MANNY and the BIG-HORNED SHEEP - March 11, 2018

In the winter, the grassy slopes surrounding Radium Hot Springs offer grazing to flocks of Rocky Mountain big horned sheep (Ovis canadensis canadensis) and almost anytime they can be found to photograph. While we ate breakfast yesterday, one flock of ewes and half-grown lambs was causing a Radium Road Block by licking the salt from the highway and lying down in the sunshine on the black pavement.

Now Manny has a scale of excitement for other animals; cats are prey, other dogs are fair game and four-legged, grass-eating creatures are of great interest, so he was watching the sheep intently from the passenger window. Carl opened the RV door to get an unobstructed photograph and quick as a wink, Manny scooted out the door. Before we could even get our shoes on he had raced across the snow-covered median, run out on the highway, circled the flock and herded them off the road. Pleased with himself, he was trotted back to the RV through the group of people watching this spectacle when he spotted a second group of ewes and lambs. Off he went chasing them through the snow, over the steep bank and out of sight. No amount of calling or shaking the treat bag caused him to even pause.

Three young fellows and a wildlife photographer joined as as we slogged through the snow to the edge of the bank, alternately calling, clapping, cajoling and threatening. Finally, he reappeared about three hundred feet below us, belly deep in hard-crusted snow and began his slow ascent back up the hill. We were ever so grateful to have the other men with us as misery loves company and we were chagrined at our dog's behaviour.

At last he hauled himself up over the rim where I accosted him, picking him up and tucking him under my arm. Turning to carry him back to the RV, I saw by the picnic table a fine specimen of a ram watching us with his canny golden eye as if to say, "Good thing you took care of him because if you hadn't, I would!"