Kleinen Wiese German Shepherds

Posted By Sandy Wilson on February 27, 2010

This year I brought two new ewes into our flock.  They both gave birth this month – one to a beautiful ram lamb named “Link” and the other to a beautiful ewe lamb we named “Stella”.  I think these two are going to make beautiful additions to our flock.  I can’t wait to see how their fleeces develop.  Now we have three lambs in the barn for our dogs to watch when we go in and feed the flock.  They put on quite a show jumping and running around the barn in front of the dog audience.  They are so darn cute when they are little lambs.  Soon after all our snows melts, I can just picture them on beautiful green pastures!  Can you tell I am thinking of Spring!  Winter has been a bit long for us this year with all the snow and I am anxiously awaiting the melting process!

We have had so much snow this year, record high snowfalls actually, and the sheep are just anxious to get out and graze in the pasture.  The dogs are equally excited as I am sure they can’t wait to help take the sheep out of the barn and into the pasture.  I am looking forward to taking the dogs out to work the sheep.

Here you can see Delta and how high our snow is.  It is up to her chest after this last snow fall.  We have had three big storms this Winter and there is a prediction that we may have one more before this Winter is over.  I am predicting a wet Spring!  At least the grass and pastures will have a good start!

Looking forward to warmer weather and working the dogs!

Category: Border Leicester Sheep, Puppies | No Comments »
Tags: Border Leicester Lambs, Delta

Posted By Sandy Wilson on February 19, 2010

This past year we added a beautiful new Border Leicester ewe to our flock.  This morning I went out with the dogs to feed the sheep and water them and to my surprise was a new big white Ram lamb.  It must have just been born before I got to the barn, as mom was still licking it off and cleaning the young lamb.  Right away, I lifted the lamb and carried him into a jug and mom quickly followed after her newborn.  Mom had a great supply of milk and baby lamb was big and very vigorous to say the least – what a handsome boy!  I am always amazed at how quickly these little lambs can get up on their feet and instinctively look for mom’s milk.  Of course the ewe does make her own unique baaaaaing sound and has her own smell that the baby is attracted to.  I always find it to be such a beautiful sight!

The ewes are such good mothers and I find the more you leave them alone to do their motherly duties, the better.  It is important to let them bond and let the mother nurture the baby lamb.  The more you interfere and touch the baby lamb, the more you run the chance of having trouble with the mother and lamb bonding.  The only initial care I give is cutting the umbilical cord and then dipping it in betadine.  Then I strip the mother’s teats of its’ wax plugs and make sure mom has a good supply of milk.  Once this is done, I let mother nature takes its course – but I do watch from a distance to make sure the lamb is nursing and mom is ok.  If I find things aren’t going well, then I intervene.  Ninety-nine percent of the time, with healthy ewes and lambs who are mature at birth, there is usually never a problem.

Now our little black ewe lamb, Ebony, will have a new friend in the barn to play with.  They are going to have a good time, especially when the snow starts to melt.  Our snow is still too high for the sheep to go out in the pasture, but I think in a week or so things will be melted enough for the ewes and lambs to go out and play!

Certainly the dogs are very excited now as they will have quite a show going on in the barn with the lambs bouncing around in front of them.  They don’t seem to be frightened a bit about the dogs, but instead very curious.  Usually dogs are pretty curious about the new little ones too.   Next month, the rest of the flock should start to kick in and lambs should be popping out!  It’s a great time of year!

Category: Border Leicester Sheep | No Comments »
Tags: Border Leicester Ram Lamb

Posted By Sandy Wilson on February 15, 2010

Pictured above is our beautiful Hera, who was bred by Ellen Nickelsberg.  She is a daughter out of Ellen’s Nicky dog who was what I call a “real” working dog.  He was a dog that just had it all and I am so glad that he passed that down to his sons and daughters.    We were so fortunate to have Hera and had been able to breed her to keep these genetics alive.  Hera has given us several litters of pups now and we have kept a few pups from those litters.  Hera has given us so much and we owe much to her for passing down her strong herding genetics along with her intelligence, bidability, and wonderful solid temperament.  We love her so!  She also seems to be passing down good hips too!

Here also is a Nicky daughter, Greta.  She is a wonder gal, and also our oldest dog here at the farm – she is nine years old and such a happy dog.  She is just a gem and the sweetest loving dog you would want to meet.  Greta is getting up there in years now, so she is retired from any work.  She is just our loving house dog.  She looks much like her father Nicky did and she reminds me of him a lot.  Greta was a lot of dog when she was much younger and taught me a great deal about these genetics and she has made me grow as a dog trainer.

Aiko is one of the pups that we selected out of our breeding of Hera v. Fafnerhaus and Diesel v. Schulmeister.  We were so fortunate to find Diesel and breed him to our Hera, as they were absolutely the best match that we could have ever dreamed of.  These two dogs just “nicked” – they were the right combination of working dogs  and genetics that possess all the wonderful working qualities that we so treasure.  Aiko is living proof of it.  He really is my dream dog, so to speak.  He is intelligent, biddable, absolutely loves to work, solid in temperament, super athletic build, good hips and health and he absolutely loves life!  I think he is the closest thing that I could have to his grandfather Nicky.  I love this dog!  Not to mention, I think he is one handsome boy and such a faithful companion!

Picture above is Arla; she is the most obedient dog I think I have ever owned.  She is also out of Hera and Diesel and definitely has the herding instinct and she is soooo smart!  I always like to think the male dogs are so smart, but this dog has it over all my other dogs.  She learns very quickly and she is a dog who just wants to please me.  I call her name and she turns on a dime for me.   I could not ask more of a dog.  Arla is the start of our second generation of dogs and she has been bred once to Hawk v. Eichenluft, ScHIII.  These two dogs produced a beautiful litter of pups and of course, we had to save a puppy out of that breeding to hopefully carry on these genetics.  We are watching these pups carefully to see what these two dogs genetics bring to the table.

Delta is the start of our second generation of dogs.  Delta definitely posses some strong work ethic, as she has shown some terrific tracking skills – such dedication for such a youngster.    She  loves to work and is always busy doing something!  This little pup certainly is a live wire with lots of pep and is just full of herself.  She is just a wee babe at 7 months old and has a lot of maturing to do, but I see a lot of things I really love about Delta.  I look forward to watching her grow up and see what comes out in her from both her father, Hawk, and her mother, Arla.   One thing I can tell for sure is she is interested in the sheep (yeah!!!)  and she is a very smart puppy – learns extremely fast and is so quick.  She has a nice compact build and is very athletic – I think she is going to make an excellent working dog  – we’ll see how she comes along as she grows up.

That’s our crew at Little Meadow Sheep Farm along with a few other furry and feathered creatures.  Then there is the matter of the sheep – we have a beautiful flock of white and black Border Leicesters.  They are from quite a few generations of breeding here at the farm to produce beautiful long, lusterous wool and sheep that are healthy and have nice temperaments.  We have had Border Leicester sheep now for 10 years and we love the breed for herding as well as their beautiful wool.

This little lamb is really growing.  She was a surprise lamb from one of our first and eldest ewes.  Anyway, she’ll have some new friends shortly as the barn is going to be filled with lots of little bouncing lambs next month!  I can’t wait – lambs are almost as cute as puppies!

Category: Herding | No Comments »
Tags: Kleinen Wiese Dogs

Posted By Sandy Wilson on February 11, 2010

Aiko was out early this morning to check out the snowfall.  The dogs are all following the trails that we had made the day before so they could move through the snow.  We got approximately 23-24 inches, but that was on top of the snow we had the weekend before, so it seems much higher.

Delta out at about 6:30 this morning – blazing the trail.  This was our sidewalk which was shoveled several times yesterday, so lucky it wasn’t a problem getting out of our door.  Of course the dogs love this as they can run up and down and then jump into the drifts.

Above is the same seen as yesterday, but with alot more snow.  The snow plow had just come around – lucky us, but the road is still snow covered.  At least I was able to walk out to the road and take some pictures.

Arla and Delta watching me in the road, the snow is piled up on the top fence rail, and the snow is up to our top step in the  front of the house.

Today the wind is whipping around, but the sun is shining and the sky is blue, so I think it is going to be a beautiful day – but then the shoveling. . . UG!  I am not looking forward to digging out.  I will make sure I put the kids to work today since they have the day off from school!

Category: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tags: Aiko, Arla vd Kleinen Wiese, Delta, German Shepherd

Posted By Sandy Wilson on February 10, 2010

February 10, 8:30 AM

We had 18 or more inches of snow this past weekend and now we are experiencing another storm as we speak.  It started around 7 pm and is still gowing this morning and snow fall will continue late into the night!  We expect another 20 or so inches!

Needless to say, this doesn’t stop the dogs.  I wanted to get a picture this morning and then compare it to later this afternoon to see how high it is.  Delta posing nicely in the snow above.

You can see it is coming down rather thickly here in Pennsylvania.  I think this has been by far the most snowfall we have gotten in years and also with snow storms so close in timing.  I wish I could teach my dogs how to shovel the sidewalk and driveway!  LOL!

Unfortunately, the sheep haven’t been out of the barn since the weekend as it has been too high for them to forage for pasture and certainly I think our little lamb, Ebony, would have a hard time trying to get through it. 

 You can see here at the dogs feet, new snow fall is up already – this was where our sidewalk was shoveled – we are going to be able to make some awesome snowmen with this snow!

February 10, 10:30 AM

Wow, the snow is coming down even thicker and already we have picked up a few inches more!  Kids and dogs loving it!

The kids are so excited that they finally got a full snow day off!  Wow, what fun to play in the snow with the dogs!

Here are a few shots just to show the snow is really starting to get much higher and it’s only been a few hours since my first pictures!

You can see the snow is already up to their shoulders.  We hadn’t seen this red toy in her mouth in about a week, but Delta found it somewhere in the snow!  What a nose!

Here Arla and Aiko are just standing by the bank barn in the snow.  It’s up so high you can’t even hardly move well and it’s above my boots!  Yikes, This snow is going to be around for a while.

Aiko – he is just watching the girls all running around in the snow, while he faithfully follows me to the barn – what a boy!   We went in the barn to find all the sheep just hanging out in the barn watching the snow come down.

All the sheep are just gathered around in the barn – some have snow atop of their backs because they are always so curious to go outside and check things out.

February 10, 12:30 pm

I took some shots of the road side and the front of the house – it is just beautiful – but UG, I am not ready to shovel this stuff yet and it is not stopping until wee hours of the night tonight!  Thank goodness for the warmth of our woodburning stove cooking away and keeping us warm.   Tonight I am sure we’ll watch a movie and have some popcorn!

The snow is almost up to our front steps and our house sits on a hill!  I just was listening to the news and they said we are now having blizzard warning!  Gee – could we have any more snow!

After I crossed the road to take some pictures, there was my good ole boy, Aiko, just waiting to greet me!  The dogs are so funny, even though your with them 24/7, they greet you at the gate like they haven’t seen you all week – just wagging their tails and giving you a big slurpy kiss!

February 10, 5:00 pm

Ok, I know this post is going on forever, but so is the snow.  My pictures are steadily getting worse as the snow is very thick and continually coming down hard and furious!  This is some storm and we are not out of the woods yet – it is supposed to snow into the night way past our bedtime, so we’ll have to get some pictures tomorrow morning if we can open our door.

The dogs can’t even make much of a path now, it is so high and difficult to move in.

We took the dogs out for a little walk around the yard instead of the pasture as it is just too difficult to walk through and it is above my boots!  My son wanted me to add his picture to show how high it is out there (I think he is on his knees, LOL.)

I am hoping by nightfall, when we have our usual snowball fight, that we will be able to get out and walk.

Well that’s all for now until tomorrow!  The schools have already called and school is cancelled again for tomorrow.  Another snow day – bonus day I guess you could say!  I think it will be a while till we are all dug out.  Forget the snow plows, haven’t seen them for a while.  Just snow mobiles going up and down the road!

Category: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tags: Arla vd Kleinen Wiese, Delta