The Shep and the city kid

I am in the process of working on a musical play called "Savior of the World." In it we have one live animal: a sheep (in fact it's a female sheep - is that called a beep? A female dog is called a bitc...never mind). This cute little shep (singular sheep) got really excited today and pooed and peed all over stage. So the handler (this older woman who's hair curled like the beep's hair), comes up to me and hands me the urine soaked leash and says "Here hold this." She then walks away to go clean up the mess on stage.

Let's break for a moment. I am a city kid. The only sheep I have ever saw were at the Oakland zoo and in picture books. And in neither place were they under my control. They were either roaming free eating pellets from my hands or pretty stationary in the books.

I'm am responsible for the sound microphones that the actors wear. (For some reason actors call them selves "The talent" but I'd like to see them program a light board or EQ a sound board...but I digress.) So there I am with my microphones and this cute little beep. Some one wanders over to pet it and the shep gets excited again. Out comes some of breakfast. This the beep does right infront of my mic table. So I strengthen my grip on the leash and move her to an out of the way place.

The handler comes back and some one points out the additional poo. The frustrated handler goes to get scooper stuff (I think that's the technical term for paper towels and water). After scooping the poopie she comes to me (the handler, not the beep). I point out that the Shep had peed on the carpet. "Can you tech's do nothing??" She growls at me. I wanted to say, "We could if you brought diapers for your shep," but I held my tongue. Instead I said "Well I was going to take her out side but I wasn't sure how to get her back in."

"You can't take her outside!!! She doesn't have her coat on! Do you know nothing about animals???"

"No, I'm a city kid."

"Well then what are you doing in Idaho?? "

Before I could get a response out this woman screams in horror, "You let it eat the carpet?? How could you let it eat the carpet!!!"

I couldn't resist, "It was hungry."

At this point the lady just looked at me, yanked the leash out of my hand and took the shep out of the mic staging area. I went and washed my hands trying not to laugh at my experience with the cute little shep. But that handler - man, what a beep.