OK, you probably remember the hit movie Dances With Wolves.

Coming soon to an animal advocacy movie screen near you: Sleepovers With Sheep!

As part of a summer-long program designed and funded by a national wolf-protectionist organization, field workers armed with radio-tracking gear, air horns and blank-firing starter pistols will be spending overnights with sheep herds in the central Idaho mountains.

Be advised, my good Newshound readers, I wouldn’t fleece you about this.

As part of the $25,000 Defenders of Wildlife program aimed at reducing wolf depredation on domestic sheep herds during this summer’s high country grazing season, the dedicated wolf lovers will spend nights in the field, accompanying herders and Great Pyrenees guard dogs.

By the way, it should come as no surprise that Defenders of Wildlife thinks air horns and popguns are preferred tools at managing livestock- and game-killing predators. It is the same group that has opposed the planned 2008 wolf quotas and hunting seasons that have been recently approved by the state wildlife agencies of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.

In addition, the organization is one of the primary litigants in a lawsuit that seeks to reinstate federal protection for the species under the Endangered Species Act, effectively blocking the proposed hunts.

The gray wolf in the northern Rocky Mountains was officially delisted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this past March, and the management of the species was transferred to each appropriate state fish and wildlife agency.