Fuzzies and Buzzies

My granddaughter, almost six months now, adores her soft-stuffed black-and-yellow bumblebee.  Her little buzzy has a Velcro loop to attach to the car seat or stroller. In her first months, she fixated on Mr. Bee like a best friend.  Today she takes an interest in other things, but I told her mother to set the bee aside as a future keepsake.  Doesn’t everybody wish they still had their first stuffed animal?  Well, I sure do, and mine was more fuzzy than buzzy.

“Baa-a-a-a!”

Nope, not a bear.  Not a dog, not a cat, a fox or a tiger.  My one-and-only stuffed animal was a lamb.  An off-white fuzz-filled plush-soft domesticated farm critter, about 12″ head to hooves.  I named him “Lambie”.  We were inseparable for years.

I’m not here to revisit childhood memories (though it’s remarkable how a cherished wooly companion comes back to mind).  Instead, I want to give sheep their due.  I think sheep are one of the world’s most overlooked animals.  At the farm, everyone pretty much skips the bleating balls of fluff in favor of the more interesting horses, cows, and pigs.  At the zoo it’s the lions, tigers, and bears instead.  And I get it.  Timid, fuzzy herbivores just don’t inspire awe.  So how about instead, we take a look at what you don’t know about sheep:

“Hey! I like ewe!”
  • They have rectangular pupils.  I’ve always thought it was cool how horses can see to the left and right without moving their heads.  Sheep have it even better; a full 270 degrees of vision, meaning the only thing they can’t see is what’s directly behind them.
  • They’re more intelligent than you think.  Sheep can retain the details of fifty faces – human or otherwise – and recall them two years later (no idea how we know this).  They can also be led through a maze and then solve it on their own the second time around, probably because…
  • They have an excellent sense of smell, thanks to scent glands in front of their eyes and in their hooves.  Sheep can leave their scent behind as a sort of trail of bread crumbs while on the move.
  •  They self-medicate.  I’m not pulling the wool over your eyes here.  Sheep can identify plants and other substances having no nutritional value but with healing properties.  They also pass this information on to their offspring.

Now let’s change the channel to what you already know about sheep.  They are followers in every sense of the word (hence the label for like-minded humans).  They are timid, easily led, and never without their flocks.  Just watch this speedy video to see how our fuzzy friends stick together.

Sheep have little ability to defend themselves (how would they when they’re essentially balls of fluff on sticks?)  As a result, they’re in constant fear of their predators. In fact, sheep are so much “flight” versus “fight”, they sometimes die of self-inflicted panic attacks.

Care about them or not, sheep find their way into the narrative.  If not a lamb for a stuffed animal, you learned nursery rhymes like “Baa Baa Black Sheep” (have you any wool?), “Mary Had a Little Lamb”, and “Little Bo Peep” (has lost her sheep).  Maybe you’ve counted sheep (jumping over fences) while trying to fall asleep.  Or listened to Bach’s “Sheep May Safely Graze” while trying to relax.  Dodge’s best-selling truck is the “Ram” and  Los Angeles’s NFL team is the “Rams”.  Most noteworthy, in 1996 an ewe named “Dolly” became the first mammal of any kind cloned from a single cell.  Do sheep matter?  You bet your shears they do.

So if you’re sheepish I say, “Be proud to be so!”  If you’re something of a black sheep I say, “Consider yourself ‘outstanding'”!  And if you’re like me, a dyed-in-the-wool fan of fluff balls on sticks, choose fuzzies over buzzies every time.

Some content sourced from the BCSPCA article, “10 fun facts about sheep”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

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Author: Dave

Five hundred posts would suggest I have something to say… This blog was born from a desire to elevate the English language, highlighting eloquent words from days gone by. The stories I share are snippets of life itself, and each comes with a bonus: a dusted-off word I hope you’ll go on to use more often. Read “Deutschland-ish Improvements” to learn about my backyard European wish list. Try “Slush Fun” for the throwback years of the 7-Eleven convenience store. Or drink in "Iced Coffee" to discover the plight of the rural French cafe. On the lighter side, read "Late Night Racquet Sports" for my adventures with our latest moth invasion. As Walt Whitman said, “That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.” Here then, my verse. Welcome to Life In A Word.

26 thoughts on “Fuzzies and Buzzies”

  1. This is the sweetest thing I’ve read today. I like sheep, always have, but didn’t know the information you share here. I know that I often describe myself as the black sheep of the family and will continue to do so with a renewed sense of being sheepishly awesome.

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    1. Aw, nice compliment there, Ally – thanks. Like we were saying last week, I just looked at my granddaughter and her bee and next thing I knew I was wrapping up a complete blog post.

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  2. We still have a fuzzy sheep that was my husband’s. I just asked him about it and he says all he remembers is that he wanted to play with it, but his mom wouldn’t let him! It is in mint condition!

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    1. Sheep are even cuter as stuffed animals, so good Christmas gift idea there. Not so sure about Lego – it would take a lot of little pieces to make a sheep that actually looks like a sheep!

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  6. That video was amazing Dave – thank you for sharing it. It reminds me of a murmuration of Starlings. There are some videos on YouTube of hundreds of Starlings swooping and swirling in the skies and it’s like the sheep video, you couldn’t choreograph it better than what happens in nature and instincts. As a child, I got to pick just a couple of items for Christmas – I was not a spoiled only child, but I would pore over the Christmas catalog for hours. 🙂 I announced I wanted a farm set for Christmas. My parents asked me why and suggested a dolly would be nicer. They didn’t buy that coveted farm set, but many years later, as an adult, a box appeared under the Christmas tree with a note “something you always wanted” so I shook it and could feel pieces rattling around in the box. But had no clue … I laughed when I opened it and it was the first present I opened. At Heritage Park, I peek over the fence at the petting farm all the time to watch the animals, especially the goats who are vocal and the sheep that baaa contently. Thanks for this enjoyable look at your childhood and favorite toys. P.S. – I am a black sheep as I’ve always liked marching to the beat of a different drum.

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    1. “March to the beat of a different drum” sounds so much nicer than “black sheep” – good on you, Linda! Love the story about finally getting the toy you always wanted. Another example of how wiser comes with older 🙂

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      1. Yes, it is good to be a free thinker. 🙂 You daren’t do that when you are younger as you MUST be just like your peers. Age has its rewards. It was a big surprise to open that box as I had long ago given up hope of getting a farm set. I didn’t get the farm duds like Mr. Green Jeans though. I meant to tell you I thought your title was clever!

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  7. My best friend has her stuffed animal “Betty” and I swear it’s a sheep but she claims it’s a dog haha. So whenever I see a sheep I send her a pic and say I saw Betty 🙂 That is sad about their panic attacks, poor things. They are overlooked but cute in their own way.

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    1. Those kinds of inside jokes are pure gold. It’s almost better not to let others in on the story and just carry on as if sending a friend tons of sheep pics is totally normal 🙂

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    1. The same was true when we were in Ireland, although we were surprised to learn there are more cows than sheep. My image of Ireland – rock walls, green grass, and sheep.

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  9. Our granddaughter, Kavya, has a Coco, her teddy bear. She takes it everywhere and even came here in August. Our daughter and family live in Germany. Her brother , Advaith, is 10 and he has long outgrown Winnie the Pooh and is now Kavyas. It was nice to read your post. We don’t see sheep in our part of the country. Regards, Lakshmi

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  10. This was a cute read and I learned something new. (Also, I imagined the person whose job it was to lead a sheep through a maze! Probably the same person who hid behind the sheep’s back and tested whether it could see him! Sounds like a fun job!)

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    1. My wife and I just learned there are three million people in Wales but over ten million sheep! Must take a lot of shepherds to keep all those fuzzies in line. Maybe that’s where the sheep maze is.

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  11. I learned lots about sheep today – I love this kind of information that is totally irrelevant to my daily life and survival. It seems to be the only kind I can remember anymore.

    I have memories of a night light that plugged into the wall, and which had a plastic lamb that diffused the light. It was too hot to be cuddly, but it was an easy way to count sheep for a kid too young to count. 🙂

    Now you have me wondering why there could not be a comic strip about two sheep, one large and one small. They could call it Mutton Jeff. Sorry.

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    1. Good one! If only the next generation or two understood that joke. Notice I didn’t go anywhere near “mutton” in my post. Thought it best to keep the subject matter kid-friendly.

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  12. Enjoyed this lesson about sheep, so much to learn! And the video was great. My childhood stuffed animal was a cocker spaniel, think Lady from Disney’s Lady and the Tramp. She went on to live with a cousin’s daughter.

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