Today, according to my west coast brother, is "Hug a Sheep Day." Really? I've seen sheep grazing at a distance in their fields, in the USA, Scotland and in New Zealand; even some very interesting demonstrations of sheep herding. Everywhere, when seen from a distance, they look fuzzy and cuddly, positively huggable but they can move right along when the amazingly well trained sheep dogs are nipping at their heels. Up close it's not quite the same. I don't think sheep want to be hugged. They certainly don't look like they're enjoying it when the shepherds (or sheep wranglers) hug them very close to sheer them. Also, before that sheering, their wool is often full of burrs and stickers and also loaded with lanolin which makes for lovely warm pretty much water proof sweaters for people who live in the far north, but really doesn't make for a very huggable creature. For that matter, they aren't very huggable sweaters. While we he were dating, I bought my soon to be husband a lovely natural wool sweater. That's when I learned that he was allergic to wool. Happily, I had kept the receipt. By the way, my west coast brother actually owns some sheep and I've never seen him hugging them.
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