On tonight's run, we got attacked by sheep. Yes, you read that right - attacked by sheep!
I drove out to Knowsley Lane and Ruby and I set off for a run around Angkezarke. As usual, Ruby did her 'business' not long after we started running. I know from past experience that, despite there being a sign up on the entrance to the Anglezarke trails telling you to put litter/dog poo in the 'bins provided', there are in fact no bins. I therefore bagged up the poo and left it in a safe place. I hear you getting angry now as I do when I see poo bags all over the place but - I PICKED IT UP ON MY WAY BACK!!!! I ran over 6 miles and didn't pass a single bin so I'm glad I made the decision to store it safely as it would not have been at all fun to run with.
Anyway, back to the run... and the sheep! We ran around the Anglezarke woodland trails and then on to Waterman's Cottage, where we crossed the road and ran to White Coppice on the track which runs along the left hand side of the goit with a fenced off farm field on the left. All was well and good. It wasn't until we crossed the goit and got onto the path which runs parallel back to Waterman's Cottage when things started to get a bit scary.
There was a sheep, with horns, and it's lamb on our right hand side. Usually sheep just run away but this one wasn't for moving. It turned on us. It went to butt Ruby but I dragged her back. We couldn't get past it and it kept trotting along at the side of us and then turning on us and going to butt Ruby, who wasn't at all bothered by the way and still wanted to chase it. For me, on the other hand, it was quite frightening and I didn't really know what to do. I am told with cows you should let your dog off the lead so the cow goes after them not you (don't worry, the dog will escape fine) but I wasn't so sure with sheep as I knew that if I let Ruby off she would start terrorising them and probably end up getting shot by the farmer. I just stopped running and tried to get the sheep to go away, which eventually it did. We then carried on along the path and there was a huge group of sheep and lambs ahead of us. They started to run off as we approached. Well, all but one of them did. The hardy one, again with horns, turned round and started running towards us. I stopped and started walking backwards and then the sheep stopped. Every time I tried to move forward though, it turned back on us. I ended up hauling ass over a wall and throwing Ruby over it too. It must have been a hilarious thing for any passerby to see, although I think I'm in the clear there as I didn't see anyone else around. I ended up covered in mud from picking up Ruby, which somehow managed to get all over my face and hair too.
We eventually came back out at Watermans Cottage and headed back for Anglezarke. There is a short stretch of field you have to go through which always has sheep in it so I was a bit nervous about running through after what had just happened. We went through and as we got half way, about 9 or 10 lambs came running towards us really happily. They didn't seem afraid of Ruby at all who was dragging out on the lead to get to them. Their parents, however, did seem concerned. They started running over to get their lambs away from us. Luckily none of them got violent and concentrated more on getting the lambs away from us rather than us away from the lambs.
I've never had a problem with sheep before, even when running amongst them and their lambs, but this is the first time I have done it with Ruby and I won't be doing it again any time soon!
We headed back to the car but of course not without picking the poo bag back up on the way!
Total distance - 6.2 miles
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