MARY’S LITTLE LAMB

This is the history of a pet lamb that differed mentally from other lambs I have known. One does not look for anything approaching to marked individuality in that animal, yet sheep do show it on occasions though not in the same degree as cats and dogs. Goats exhibit more character than sheep, probably because we do not compel them to live in a crowd. Indeed, when we consider how our poor domesticated sheep is kept we can see that they have little chance of developing individuality of mind. A sheep cannot “follow his own genius,” so to speak, without infringing the laws we have made for his kind. His condition in this respect is similar to that of human beings under a purely socialistic form of government: for example, like that of the ancient civilised Peruvians. In that state every man did as he was told: worked and rested, got up and sat down, ate, drank, and slept, married, grew old and died in the precise way prescribed. And I daresay if he tried to be original or to do something out of the common he was knocked on the head. So with our sheep. The shepherd, assisted by his dog, maps out his whole life for him, from birth to death, and he is not permitted to stray from the path in which he is made to walk. But if a lamb be taken from the flock and reared at a farm and given the same liberty that cats and dogs and even many goats enjoy, he will in almost every case develop a character of his own.

I remember a tame sheep we once had at my home on the pampas who in thieving could give points to many thievish dogs, not excepting the pointer himself, the most accomplished thief in the entire canine gang. Tobacco and books were the objects this mischievous beast was perpetually foraging for when she could get into the house. Tobacco was hard to come at even when she had a good long time to look for it before some one came on the scene to send her about her business with a good whack or a kick. But books were often left lying about on tables and chairs and were easily got at. She knew very well that it was wrong and that if detected she would have to suffer, but she was exceedingly cunning, and from a good distance would keep an eye on the house, and when she saw or cunningly guessed that no person was in the sitting- or dining-room or any other room with the door standing open, she would steal quietly in and finding a book would catch it hastily up and make off with it. Carrying it off to the plantation she would set it down, put her hoof on it, and start tearing out the leaves and devouring them as expeditiously as possible. Once she had got hold of a book she would not give it up--not all the shouting and chasing after her would make her drop it. Away she would rush until fifty yards or more ahead of her hunters; then she would stop, set it down and begin hurriedly tearing out the leaves; then when the hunt drew near with loud halloo she would snatch it up and rush on with it flapping about her face, and leave us all far behind. Eventually, when her depredations could no longer be tolerated, she was sent away to the flock.

An English settler in Patagonia I used to stay with when visiting that part kept a tame guanaco at his estancia, which had a habit resembling that of our book-stealing sheep. This animal had been captured when small by some guanaco-hunters, and my friend reared and made a pet of it. When grown up it associated with the sheep and other domestic animals and was friendly with the dogs, but spent much of its time roaming by itself over the plains. He had the run of the house as well, but at length had to be excluded on account of his passion for devouring any white linen or cotton which he could get hold of. But the guanaco, like our sheep, was cunning and would approach the house from the back and make his way into a bedroom to snatch up and make off with a towel, night-shirt, handkerchief, or anything he could find of linen or cotton, so long as it was white. One day my host came in to get himself ready to attend a meeting and dinner at a neighbouring estancia, and after putting out his linen on his bed he went into an adjoining room for a hot bath. Coming back to his bedroom he was just in time to see his pet guanaco pick up his beautifully-got-up snow-white shirt from the bed and make a dash for the open door. He uttered a wild yell, which had no effect, but he was determined not to lose his shirt, for at that moment he remembered that it was the only clean one he possessed; he rushed out just as he was with nothing but a towel round him, and jumping on to his horse, which stood saddled at the gate, started in pursuit. Away he went, shouting to the dogs to come and help him recover his shirt. His yell and shouts brought all the men about the place on the scene, and running out they too mounted their horses in hot haste and started after him. And away far ahead of them went the guanaco at a pace no horse could equal, the shirt held firmly in his teeth waving and flapping like a white banner in the wind. But from time to time he made a stop, and bringing the shirt down to the ground would hurriedly tear a piece out of it, then picking it up would rush on again. The dogs overtook him only to dance round him, barking joyfully to encourage him to run on and keep the fun going. He was their friend and playmate, and it was to them nothing but a jolly sham hunt got up by their sport-loving master for their amusement. The chase led up the valley of the river, a great flat plain, and continued for about four to five miles; by that time the precious shirt had dwindled to something quite small--nothing in fact was left but the hard starched front, which the guanaco found it difficult to masticate and swallow. Then at long last the hunt was given up and my poor shirtless friend in his towel rode mournfully home in the midst of laughing companions, attended, too, by a lot of dogs, lolling their tongues out and overflowingly happy at having had such an exciting run.

Let me now come to the subject I sat down to write about--namely, Mary’s little lamb. It was little to begin with, when my youngest sister, who was not then very big herself, and was always befriending forlorn creatures, came in one day from the shepherd’s ranch with a young lamb which had unhappily lost its mother. Oddly enough this little sister’s name was Mary--one seldom hears it in these Doris, Doreen days, but in that distant Mary-Jane-Elizabeth period it was quite common. And the motherless lamb she had brought in grew to be her pet lamb, with fleece as white as snow; nor was the whiteness strange seeing that it was washed every day with scented soap, its beauteous neck beribboned and often decorated with garlands of scarlet verbenas which looked exceedingly brilliant against the snowy fleece. A pretty, sweet-tempered and gentle creature it proved and never developed any naughty proclivities like the tobacco- and book-plundering sheep of an earlier date. They were very fond of each other, those two simple beings, and just as in the old familiar rhyme wherever Mary went her little lamb would go. But there was a little rift within the lute which by and by would widen till it made the music mute. The lamb was excessively playful and frisky, but its mistress had her little lessons and duties to attend to, and the lamb couldn’t understand it, and often after frisking and jumping about to challenge the other to a fresh race in vain it would run away to get up a race or game of some sort with the youngest of the dogs. The dogs were responsive, so that they were quite happy together.

We kept eight dogs at that time; two were pointers, all the others just the common dog of the country, a smooth-haired animal about the size of a collie. Like all dogs allowed to exist in their own way, they formed a pack, the most powerful one being their leader and master. They spent most of their time lying stretched dog-fashion in the sun in some open place near the house, fast asleep. They had little to do except bark at strangers approaching the house and to hunt off the cattle that tried to force their way through the fences into the plantation. They would also go off on hunting expeditions of their own. Strange playmates and companions for Libby, as she was named, the pretty pet lamb with fleece as white as snow; yet so congenial did she find the dogs’ society that by and by she passed her whole time with them, day and night. When they came to the door to bark and whine and wag their tails to call attention to their wants or to be noticed, the lamb would be with them but would not cross the threshold since the dogs were not permitted in the rooms. Nor would she come to her mistress when called, and having discovered that grass was her proper food she wanted nothing that human beings could give her. Not even a lump of sugar! She was no longer a pet lamb; she was one of the dogs. The dogs on their part, although much given to quarrels and fights among themselves, never growled or snapped at Libby; she never tried to snatch a bone from them, and she made them a comfortable pillow when they slept and slumbered for hours at a stretch. And Libby, just to be always with them and to do exactly as they did, would sleep too. Or rather she would lie stretched out on the ground pretending to sleep, always with the head of one of the dogs pillowed on her neck. Two or three or four of the other dogs who had failed to secure the pillow would lie round her with their heads pressed against her fleece. They would form a curiously amusing group. Then if a shrill whistle was emitted by some one, or the cry of “Up and at ’em,” the lamb would spring like lightning to her feet, throwing the drowsy dog off, and away she would dash down the avenue to get outside the plantation and find out what the trouble was. Then the dogs, shaking off their sleep, would start off and perhaps overtake her a couple of hundred yards away.

Most amusing of all the lamb’s acting was when the dogs had their periodical hunting fits, when they would vanish for half a day’s vizcacha-hunting on the plain, just as fox-terriers and other dogs in which the hunting instinct still survives steal out of the village to chase or dig out rabbits on their own account.

The vizcacha is a big rodent and lives in communities, in warrens or villages composed of a group of huge burrows, and the native dogs are fond of assaulting these strongholds but seldom succeed in getting at their quarry. A dog no bigger than a fox-terrier can make his way in till he comes to grips with the vizcacha, usually with the result that he gets well punished for his audacity. Our dogs would simply labour to enlarge the burrows by scratching and biting away the earth and furiously barking at the animal inside who would emit curious noises and cries, which the dogs appeared to regard as insults and would only cause them to redouble their efforts.

On several occasions, when riding on the plain a mile or two from home, I would come on our dogs--the entire pack and the lamb with them, engaged in the siege and assault of a vizcacha village or earth. A funny sight! The dogs would jump up barking and wagging their tails as if to say, “Here we are, you see, just in the middle of our fight with no time to spare for friendly conversation.” And back they would fly to their burrows. The lamb too would dance up to give me a welcome and then back to her duties. Her part was to go frisking about from burrow to burrow, now taking a flying leap over the pit-like mouth, then diving down to see how things were progressing inside, where the dog was tearing at the earth and trying to force himself in and keeping up a running dialogue of threats and insults with the beast inside.

But though Libby, in these her dog days, was a continual joy to us, we thought it best for her own sake to put an end to them. For in spite of her activities she was in very good condition, and any poor gaucho who came upon her, hunting with our dogs a few miles from home, would be justified in saying: “Here is a good fat animal without an ear-mark, consequently without an owner; and though I find it in the company of Neighbour So-and-So’s dogs, it can’t be his since he has put no mark on it, and as I’ve found it I have a right to it, and I’m quite sure from its appearance that its flesh when roasted will prove tender and savoury.”

Accordingly we took Libby away from her companions and put her with the flock, where in due time she would learn that a sheep is a sheep and not a dog.

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There are, I imagine, few old sportsmen, field naturalists, and observers of animal life generally who have not met with similar instances of animals of widely different natures, in some instances natural enemies, living and even acting in harmony together. We see it chiefly in the domesticated and in tamed wild animals. When visiting a friend in Patagonia I was greatly astonished one day on going out with a gun to shoot something followed by the dogs to find a black cat in their company, and to see her when I fired my first shot actually dashing off before the dogs to retrieve the bird!

One of the amusing recollections of an old lady friend of mine, a lover of animals, was of a pet cat and rabbit which had been reared from babyhood together and were always fed out of one saucer of milk, and when they grew up from one dish. It was common to see them exchange foods, and the cat would be seen laboriously gnawing at a cabbage stalk while the rabbit picked a bone.

My friend Mr. Tregarthen, author of _Wild Life at the Land’s End_, has just kindly furnished me with two or three remarkable instances known to him of hunting and hunted animals living together in happy companionship. One is of a tame fox, taken when small and reared in the kennels with fox-hounds. When fully grown its great game when the dogs were taken out for exercise was to scamper off and give them a chase. Invariably when overtaken it would throw itself on its back and allow itself to be worried in fun. They never hurt it. Then there are two instances of otters reared from puppyhood with otter-hounds. In one case the otter would go otter-hunting with the hounds; in the second case the otter did not accompany the hounds, or was not allowed to go with them, but the hounds, although they hunted their quarry with all the zeal and fury natural to them, refused to bite or hurt it in any way when they got it. Their friendship with an otter had had a psychological effect on their otter-hound natures.