize we can’t leave all three dogs in the cab because of our precious tacos. So we unload all of the dogs and start to work the sheep into the yard. That part goes smoothly. I said to Samantha that we should let the other sheep out so they can settle the escapee and just load them all back on out once. She didn’t want to risk losing all of them and with our luck, that seemed entirely likely. Remember that I did not have anywhere to keep my three dogs so I start yelling at them to lie down. My 11 year old did but refused to get up until my tantrum was over, my 4 year old lied down and shook with anticipation, and my 18 month old had to be caught and tied up to avoid scandal. Since Sweep was ignoring me, I sent Rhee to gather this sheep. Keep in mind that this yard is quite large, probably and acre or two and there are project vehicles covering all around the house. I also have almost no voice left. For reasons that I don’t fully understand, Rhee decides the best way to catch this thing would be to try and kill it. Rhee starts chasing this poor sheep all through the vehicles and I am whisper screaming at her to come back all the while the home owner is videoing us. I eventually catch Rhee and tie her up as well. Realizing my mistake I let the other sheep out and my escapee joins enthusiastically. I use Sweep to reload the trailer with overwhelming success. Except for the last sheep to get on. A totally different sheep from my trouble maker decides to dive underneath the trailer and make a dash for freedom. I dive after her and catch her back leg with my hand and she starts kicking it against the underside of the trailer. My pregnant wife also tries to stop her and attempts to jump on top of this sheep. With her thoroughly subdued, I lift her back onto the trailer and end the nightmare of our first herding demonstration. I am scheduled back there in September if anyone is looking for high octane herding demonstrations.
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