Maybe I have worked with the sheep too long.
We have a set of bottle fed twins who are socialized to people, but not sheep. We moved them to the best pasture with few other sheep so they didn’t have to compete with the rest of the flock for food. When I went to visits them they ran over to me and led me to the water. They showed me that while they were tall enough to reach over the rim of the tub, they couldn’t reach the water. They looked up at me and I swear they said “fix it.” I found a cement block for them to stand on so they could drink.
When my daughter Bodge went to feed this afternoon, one of our larger older ewes was missing so Bodge went searching, calling to her. She is the most dominant of the ewes, so she doesn’t have to rush to eat, she can just push the others out of the way. After a bit, she could hear hear the ewe calling back. Finally the ewe came around the corner from the ram pen, no part of which can be seen from either the pasture or the barn. Bodge swears she was laughing.
Are we anthropomorphizing them or are we learning to speak sheep?