We had to collect my landrover from the garage because it had a service so after going for my car once reasonable hour had approached we planned to feed the animals. I wanted 3 of the dogs in before I went out to do the feed because they are crackers and send me crazy with their stupid behaviour so Bean, Meg and Minnie were coming inside and not causing utter bedlam today. Yesterday I decided that the 3 idiots had caused their last bout of commotion whilst outside with me at feeding time. I planned to grab Minnie first of all, then Bean and then Meg. It is normally an easy move. Then the sheep and pigs etc would be so simple.
Minnie out foxed me and ran down the drive. She does a silly walk when she gets excited - why? No idea. So then came the walk as she reared up on her hind legs and walked like a dinosaur. Great Dane's are really strange. Once Bean saw this both Meg and Bean both ran off towards the pigs. Oh well they may surprise me and actually not drive me insane I got on with it. I had a couple of sacks of food to take down to the stable with so I got Kyle and we went to do the animals.
As soon as we step onto the path Minnie takes up her usual dinosaur/reptor stance. Bean also rears up and with both dogs on hind legs they do a sort of boxing but at the same time start making a stupid high pitch noise trying to grab each others necks - just annoying. It takes me all of about 2 seconds before I start to lose it and shout at them - they just completely ignore me - I'm getting more and more annoyed and we have not even reached the stables. So with massive bag of food on one shoulder, 2 idiots playing Kangaroo Boxing in rings around my legs and a 2 year old half wrapped around my leg we hobble off towards the field. After walking for 30 seconds Kyle thinks it would really assist us if he was to be carried for the rest of the way. Not happening. I carry on holding his hand but then he stops and without warning does a flop onto the floor - this was still part of his wanting to be carried protest. After asking twice to get up I gather he is no longer talking to me so I carried on to the sheds. I empty food into the bins and got the buckets ready.
Usually if I am feeding without the dogs I can shut a gate to keep the sheep and lambs separate from the yard and the pigs are held back too so I can fill all feed bins up with their stuff and open the gates then they come in nice and quietly. No issues at all when I do them by myself everything runs like clockwork. Today was not such a day.
So back to the nightmare in hand. The pigs were now awake having been woken up by Bean and Minnie's constant barking. The pigs are heading over to the gate squealing and I can see whats about to happen because the dogs are all lined up at the gate to get them and I have not even sorted the food out. Meg then starts playing her own made up game Snap A Snout. In said game of Snap A Snout the rules appear to be that she barks constantly then sits right back away from the gate so the pigs think she has stopped then when she thinks a snout is within reach she lunges through the bars of the gate grabbing any pig snout she can. This sends Bean into a frenzy who starts to howl (again obviously necessary!) she is now in full-howl mode sounding exactly like a wolf. It is so loud now combined with the pigs squeals and Minnie and Meg's barking that I seriously cannot cope. We have achieved total meltdown. The sheep burst through the gate and are swirling like hornets jumping over each other and me and then push into the shed. Just brilliant -there was no getting this under any sort of control any time soon so I grabbed the sheep food and threw it down then just as Minnie had decided to take it to the next level and jump into the pig field I got to the pig gate first and grabbed her out of the way and got their food down. Minnie is back on hind legs at this time for reasons known only to her.
With my stress levels through the roof I cannot tell you how mad I was.
Never again will those idiots do any animal feeds.
I took Kyle's hand and we set off back to the house. He had been busy filling his pants up with stones from the driveway while I made a right mess of feed time and then thought it would make me happy if he climbed inside the coal bunker and rolled around covering himself completely with soot. It really helped. Off we went to do some jobs inside the house before my next animal job which was rounding up a sheep that had arrived in our field about 2 weeks ago, catch it, load it and then get it moved on.
This was going to be a breeze after what I had just done!
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