Everyone has heard the saying, "it's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog." I haven't always agreed with it until today. Mama and daddy adopted a dog from the pound over a year ago, and from the moment she got home she took over 100%. She has the mentality that we belong to her, not that she belongs to us. Her name started out as Happy, then it went to chunky, and now she gets called anything from chub to chunk. She's a mutt with the body of a basset hound, the color of a lab, and has the attitude of a pit bull. She loves us and Bear but that's about it. Some dogs are born to be protectors and she is definitely one who takes her job very seriously.
Every winter we sow wheat and clover for the sheep to graze on the other side of the road from where they stay, but now that we have so many they would it eat up in a few days so we've stopped moving them. The younger ewes don't remember the past winters routine and are happy where they are, but the older sheep on the other hand aren't. Every now and then we have a group of sheep that find a hole in the fence and sneak over for a while. Today that group was pretty big and they were bound and determine to stay put and not go back home. We were having a harder time than usual moving them when Chunk came to help, but the thing is Chunk usually does more harm than good helping. We really have to watch her around the sheep dogs because they don't tolerate other dogs around the sheep well. For the most part they get a long, but there have been a few fights where we have to help her. We finally got the sheep together and moving when Chunk decides to run over to a sheep dog with an attitude. Every hair from the top of her head to the tip of her tail stood straight up, I figured she was being defensive because of the past, but this time the dog went on and ignored her. When we got done four of the seven dogs were standing around Chunk wagging their tales, and I thought oh great this is a relief they've got use to each other and we don't have anything to worry about anymore. Wrong. She starts a fight with one of the again, so we ran over to stop it and as soon as we got her seperated everything was fine again. Tails are wagging and no growling so I go back to the four wheeler and daddy goes back to the tractor, as soon as I turn around it starts up again. This time when I made them quit daddy hollered for her to come follow the tractor home so she could be put up and out of the situation. When she starts to leave with him so do the sheep dogs and she starts up another "argument", but this time I was able to get the sheep dogs to follow me one direction and daddy took her the other. She thinks that the sheep dogs are on her territory and they think the same about her. Hopefully one day they will work out all their differences but until then we'll have to keep an eye on her attitude.
I would have never thought that something so short, fat, and cute could stand her ground so well. She won't back up from anything or anybody, in most cases that's a good quality. The longer we have her the more I love her, she's always been an underdog and probably always will be, but you can bet she'll fight her way to the top everytime. The bravest most important battles are won when you have to fight your way out of a corner. Who would have thought that such a small beaten down little dog could teach you to never give up?
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