Perth Royal Show: The Sheep
What I know about sheep I could count on one hand. Australia they say, has more sheep than people. So the Perth Royal show was a good place to see and learn about sheep.
Sheep I found out, except for the occasional stray, don’t seem to know what to do unless guided. Here they are hovering together, waiting for some one or something to tell them what to do.
Enter Ladd the dog, giving them a look to show them who is boss. He stole my heart, one because his name is Ladd, the other is he really had to work hard.
The show had a course for the sheepdogs to get the sheep through, mimicking their work on the farm. What I didn’t know that on some occasions, this required the dogs to jump on the sheep’s backs!
Here, Ladd is getting the sheep through a gate.
This is a cute news story on the sheep herding at the Perth Royal Show.
From the sheepdog competition we moved to sheep shearing. I had never seen this done before. Somehow I always imagined this with a sheep placidly standing while he got shaved.
Apparently, the wool gets shaved off in one piece.
It then gets laid out on a table.
It then gets picked through.
There are many kinds of wool I learned.
Later in the evening, we went to the main arena to see Ladd the Sheep dog showing how he does his job.
One dog, many sheep.
In this presentation, in an effort to prove that one dog can do what it takes 9 young healthy people to do. Herd the sheep. They got the job done, but there was nine of them, compared to one dog.
