Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/03/05/dog-is-on-duty-to-protect-shee.html
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I’m going to try so desperately not to be pedantic here…
That dog is not trying to nap. She’s exposing her belly to the sheep to make friends. She’s snapping at their necks (without actually biting them) to play with them. When they don’t reciprocate, she exposes her soft underbelly to say “hey, I’m just playin’ y’all. See? You can play with me if you want. I’m cool.”
Generally labs/retrievers (the one in this video looks like shepherd/lab cross (my sister has one just like it)) are not used as shepherding dogs, because they’re too loony, too playful, too goofy to keep tabs on the herd.
Please don’t mistake this for man-splaining. I’m merely speaking from a farming perspective (which has a fast-growing female component here in SW Ontario).
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Human-splaining. 
Our dog did this for a puppy recently. The puppy had stepped on him and was on the receiving end of a rather loud bark. The puppy was surprised and retreated so our dog did the belly exposing thing to try to reassure the puppy that things were fine.
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Its a Kangal, a iirc south eastern european flock-guard dog.
They are extremely independend but human friendly at the same time from my experience with them. They do need freedom to move around, run and work a bit like all sheepguard/herding dogs.
As there is not always a shephard with them they have a little higher huntingurge for smaller critters i.e. cats, rabits etc. as dinner.
If you though introduce an animal into the flock/herd they are normaly pretty safe.
They tend to shed a lot during spring in my experience. They also get huge, up to a meter in shoulderhight iirc.
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Fuckin’ A; I miss scheduled nap time.
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I miss my daughter’s nap time.
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I just bet.
It sucks when the little ones no longer give you that much needed break.
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Mine’s not too bad if I tell her it’s quiet time. She’s 4 and autistic and generally a very easy going, happy kid.
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My boy quit napping at 18 months. Color me jelly.
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We have “toes up time” at our house (a concept borrowed from friends with kids older than our son). You don’t have to sleep but your toes need to be up off the floor with you on the bed. Much needed downtime that sometimes leads to a nap for the son, always leads to a nap for me.
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