Dave The Lamb Does The Valley Dog Walk

It started out as a simple dog walk with my little boy and the 5 loonpots that are my faithful and trusty dogs - well I use the word simple loosely as nothing concerning me and my dogs is ever simple.  We set off through the gate for a walk that usually takes about an hour. We had almost gone through the gate when I heard a little bit of clip-clopping behind us. Yep, sure enough the lamb we call Dave was hot-footing it down the path as quick as his wooly legs could carry him.

I just wanted to get out as quickly as posible but Bean and Minnie insisted on acting up as is always the case playing with each other both stood on their hind legs and scrapping with their front paws - this may be amusing to someone who sees it for the first time but every day they do the same and always right in front of you so you trip over them and so this meant we were held up as usual - this gave Dave ample time to catch up. Great!

The reason I was unsure about him coming is just because the walk is quite challenging with many stiles and brooks to cross - I only remember too well having to climb trees and rescue him in my flip flops when he was about 3 weeks old - it was not pretty! So Dave starts the walk with us and then after about 100 yards he simply turned back and walked home towards the gate. Breathing a sigh of relief we continued along the lane.

Not for very long - Dave had a change of mind and ran all the way back to us. When he got to us there was no way I was turning round to take him back - that would have caused too much confusion with Minnie in particular who is a pest for the first few minutes of any walk jumping on everyone and generally being annoying so I was not going through that again - there was only one thing for it .... Dave the Lamb was in for the long haul!

I could not believe that he actually completed the whole walk with us. He went under stiles when the dogs did and over the stepping stones in the brook with ease.

Dave did get into a little difficulty in the overgrown fern patch and got lost. This was because Bean lead him in there and then just left the poor thing. But he returned with us all in one piece.

I wondered whether he would want to stay in the field when we returned (the walk ends up back at the bottom of our field) but he shunned the REAL sheep instead opting to get ruffed up by the dogs joining in their games.

He left the field as soon as he got to the top and appeared more relaxed when he was back on the driveway.