Meet Bess!

Bess came to us three years ago from Dean McAuley in Larne, Northern Ireland. She has been an absolutely stellar addition to the farm. Her sire, Joe, and Dean, have been on the Irish National Team three times. These are real working dogs!

Bess is an intensely focused dog. She is also the smallest of our three dogs, weighing in at about 34 lbs, but that absolutely doesn’t stop her! She is tough and relentless, just the dog I need for “stroppy” ewes or recalcitrant rams. The first summer we had her, when she was still a small pup, she would run right through the electric fence to get to the sheep, and would push them into a corner and hold them there until I came out to rescue them. She was VERY proud of herself. She weighed all of 15 or 16 lbs. To quote Shakespeare, ““Though she be but little, she is fierce.”

Beautiful Bess, always ready to go. My mother-in-law refers to Bess as “The one with the ears”.

When Bess isn’t working the sheep, she can be found wrestling with her niece Gyll, chasing the birds away from our feeders, playing a rousing game of keep-away with David and a stick, or—her favorite—running down the hill to jump headlong into our pond on a hot day. She loves this so much that we had a gate installed to ensure that she would always have swimming access.

Have questions about sheep dogs, sheep, herding, or anything else? Shoot me an email—I always love to connect with you! LuckyDogFarm17@gmail.com

Stay warm, and cook something yummy this cold weekend! Get your Lucky Dog Farm lamb here!

—Farmer Judith