SHEEP SURFING - Only the waves are different

[Maureen K Clifford]

Friends of mine own a Motel at Dannevirke NZ on a main highway. He tells me that every day as he works keeping the grounds tidy out the front of the Motel that this is what he sees, and he tells me that they go by so often he is starting to recognize individual dogs by their barks, and he reckons they recognize him as they don't start barking until they get close to the Motel.

John is not given to flights of fancy. He was running the Texas Motel at Texas in Queensland and was often out at our place, surrounded by our sheep and dogs but never heard him claim once that our dogs spoke to him





SHEEP SURFING – NZ


Every day I see the trucks go by along to Dannevirke
to the sheep saleyards where Huntaways and Border Collies work.
And the farmers lean laconically against the stockyard rails
as the Auctioneer excitedly yells out the price of sale.

You can hear the big trucks rumble as they travel the highway
and I reckon must be close to sometimes one hundred each day;
with dog boxes slung between the wheels and underneath the deck
all the dogs are barking, barking, barking. Who knows what at by heck.

Or sometimes they are sheep surfing as they travel the highway,
paws tightly twined into the fleece as round corners they sway.
Tongues lolling, big grins on their mush, just good balance to save
them from a wipeout, as they surf the roads on wooly waves.

They seem to like their joy rides. Every day they pass my place
as they travel down the bitumen I think I recognize a face
that looks out at me quite brazenly from up on the sheep’s back
I hear a dogs voice say 'tomorrow Mate, same place, surf's up, same track.'




Maureen Clifford © 09/10

[Maureen K Clifford]

And you thought it wasn't possible

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUlC79KBfmA

[Neville Briggs]

I know what they are barking at, I'd be making a loud protest too if I had to ride in a box down near the truck wheels amid all the fumes and dusty grit and stink of sheep dung. Woof woof, let me outa this stinkin box..woof woof..wait till I get my teeth into your backside mate...woof woof.