Episode 1 - Xarlos opens the gate!

There was something wrong. He just walked around his pen as if in a daze. He was off his feed completely and seemed, well, constipated. He wasn't sleeping and somehow, always looked sad, as if to say, "Why'd you do this to me?" It made me sad to see him this way.

The doctor said it was "normal" and was nothing more or less than what could/should have been expected! "After all," he said, "you can't keep shrinking his pen without him catching on at some point and when he does, he won't be particularly happy with the idea.

And so it was that after several sleepless nights of my own, I calmly walked out to the pen one morning and opened the gate. I leaned up against a fence-post, eyes glistening in tear-squelching mode. He looked up, looked at the open gate, startled, and then just as startled back at me. There were no words. I could see it in his eyes and he in mine. A tear rolled gently down his cheek and he looked again at the open gate. He looked back at me, and all I could do was take off my hat and say, "Vaya con queso, amigo." He turned and slowly shuffled out the gate. The shuffle turned into an amble, the amble to a trot and the trot to a full gallop - never looking back.

Oh, I catch glimpses of him ever now and then especially while he's feeding on the profuse squatage and/or lapping from the stream of total absurdity. And he looks - happy. But I will never again make the mistake of trying to break a free-range brain.