A lady runner involuntarily became the shepherdess of an eager flock of sheep, and it’s not something we see every day.
A video has surfaced where a flock of more than 100 sheep chooses to follow a random runner as their new leader.
The herd of lost sheep in a corner of France seemed to hold the free-spirited runner responsible for having misled them.
Eleanor Scholz, a tourist from California, visiting France with her boyfriend, was out to enjoy a little hike in the countryside. Suddenly, she heard the ‘baaing’ of sheep and saw a huge number of them approaching.
The sight of hundreds of sheep approaching her was intriguing. “It took me a moment to understand what I was seeing,” Eleanor told The Dodo.
“At first, I thought maybe she was a shepherd, but she wasn’t dressed like any shepherd I’d ever seen, and it seemed unusual that a shepherd would be running.”
Eleanor was concerned about the woman. She got off the trail, stepped behind a tree, and called out to the runner. The runner stopped by to chat.
“When she stopped to talk with me, all of the sheep stopped and waited for her, and that’s when I realized that something truly whimsical was happening,” Eleanor said.
The runner wondered if the sheep may have gotten lost and needed a guide desperately, so they ended up following her, and she unintentionally became their new leader. When the women were chatting, some sheep got curious and approached Eleanor”
“Some of them immediately walked over to me, and I was worried they’d start following me instead. But they stood there patiently while she and I talked. They didn’t seem stressed or particularly winded, it was the funniest thing.”
The runner made a plan to help the sheep get back to their home. She recalled seeing some pastures and ran back the way she came hoping the real owner would call out to the lost sheep. The sheep eagerly followed their new leader once more.
Given that each sheep had a painted mark, finding the owner wouldn’t be so hard, the runner thought. She didn’t seem bothered or upset but rather determined to find their home.
“She seemed resigned to her new role as [a] shepherdess and left me with the impression that she would figure it out and find somewhere safe for them,” Scholz said.
When it was time for the runner to continue with her jog, the sheep continued to follow her as they were before.
“The few sheep who had been checking me out as a possible new shepherd changed their minds when they saw their friends start to leave—ultimately the whole flock stuck together and followed the runner off down the trail,” Eleanor said.
We wonder if the lost sheep finally found their home. “I’d love to know the whole story, but I only got a brief glimpse of her wild sheep encounter and am happy just to have been able to witness it,” said Eleanor.
Eleanor took the fascinating encounter to her Instagram account and got an impressive 31.2M views and 1.2M likes. People went crazy over it. One of the users wrote, “She looks like she knows where she’s going… We will follow her,”.
