Better Living Through Pharmaceuticals

Last night was our group herding lesson. We had so much fun! One of the girls brought cupcakes for a belated birthday treat, which was a great way to start the evening. I’d given Duncan a couple of doses of Rimadyl before herding, and it made such a huge difference from the last time we were there. It was obvious to everyone that Duncan felt a lot better. He was laid back and relaxed, but his tail was wagging the entire time. He was so relaxed, in fact, that even though we had some really light sheep during our last two runs, he was able to keep everyone calm and moving at a reasonable pace (rather than the all-out running I’d expected). We worked on moving the sheep around the arena, stopping at gates, putting the sheep in a pen and getting them back out again. We had a couple of minor incidents – the first was when Duncan went into the pen to get the sheep out and he got a little grabby. I noticed later that one of the sheep was bleeding, but I don’t think it was all Duncan (apparently, the dog running before him had also been grabby). During our first run with the really light sheep, one of them bolted while we were trying to pen them. The stupid thing managed to run itself directly into the fence and then basically bounced backward into Duncan. I was still at the pen and couldn’t see exactly what happened, but everyone else did. We all agreed its not Duncan’s fault if a sheep essentially puts itself in Duncan’s mouth. I think he was just as startled by it as everyone else… The great thing was that a couple of minutes later, Duncan was able to go back into the arena and walk those same sheep around with no trouble at all. I was so pleased with how our evening went, and it was so wonderful to see Duncan happy about herding again. If a little Rimadyl has such a dramatic effect on him, we might actually be able to get back into regular training. I’m not going to push for any trials by the end of the year, but maybe next Spring…