The Sheep, the Pig, the Cat and the Dogs......

The pig and the sheep, Mr. Ziffel and Cardigan, are now happily coexisting in the same pen. Cardigan will not let the pig get more than a few inches away from him. I believe he thinks the pig is his mother.

The two unlikely companions sleep, eat and play together. Sheep are not known to eat slop but Mr. Ziffel has taught Cardigan that it's better than crimped oats any day. It's fun to bring the leftovers to them every morning and watch as all of our animals, kitten included, share a meal from the same bucket. Mr. Ziffel is not impressed when the other animals join in on his feast and tries to body slam them out of the way but they are persistent creatures, stealthily sneaking a piece of bread or apple core when Mr. Z isn't looking. To get Cardigan away from his feed trough, he grabs a mouthful of food and runs to another part of the corral, knowing that Cardigan will follow him. You can imagine him saying, "come look what's over here, you dumb sheep". Once Cardigan is sufficiently out of the way, Mr. Z races back to his trough to eat a few bites in peace.

Yesterday, as is the case more often than not, we were going on a hike. I talked dh into letting Cardigan and Mr. Ziffel go with us so we opened the gate to the corral and the animals eagerly walked out and started following us down the path toward the woods.

I've always heard that pigs are as smart as dogs and I believe it. Mr. Ziffel just took off walking along the path right along with the rest of us. Now, we love Cardigan but we're thinking his IQ may be a little weaker, or maybe it's just that he can't see very well. When he loses sight of Mr. Ziffel he just stands there and bleats continually until Mr. Z gets sick of hearing it. The pig will go toward the sheep until it is spotted and Cardigan happily runs toward Mr. Ziffel as if it has just been reunited with its one surviving relative.

Cardigan could not see Mr. Ziffel who had rushed down to the pond and was ecstatically coating himself with a layer of mud. The sheep was stopped midway down the hill "baaaaaaing" incessantly. Mr. Ziffel, newly energized, ran squealing back up the hill until he could be visualized by Cardigan and led him back down to where we all stood laughing at their antics.

So, we were a crazy sight, walking along our hiking trails in this order: Dh, Mr. Ziffel (pig), Cardigan (sheep), ds-5, Chewy (dog), dd-12, Beau (dog), ds-21, Shadow (cat) and me bringing up the rear. I was cracking up as I watched the animals just follow right along the paths as if they did this every day. They never once tried to stop and eat or wander off into the woods; they just hiked along with the rest of us.

As we were finishing our hike, I stopped to pick some blackberries. No one noticed that I was no longer with the group until Cardigan turned around, walked back down the path toward me and stood there in the path, looked at me and bleated, "baaaaa, baaaaa", as if to say, "come on, wouldya?". He kept on bleating until I finally said "OK, I'm coming," and started walking toward him. He immediately resumed his place in the convoy of hikers and walked joyfully back up to the house, content that everyone was accounted for.