18/09/2021
Some of our lovely clients have contacted us recently regarding the sheep they saw being ‘walked on the grass’ outside the practice 🐑
Thank you for all the kind well wishes you passed on for him! 💐
Now that his health is improving 🚑, I thought I would take this opportunity to tell his story to you all!
So, Elvis is a lamb that myself and Paul re-homed to our farm.
Elvis has been dealt a rough deal in his first 6 months of life, having been an unexpected triplet delivered after a complicated birth.
He arrived with physical and mental disabilities that meant he needed intensive nursing from the start…support for days to teach him how to suck from a bottle and many, many painstaking weeks spent training his legs how to work.
He has been bottled-fed and nursed and, despite his health problems, he has grown into a fantastic ‘pet lamb’.
When I say “grown”…physically, he hasn’t actually done much of this, as he is only a third of the size of his flock mates of a similar age.
We don’t yet know how long he may live due to his birth defects but he loves life and is the happiest sheep imaginable! ❤️
Unfortunately, even in his wildest imagination, he does not believe he is a sheep!! 🐑
He thinks he is a human!
And on our farm, he will shout (loudly!) if we dare to ever forget this fact!!🙈
However, a few weeks ago the unthinkable happened.
Elvis was ‘played with’ by a dog being walked through one of the footpaths on our farm.
Elvis is not fearful of dogs.
Elvis will *not* have run away (he can’t run anyway!), so this was not a typical dog-chasing-sheep situation.
This was a friendly pet dog (with its owner) who tried to play with Elvis as if he was a teddy or another dog 😢
And in the process, Elvis came perilously close to losing his life.
Only because of how much he has fought to live so far, did we think he might be able to handle the recovery process to potentially give him another chance at life.
And so he stayed in the ICU in my exotics department at Oakmount, and went for short walks outside to perk him up through the early days, when he was feeling particularly sad
In a bid to highlight the very real dangers that dogs pose to sheep
(even well-behaved, under control, non -sheep-chasing dogs), I have created both Facebook and Instagram accounts for the man himself.
Elvis in indeed a legend, Elvis truly is the King (of sheep).
If his story can encourage dog-owners to use a lead on *any* walk through *all* farmland…and at *all* times with *all* dogs, then his horrific injury will have served a purpose.
Please follow him on Instagram (Elvis.thewondersheep) or Facebook (Elvis the Wonder Sheep) where I will introduce you properly to this fab little dude and you can also track his recovery process with us!
Best wishes, Sheryl (and Elvis!) x
