Tolkkinen: Anyone missing a sheep?

Brad the sheep has been spotted at a gas station, a soccer field and in multiple yards in Two Harbors.

Then the young ram headed south along Lake Superior and was reported 27 miles away in Duluth, including on the grounds of Glensheen mansion, where police officers tried their best to capture it.

But Brad proved wilier than Duluth’s finest. Not that they should feel bad. For two weeks, he’s also outsmarted wolves and coyotes, avoided vehicles and eluded two animal rescuers including an experienced shepherdess.

Shana Roberts, who volunteers with the Two Harbors animal shelter, said she spent four hours one day in someone’s yard trying to coax Brad close enough that she could drop a rope around his neck.

“Look at me. I’m here to help you,” she told him. “I tried telling him that last week, but he looked at me like I was crazy.”

Brad has been stirring up local interest since the day after Halloween. That’s when Roberts first heard about him. An ardent animal lover, she took on his cause, but it hasn’t been easy. One day she heard that he’d been sighted at the local soccer field, but just an hour or so later, her aunt called her saying that he was at her place about three miles away.

“He’s a quick fella,” she said. Roberts is the one who named him Brad. Because Br-a-a-a-d.

When sheep sightings began to come in from Duluth, she drove down there, but he had always moved on, and she encountered thick shrubbery that he could easily blend into.

On Facebook, North Shore residents have been keeping track. He’d been spotted on London Road. He was on 61 by the Knife River Bridge. He was at the Lake Breeze Motel on Congdon Boulevard. There were Bo Peep jokes. “Sheepers!” someone exclaimed. “RUN BRAD RUN!” someone else urged.

Nobody knows how a sheep ended up by his lonesome along the North Shore. Nobody has claimed him and there aren’t any significant sheep operations in the area.

Travis Hoffman, a sheep specialist and associate professor at North Dakota State University and the University of Minnesota, (whose phone number ends with 2222, or “Baaa,” he said, no kidding), said that judging by photos posted on social media, Brad the sheep is young, maybe a year or so old. He looks like he was last sheared about six months ago. His breed wasn’t immediately apparent. He could be a Shetland or a Romeldale, or possibly a cross-breed. An identifying ear tag that could trace his origins appears to be missing.

All sheep need, he said, is grass and water, so as long as Brad can forage, he’ll be fine.

Hoffman offered advice for would-be sheep nabbers. A lone sheep will see humans as predators and will move away from them. So if you want a sheep to go right, approach from the left. (This could be useful, as you never know where livestock will turn up. When I was a teenager in Plymouth, I came home to find a pig sleeping by our house.)

Get the sheep into a fenced-in backyard or into a garage, he advised. Don’t try anything goofy like pulling on a fleece and getting onto all fours (my idea). A well-trained sheep dog could round up Brad in a hurry. Also, as sheep like to hang out in flocks, a few bait sheep might entice him into a pen.

Good things have come out of this. For one thing, Roberts never expected to find herself on a wild sheep chase with a woman, Kelsey Rogers, she’d never met before, who actually owns sheep and was able to teach her a thing or two. She has met all sorts of kind people who have given her their numbers and granted permission to set up a mobile fence on their land. Several people have offered to take care of Brad until his rightful family can be found.

Roberts said she’s been staying up at night worrying about Brad. Which, of course, is the opposite of what sheep are supposed to do.

The last official sighting of Brad was Tuesday. That’s when Kalika Pukema, a patrol officer with University of Minnesota-Duluth Police Department, reported to a call about a sheep in the parking lot of Glensheen mansion.

By the time she and two other officers got there, it had moved through the gardens and was hanging around nearby woods. They stumbled around in the thicket for an hour before it vanished into a nearby ravine. They gave up the chase, not wanting to pressure it onto nearby London Road. With its dirty coat, it was hard to see among the trees and vegetation.

“It was very motivated to get away from us,” she said.

UMD Police Chief Sean Huls said Brad had been spotted in the Lakeside area the day before. But there haven’t been any calls since Tuesday.

Here’s to a happy ending for Brad the sheep.