Rattle your dags, would ya?

In a country chock-full of fabulous tidbits of Kiwi slang, “rattle your dags” is one of my all-time favourites. (“Dags” being, literally, the dried-up bits of poop hanging from a sheep’s bum, and the expression “rattle your dags” – natch - deriving from the view one gets of the back of a sheep running.) In Canada, we might politely say “hurry up” or “shake a leg” or “get a move on” but rattle your dags is so much more fun, no?

This picture, taken en route to the Southern Alps, also brings to mind another of my favourite sheep jokes - you know the kind - where the sheep are always so much more than just a source of income for the average Kiwi farmer:

When a busload of tourists was passing through a small country town in New Zealand, one of the passengers noticed a sheep tied to a lamppost. “What's that?” she asked. “Oh, that? That’s the recreation centre!” the guide replied.