A Sheep in the Bathroom

And, now for something different…(As they say)

I have just read an article about this “heavily overgrown sheep” that was found roaming the hills. (Actually I don’t think it’s the sheep that is overgrown, it’s his/her fleece, but let’s not quibble).

The RSPCA has “put out an urgent call for a sheep shearer.”

The sheep “is so woolly its life is at risk, as sheep can develop serious medical conditions if they are not regularly shorn”

(and here follows the cruncher):.

"It can actually make it impossible for them to go to the bathroom…”

Well, I don’t know about you, but I was unaware that sheep ever went to a bathroom! Do they?

It reminds me about a suggestion in an online veterinary site that I visited when my little dog seemed unwell. Having been stung before by a huge bill from the local vet when I last sought advice (A $55 visit fee + $99 for some drops to cure her ‘arthritis’ that turned out to be a pulled muscle in a hind leg), I searched the Internet for a solution to the dog’s latest problem and was advised to ‘look closely at what she leaves behind when she goes to the bathroom’.

What? But my dog never ‘goes to the bathroom’. Our bathroom is out-of-bounds for her (as is our bedroom).

Whatever does that mean?

Oh, I get it – it’s the American way of saying ‘goes to toilet’, which is the Australian way of saying the plain, ‘passes some faeces’…or ‘does a poo’ or even ‘shit’ (sorry!)

What is this all about?

You can watch a movie or a tv show, or read a book that will describe all manner of human and animal biological function in plain words. If you are that way inclined you can view some pretty grotesque images and listen to graphic expressions about all manner of basic – and base – activities, but it seems that to utter a description of a sheep’s need to use its appropriate orifice to eject poo is unacceptable.

In the USA people shoot others seemingly at random. That’s almost acceptable as a daily occurrence. (Every year in the U.S. an average of more than 100,000 people are shot… each day an average of 289 people, eighty-six of whom die). It must be okay to allow that to happen – and to me, that’s an obscenity. But when a vet wishes to advise on a dog’s health, to say  ‘check the dog’s faeces/poo’, that’s considered too rude or obscene, so the wording is about checking when the dog ‘has been to the bathroom’.

Is this crazy or what?

Just saying.

And I sincerely hope that someone has shorn that sheep. Not to allow it to ‘go to the bathroom’, but to allow the poor animal to live its sheepish life in comfort.