Sampson (left) and Delilah (right) have been such a gift to our farm. I don’t mean a gift like someone gave them to us. (I wish! But no, we paid out of our teeth for them!) (Worth every penny and more!) But they have been a gift from God and a blessing, twice over.
Especially Delilah. She has the personality of an “old soul”, wise beyond her years. Her intuition concerning our animals is amazing. She gently nudges the lambs back to their mothers. If a lamb gets in the wrong pen, she will stand by him and bark until we come put him back where he belongs.
One of the most incredible things I’ve seen her do happened not long ago. I was walking my Border Collie around the pasture. Delilah doesn’t want my dog near the sheep because she chases them. There was a sheep in our pathway. Right before we got to the sheep, Delilah headbutted the ewe in the rear and knocked her out of our path. She intuitively does things like that to protect the sheep.
They lounge around the barnyard during the day. But come nightfall, their loud, deep barks can be heard all over the pasture. They are letting predators know that if they want in our pasture, they are going to have to come through Sampson and Delilah. So far, we haven’t had any predators willing to take on that challenge.
We haven’t seen any unwelcome critters at all on our farm. We give our big dogs credit for that. This breed can fight bears if they need to. Yet they are gentle and loving with us and our grandchildren. They are never aggressive toward people. They love people and we love them. We just can’t say enough good things about our “gentle giants”.
