It is generally accepted that sheep, animals which are sensitive and easily stressed, do not like/will not like noise. As the Fact Sheet on sheep behaviour provided by the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture says ‘Sheep react negatively to loud noises and yelling’. And, in giving guidance about transport of livestock, the Humane Slaughter Association depicts relevant animals’ behavioural characteristics: it states about sheep that they ‘have acute hearing and will be startled by sudden noise’.

Wool - bale, sack, pack, sheet. Simply, names of containers of wool. But what do these tell and convey about the role and fortunes, past and present, of the fleece of sheep?

Of the container names, probably the most well-known is that of woolsack. This is because King Edward III had said in the fourteenth century that he wished his Lord Chancellor, while in council, to sit upon a wool bale. This came to be known as The Woolsack.

In 2021, Ban Live Exports International Awareness Day took place on 14th June. This year overall, and the month of June especially, may turn out to be turning points in the effort to ban live export of animals across the globe.

Concerning sheep, Stop Live Transport states that ‘trade in live sheep annually worldwide’ is 16.05 million (and with ‘trade in live sheep annually from European Countries’ being 5.5 million). Describing what the problem is with live exports, Compassion in World Farming [CIWF] depicts the frequent results of long distance live animal transport to be these: overcrowding; exhaustion and dehydration; pain and stress; illness and disease; a lack of legal protection; unexpected issues.

Sheep are modest by nature; and they are, relatively, modest in size. So, it is perhaps not surprising that the structures for them can be, and usually are, modest too. While there are a variety of roles and functions needing to be fulfilled by sheep structures, in essence only few different structure types are necessary. Various - albeit that they may be quite different - functions and activities can happen in same, or similar, types of structure.

Here, ‘lost’ in relation to sheep will be discussed as two different meanings. One is the ‘cannot find the way’ and ‘cannot be found’ meaning. The other is ‘lost before completion of what would be expected as the natural span of life’.

Sheep, in the first interpretation, can become lost in the senses of ‘not knowing where they are’, or ‘not being able to find their way back to companions or base’. Sometimes it will be their fault, other times it will be the fault of those bearing responsibility for looking after them.

In the article ‘Hazards’ (17th March 2021), dog worrying and its outcomes were described, and reasons were put forward as to why dog worrying of sheep is an increasing problem.

No apology is given for a return to the topic now. It is for a negative reason, that dog worrying continues to increase. But it is also for the positive reason, that, with things now so bad, some good signs are emerging - at last - of a recognition that, more and stronger effort will have to be made if dog worrying is to get stopped.