In the year of our son’s school enrolment, we desperately needed a lure to convince him that going to a regular school might be acceptable. Fortunately, my friend Katja’s bitch “Nanu” had just had puppies at that time (2010), and Katja favoured me as a future owner one of these delightful Sheltie puppies. Einstein’s real name “It’s not a trick at all”, and he comes from the Shamrock Shelties line. He is simply the sweetest Sheltie in the world. He knows a multitude of tricks and has at least as many nicknames. His tendency to vocalize (isn’t that a wonderful expression for barking?) clearly teaches us to carefully choose the right training steps. A wonderful companion who lives up to his reputation as a fortune cookie. He even has his own Instagram account to make more people smile.

Here is another member of the Steigerwald household who came as a buddy. Since Shelties’ playing behavior differs noticeable from that of other dogs, and Einstein consequently avoids playmates who display even remote tendencies of rudeness in their behavior, I sought for a second dog of this breed. Jupiter “Dazzler lütt Jung vom Reiterwappen” (2014) moved in at our place, perfectly socialized, aged ten weeks. However, our two dogs could not have come with a more differing personality. Jupiter is a real daredevil and a power package. In agility he is at his best, so that I have to train signal control very well indeed to be able to run at a greater distance from him. As human-oriented as he is, he always likes to snuggle up to people.

Our sheep are meditation helpers. Anyone who has ever sat in a group of sheep and hand-groomed their wonderful soft sheepskin knows what I am writing about. We try to provide the best possible living conditions: they live in an open stable, are shorn once a year, their grain food comes from an organic farmer from the surrounding area. They also graze and fertilize our hay meadows. Whenever I can spare the time I also milk them and make delicious cheese. If only the days had more hours, there would certainly be cool training videos with sheep!

A good 10 dwarf chickens, Sebrights and Sebright hybrids, and 20 laying hybrids, accompanied by Sule cock „Kalle“ live on Hof Steigerwald.

Although I had been keeping chickens for years, I was very impressed by the performance of the poultry when I startet do attend Chicken Camps. One student once said, “I feel ashamed in the face of the fact how easily we classify animals as stupid. And it’s only because we never really tried to communicate with them.” Chickens are great teachers who teach us the principles of operant conditioning in a very impressive way.

The dwarf chickens live outdoors, the big chickens have a trail like our ponies and can switch between two trails. They are also supplied with organic feed from the region and live a life with space, light, air and movement.