Hi there, it’s me Ymogen!
It’s been a while since I logged on but recently my pet human took a short video of me demonstrating my intelligence so I thought it would be a good time to tell you all about it.
You’re probably aware that us sheep are herd animals and like to do things as a group. If Seline heads off up the hill we’ll all follow her. If Sparkle gets spooked by a pheasant popping up out of a clump of sedge grass and flapping its wings, we’ll all get a bit spooked. That’s just how we are, its in our nature.
But I’m going to let you into secret, us sheep are not such simple souls as people like to think, in fact, we’re very clever! As well has having the herd instinct we also have the voice recognition instinct. Have you ever watched a group of lambs and their mums? Each mum has a special call for her lambs so each lamb knows exactly which mum to head over to for teat. (Sometimes a lamb might take liberties and sneak over to one of their aunties for teat but once they get butted away by a cross auntie they soon learn their lesson! But anyway, I digress.
Ever since I was born here at Auchenstroan, I’ve noticed our pet humans calling us using different sounds for each one of us, just like our mums. So over time we’ve learnt a whole different language, “human speak”, as well as our own “sheep speak”. And just like when we were lambs, we get a nice treat if we trot over to the humans when called, sheep nuts! 😊 😊 😊 Or, our second favourite thing, back scratches 😊 😊
In the video below you can see me demonstrating this. My pet human says my name, I hear her but can’t see her (admittedly I was quite interested in a particular blade of grass at that moment). But I couldn’t help myself, I found myself looking from left to right, and then I saw the human standing there with Witchy bleating by her side. I had a wee shake and then headed right over and got a back scratch for my efforts. Ta daa!
