I was up the hill filling the water troughs from outside of the fences and had Zeke with me. He usually mills around doing dog stuff. Sniffing bushes and making friends with whomever will pet him. Since Zeke has a bit of "presence". His just hanging out with me at the top of the hill occasionally gets my sheep to run down the hill. This time when they spotted him, they high tailed it right to Talja. She had already seen Zeke with me so I believe she is getting used to him being there with me and realizes he isn't a threat. After seeing the sheep come hauling to her she looked around to see what the hub bub was all about. She looked back up the hill to see Zeke and I and looked back at the sheep trying to hide behind her. It's kind of hard for 30 sheep to hide behind one llama, though they tried! I swear I could see them telling her "See, that's the dog, yeah, that's him. He tells what to do and where to go". I'm sure she told them red headed lady with red dog is OK, really. She has grain! Talja went a few feet in front and cushed (that's laying down in llama speak). What a wonderful sight to see. I'm so glad to see the sheep getting to know that Talja is their protector
I want my sheep to know Talja is the safest place to be. I'm intentionally going very slow at introducing my dogs as I don't want to rush Talja and the sheep getting settled and bonded. To get a sense of how sensitive the sheep are, at any point Zeke and I were at least 300 ft from them.
Here is Talja enjoying the pasture, before it got a "hair cut" a few days ago
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