We’ll be in trouble if Fate gets her hands on the toolbox.
She is the most intelligent dog I’ve had since Rose, and she is a problem solver, keen observer, and schemer.
She always wants to be out near the sheep, so she has somehow figured out how to open the inner back door and slide out. We have not yet figured out she does this; we have never seen her do it.
When we are downstairs, she’s the perfect angel. She often manages to get out if we are upstairs or I am in my office.
But Fate doesn’t want to go anywhere. She always goes to the same place and the gate leading to the sheep. We lock the door, so even she can’t get out in cold or rainy weather. I worry sometimes she’ll get out and spend the night out there, but she’d love that.
But whenever we don’t see her or can’t find her, we know where to look. She is always in the exact same spot, waiting for some work. When I go up to sleep, I always look to make sure she’s still in the house.
I remember you saying that you had a webcam on the sheep when they were ready to give birth. Could you place that camera in a spot that ‘sees’ the gate? If you don’t have it, let me tell you how much fun it was for us to sett some Blink units in our suburban yard. We were preparing to TNR a feral cat that was pregnant (Trap-Neuter-Return). We needed to know about her comings and goings when we were not at home. The cameras caught much more than just her and it was so much fun to see the wildlife in our yard. I betcha when you do that, you will be on to Faith! And see what other critters visit your property when you are not looking… Blinks are units that are run on regular batteries. They are triggered by movement. They have an additional unit you plug in inside the house with the option of a USB key where clips are backed up. More expensive, but with a better interface, are Nest units, but they only come wired. You can still set them outside though. We did, with long cables, and never had any trouble with them. The advantage of the Nest units is that they are basically always on (you can set a time window for them to switch on and off). They also react to triggers but you could look at a whole night, if you wanted to. I am not a sales person for either brand, by the way, just passing the names on because they worked best for us out of many other brands.
I don’t have one Nicky, it wasn’t me…
Maybe her name should be Houdini