Ewe Won’t Believe This!

Did you hear the one about a pet dog which saved the life of a newborn lamb?  Snow joke.  When smallholder Pip Samuel from Newbridge-on-Wye in Powys came across the lamb “frozen to the ground”, he presumed the newborn was dead and put the lifeless body into his truck.  Not so fast.  Freddie, Mr Samuel’s terrier, wasn’t convinced and started licking the baby lamb.  As he did, Mr Samuel noticed the lamb’s stomach started to move as it began to breathe.  Realising the lamb was still alive, Mr Samuel took it home.  He put it into a small box, gave it a wee dram of whisky to help revive it, then placed it in a spot near the fireplace so that it could thaw out.  All the while, Freddie remained by the lamb’s side nursing it back to health.  According to Mr Samuel, the lamb’s mother gave birth to twins.  After the first lamb was born, the mother left it in the freezing conditions to give birth to the twin.  “As she gave birth to the second lamb in those conditions, the mother must have left it and it became frozen to the ground,” said Mr Samuel, who has 45 ewes in all.  “I had to lever it up from the straw.  Its joints were frozen and I assumed it was dead.” But thanks to the remarkable efforts of Freddie, the lamb, which has been named Frieda in honour of its saviour, recovered from its ordeal and has been reunited with its mother. All together now Baaaahhhh!