Learning the Wrong Lessons

“Hey, ShepherdPerson! Daddy and Johnny have been teaching us how to head-butt like big, grown-up rams! It’s really cool! Wanna see?”

Ah yes, I love watching tiny, half-size rams play foreheads at ten paces. Actually, it is kind of funny, since the Dukelings have terrible aim. They tend to miss completely and go charging past each other without colliding, which is hilarious. Or they just barely clip the sides of their horns together as they pass, and both of them spin out and fall down, which is equally hilarious. Even when they do manage to connect they’re still too little to do serious damage to each other.

“It’s really hard to aim from ten paces away with my eyes closed!”

It’s probably going to be less funny when they get serious about it and I suddenly have five territorial rams instead of one, but I’ll worry about that later. Or maybe I should get around to having the extras wethered before it becomes a problem. There’s an idea.

Meanwhile, back in the yard, Watcher is determined he’s going to teach Echo how to be a proper playmate. Echo still doesn’t understand fetch. He’s gotten the chase-and-capture part, which is progress, but once he has the toy he starts chasing Watcher with it instead of bringing it back. Also, the game in general requires far too much running and far too little sitting in laps getting petted, in his opinion.

The one game Echo both understands and is enthusiastic about is tug-of-war. He really likes playing tug-of-war with Watcher, mostly I think because he’s ten pounds heavier than Watcher and thus generally wins.

“Hey, guess what? I thought this rug was just here for us to sleep on…”

“But then Watcher showed me that it’s actually a giant tug-of-war toy! I love tug-of-war! Best game ever!”

Tearing stuff up is not what I had in mind when I wanted Echo learn how to play.

“This is awesome! I love playing!”

Not what I had in mind at all.

“Grrr, my rug! Gimme!”

Sigh. This is my cue to call time-out on the game before they tear the poor rug to pieces. Why are all my kids so destructive? The whole “let the other animals teach the new kids the ropes” thing sounded like such a good idea in my head. I guess I should have kept a closer eye on the curriculum. Well, at least they’re having a good time, I’d hate for them to think learning was boring.