They'll need a vet check soon; the sheep farmer was told by her vet that they didn't need to treat for heartworm in south-eastern WV.
Saturday night we crated them in a barn stall to be safe instead of turning them loose on the farm after I got home after sunset. Sunday morning I had Lee move the sheep into the barnyard, put him back in the house (saving the dog-dog introductions for later), and let Duke and Penny loose in the barnyard.
New dogs & curious sheepSilly puppy PennySince the sheep were not scared of the new dogs and other than Penny being a little rambunctious I could tell there would be no sheep-dog issues.
Penny had been on a drag at her home farm to slow her down a bit (prevent her from running through and playing with the sheep) so I pulled out the drag we used with Sam when he was still young. I then spent 2hrs following Duke and Penny while they checked out the field/fence lines, followed and marked the trails foxes follow through the field, and monitored them with the barn cats (Penny grabbed and picked up one of them). I made sure they both got fed, learned how to get in and out of the barn where their autofeeders are, and made sure both were using the autofeeders.
At this point we just need to make sure Penny doesn't kill cats and both meet and accept our working border collies. We will have both LGDs on chains in the field to watch the Border Collies work (Duke has been around working Border Collies gathering “his” sheep) and we’ll carefully do the dog-dog introductions watching for and reading the reactions.
