Another (temporary) Farm Addition

This is Lexie. We're fostering her for That'll Do Border Collie Rescue - she is mostly Kelpie though, I think. We'll train her until she finds a good home. She's 6-7 months old and FULL of energy. She jumps and she's mouthy (I have the scratches and welts to prove it) but she loves other dogs and *loves* people. She's already having a lot of fun on the farm running around and playing ball. She isn't sure whether to lunge at the chickens (she's on leash around them) and she barks at the horses and sheep. I don't think she'll be hard to train, though, and she's really cute!

The sheep have pretty much grazed their whole pasture so for the last few days we've been letting them out into the 'general' farm area where there is still lots of grass. They've been fine every day - they usually put themselves back in their paddock in the afternoon. Today, though, as soon as I let them out they jumped through a gap in the wooden fence, then pushed through the electric fence to get into the paddock with Thomas and Zeb. "No big deal", I thought, "I'll just call them back out for grain" (we only want the sheep to be bred in October). I wasn't in a huge hurry since I've read that you sometimes won't even see sheep mating because the rams can be 'shy' and only do it when you aren't watching. Well, our Thomas is no shrinking violet, that's for sure. As soon as those ewes were in there he was on it, so to speak. Why do these things always happen when I'm here alone?? I raced to put Abby and Lexie away (new foster dog barking wouldn't have helped the situation) and grab some grain, then turned off the electric fence and jumped through, hoping that Thomas was too preoccupied to bother ramming me. I tried to get Ryan to go get the ewes but they wouldn't separate - the whole motley group, Zeb included, was running around, with Thomas trying desperately to mount the ewes as they ran. Oh, and did I mention there's a pony in that paddock, too? Because an angry stomping pony was exactly what was needed to complete the scene. Eventually I got the lambs to come over for grain. I think they were actually more relieved to get away from humpy Thomas than anything else. They ran through the fence and I sprinted to turn the electric fence back on before Thomas decided to make a break for it. Crisis averted...hopefully. If someone pops out a lamb in January we'll know why!