Doctor Doctor, give me the news….

He had a bad case of too much wool! But it was certainly no singing, or laughing, matter for this dear boy. Having been intermittently spotted traversing multiple properties over a period of time, the Good Samaritans knew that without an intervention of kindness, the wily old ram’s future was bleak at best.

With the call made to Edgar’s Mission, our Rescue Team set out over hilly and rocky terrain in the hopes of sighting the elusive sheep. Our collective hearts fell as he came into view for not only was he carrying the burden of many years’ worth of wool, at first sight of us he fled, proving we were right to have donned our running shoes.

Through a combination of teamwork, fast feet, sheer luck and the poor sheep’s inability to shoulder the burden of his heavy wool any longer, it was with elation that we eventually reigned him in. He was soon ferried to our awaiting vehicle but not before a long strand of barbed wire was found painfully embedded within his many layers of fleece and swiftly removed.

Christened The Doctor upon his arrival back at our sanctuary, his prescription was promptly dispensed – a much needed haircut and a whole lot of kindness.

Whilst a date with a real doctor in still on the cards (to surgically castrate him with anaesthetic and pain relief in line with our no breeding policy) it seems that whilst we were able to alleviate The Doctor’s immediate woes, befriending him and convincing him we are indeed the good guys will take some time yet.

But time is something we are more than happy to give him as, having been wronged by our kind in the past, he deserves nothing less. The Doctor’s story reminds us all that we are indeed “responsible for what we have tamed”. The wild mouflon, from which The Doctor and his kind have, throughout the ages, been selectively bred, did fine on their own—navigating rocky terrain, dodging predators and shedding their hair annually according to the seasons. But not so today; they rely on humans for sustenance, shelter and shearing, and failure on any of these fronts oft times proves fatal for animals.