The Maremma puppies are 7 weeks old now and today they were put in with a group of Babydoll Southdown lambs and Morgan, the bottle baby, who is not on the bottle anymore as of two days ago. He is still looking for his milk and butts me to try to find it. Here is Joe with a paw up on Morgan. Morgan is afraid of the puppies as are all the lambs and they move away from them, but the puppies are not daunted and pursue. They are not really big enough to do any damage to the lambs. This afternoon they curled up in the lambs' shelter and fell fast asleep. For some reason they do not use their dog house at all. The dog house and their food is in a corner sectioned off by a livestock panel lifted onto a log so the puppies can crawl under it, but the lambs cannot. I suppose they could if they really tried, but they are not likely to do so. Sheep do like dog food and a close eye must be kept on the food to be sure it goes to the dogs, and not the lambs. The puppies also get raw meat scraps and bones, which the sheep have no interest in of course. They share their water buckets now though. The puppies are big enough to drink from the bucket if it is over half full. Joe and Mike are friendly like Maremmas should be and have met some children and other adults, wagging their tails in greeting. They should be socialized so they are not overly protective, however; they need to bond to their sheep more than their humans. When I walked away from them, leaving them in the lamb pen, they turned and wagged their tails happily. I am keeping my fingers crossed that they stay with the sheep and bond with them, preferring to be with them than with me. I must restrain myself from playing with them other than petting them and feeding them a few times daily and that is hard when they are so darn cute. Aren't they?
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