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Angus MacScot turned the
television on, waking Malcolm from a wonderful dream. Angus sat down in
his chair and relaxed. He turned the channel to watch the sheepdog
championships. Malcolm lay still, with one eye shut and the other peeking
at the television. He wasn’t interested at all in sheepdogs. But as Angus
seemed to get more excited about it, Malcolm stood up and moved closer to
the television to see what was going on. It didn’t take long for him to
start enjoying the show. He watched as the dogs ran in circles around the
sheep, herding them through the wooden gates into the corral.
Malcolm decided that he
could herd sheep. It didn’t look that hard. When Angus turned the
television off, Malcolm ran outside. Where were some sheep? Angus didn’t
own any. He’d have to trot over to Jock’s house. He lived on a farm.
Surely there would be sheep there. Off he went, down the dirt lane,
heading for Jock’s place.
Jock was outside gnawing on
a bone. He saw Malcolm coming and started to bark. He was a noisy poodle
and very excitable. Malcolm ran into Jock’s back garden. There they were;
a huge flock of sheep grazing in the pasture behind the house. Jock looked
confused. He didn’t know what was on Malcolm’s mind.
Malcolm squeezed under the
wooden fence into the pasture. He thought about what he’d seen on
television and ran towards the sheep barking. Jock watched, thinking
Malcolm was behaving strangely. The sheep turned when they heard the dog
barking. None of them moved. Malcolm ran around them in a big circle. The
sheep watched and wondered what on earth the Scotty dog was doing? "Is he
trying to be a sheep dog?" one of the ewes said. The rest of the sheep
started to laugh.
Malcolm kept running
circles and barking. When he noticed that none of them were moving, he
stopped. That’s when he heard them laughing at him. He turned and looked
back at Jock. He was laughing too. Malcolm tried to remember what the
sheep dog had done to get the sheep to move. An idea came to him. He ran
towards the sheep barking as loud as he could. They didn’t budge. He ran
right through the flock from one side to another. Not one sheep had moved.
"Look at his short little legs," a ram laughed.
"His bark couldn’t scare a
mouse," another sheep chuckled. Soon all the sheep were laughing.
Seeing that it wasn’t
working, Malcolm walked away, the sound of the laughing sheep following
him. When he got to the fence, Jock was standing there waiting for him. He
had to quickly wipe the smile from his face so Malcolm wouldn’t see. He
followed Malcolm into the front garden and watched as he walked down the
dirt lane towards home.
Malcolm went into the house
through his little door and took a sip of water out of his bowl. He then
lay down in front of the fire. Angus was in the living room watching
television. Malcolm tried to ignore it. There was a show on about Alaska.
It showed dogs pulling heavy sleds across the snow. Malcolm fought the
urge to open his eyes and look at the television but couldn’t resist. He
peeked and watched as the dogs struggled across the snow. Just then a
thought entered his mind. I can do that. Before he allowed another thought
of being a sled dog into his head, he remembered his experience with the
sheep earlier that day and changed his mind. He shut his eyes and fell
asleep, happy to be a Scotty dog. |
