positive thinking.

wish i had something good to post. but things have been not so pretty on the farm. stressful is more like it. winter has been rough. most of the problems revolve around the GLOPs (our guardian dogs). their goat hair-pulling escalated into physical harm on our older goat, bernadett. it breaks my heart to see bernie in pain. but i'm hoping and praying and doing everything possible to rehabilitate her. she spent the night in the house (and i babied her by giving her lots of wheat bread, alfalfa hay, and vitamin water). we gave her a shot of penicillin, some aspirin, and a dose of probiotics and wrapped up her wounds. today i moved her to an isolated kidding pen in the barn. she seems more comfortable outside. and tonight, i'll probably put her daughter bianka in the pen with her to keep her company and warm.

so, what do we do about the dogs? we are going to have to keep them separate from the goats during the day. their chewing on the goats is actually common behavior for livestock guardian dogs of their age. and most people don't allow young dogs 24 hour access to goats. we gave it our best shot, and it didn't work. so this weekend we are going to begin fencing in our front yard (which is over an acre). the GLOPs will be in the front yard during the day, and sleep with the goats at night. fencing the yard was something we wanted to do anyways so that our indoor dogs could be outside off-lead.

in the meantime, i have to keep lil'ann on a lead during the day. she is the instigator. she seems to have an irresistible desire to "play" with the goats. she's not very pleased about being in "time-out" but it's better than the alternative (giving her up or her accidentally killing a goat).

i love bernadett so much. she has so much personality. i need positive thoughts right now to help get her through this tough time. we need her here.

bernadett