It’s fascinating to me how differently the sheep respond to different dogs. There are differences between the guard dogs – Sam and Alice cause less disruption as they move through the sheep than Thor and Ruza. The sheep are very aware and responsive to Jack and Sadie, and are somewhat tolerant of Lola, as she routinely trots through the flock. 

It was very interesting to see the reaction to a new dog over the past weeks as Zeke, Hillary and Shawn’s dog, has been here. He is about the same size as the collies, but is black and brown. He moves similarly to a coyote, so it wasn’t a big surprise that the first reaction of the ewes was to flee. Next, they decided to further investigate.

Zeke is on the far side of the ewes, and is actually on the other side of the cross fence here

Then they all had to get a look.

Since this, they have become less afraid, but still wary of this dog-that-looks-like-a-coyote. 

This ewe was keeping a watchful eye.