If you're ever wondering about how much herding a rough collie comes equipped with after thousands of years of breeding for exactly that instinct, Pippin last night decided to herd an injured crane fly he found.
This mostly involved him standing over it and staring at it with the white hot intensity of 10,000 suns, and then nudging it back into place while chattering his teeth whenever it flopped away from where he wanted it. I wish I had vid but my phone was dying by that point, but I did manage to take this pic.
I then tried to get the crane fly away from him, but every time I went for it, he'd pick it up very gently, walk to another spot, and set it down carefully. Once it was in place, he'd slowly lay down with his front paws on either side of it to 'guard' his new half dead little sheep of a bug. He was its eternal guardian, this may not have been his circus but he would adopt this monkey as his own.
I must remind you again this insect was 90% dead. And Pip carting it around in his mouth and covering it in drool wasn't exactly helping things. But he clearly meant well.
It took me 20 minutes to get this crane fly away from him. I really hope we don't get a lot of them this year or else Pip's going to find a way to gather an ACTUAL flock of them to look after. Either way he has a new title added on: Sir Peregrin Montgomery Scott Took the 3rd, Protector of Crane Flies.
