Dear CK: Sheep are so plentiful in New Zealand that the loss of a few doesn't hurt as bad as it would in UK.I remember reading about a couple million NZ sheep being slaughtered and buried because there just too damned many of them.To be sure many unpedigreed sheep dogs are very good. But if I were going to buy a young one, the Border collies are more likely to be satisfactory. I miss my wife, but I don't miss her sheep.

Dear WW: In Massachusetts, there are no more packs of stray dogs. The problem now is coyotes. A couple of my wife's friends had llamas, but they had a problem of being mean, and kicking kids. My wife had a Maremma, a huge Italian breed, that was a disappointment, in that he would desert his post to visit a female poodle who could have walked under his belly without touching him. Ain't love grand?