Duncan's Update

Last week was a busy one for us. Part of that was a herding session for Duncan Thursday morning. We spent our time working on tending. Duncan sis very nicely with the added distraction of Claire’s dog, Brick, running the sheep towards the boundary and generally creating a mess (at Claire’s direction, so that Duncan would be forced to work more). Duncan was quick to push the sheep back inside the graze, but he didn’t get the least bit agitated when Brick would run the sheep around inside the graze. That’s a good thing, since the tending dog isn’t allowed to enter the graze. Granted, that restriction would likely be lifted if, say, a fox suddenly popped up in the middle of the flock and started causing trouble. But in general, you don’t want the tending dog to get wound up over what’s going on inside the graze. We decided we really need to work on forcing Duncan to turn around and retrace his steps, rather than constantly going all the way around the graze. He doesn’t seem to realize that he’s allowed to go both directions, and only half-way, if that’s the easiest thing to do. He did start limping a bit while we were working. I’ll be happy when we can finally get to the vet school for an evaluation. I think. Depending on what they find.