Posts from — September 2008

“Joe” is just too close to “Gel” and it’s confusing to the dogs.  When Gel was used as stud for a local bitch I had planned to take a male puppy and his name was to be “Cian.”

In Irish mythology, Cian (/kʲiːən/ “ancient, distant”), son of Dian Cecht of the Tuatha Dé Danann, is best known as the father of Lug by the Fomorian princess Ethniu.

According to legend, he was born with a caul (a membrane enclosing the paunch of mammals, particularly as in pork and mutton butchery) on his head, and was turned into a pig as a boy when struck by a druid’s wand. Thereafter he could transform into a pig at will. In other versions he could transform into a dog.

I think Cian would be a good name for this dog so he is now re-named.

I love my instructor.  I wrote her yesterday telling her I was getting scared about running Gel in Open-Ranch this weekend.  She wrote back: “YOU WILL DO FINE IN OR - don’t worry about it. Dogs in Open don’t get the outwork and Gel will do fine - he does a nice job of controlling his sheep. Just breathe and and concentrate on each segment of the course, nice and controlled. Give your commands the same way you do at home.”

I love her!  We’ll still crash and burn, but I hope we can at least do it in style.  One thing I’m not going to do is retire too soon.  I have a tendency to do that, and it isn’t necessarily a bad thing, at least early on in our trial career.  When I felt like the sheep were beating my dog, I’d quit, which is a good thing with a young dog, but Gel isn’t a young dog any more and if I let him do his work, he can straighten out most situations. If Kessie gets in over her head though, I will retire with her because she’s not in condition to work too hard, too long. Then again, we only get five minutes so she should be able to hold up for that long.

Got everything done as planned last night.  Fence is re-set, sheep and LGDs are in it, got a good run in for the Border Collies, ate some supper, all was good.  As I expected, by the time I got the fence set and everyone that belonged in it, in it, it was getting dark.  As we got down into the far-back pasture, I wish I had a camera with me.  Fog was settling in over the tops of the grass.  The tops of the grass are purple in color this time of year and the fog settling on top of it was gorgeous.

Quite a few months ago now, I had an experienced handler watch Fern work.  He told me that I had to put a lie down on her.  My gut told me that I didn’t want to do that, but I did and she became clappy.  Now I’m working to fix that by keeping her on her feet.  I’m sticking with my gut feeling that I shouldn’t push her out on her outruns for fear that she’ll end up too wide.  She’s still very much a baby.  It is actually a good thing that I’m working with Joe now because he’s the perfect age to be training.  Who knows, I might be able to run him in Nursery next year.  He won’t be three until September, 2009.  Fern won’t be three until August 7, 2010 so plenty of time for her.

I’m going back and forth as to whether I want to put a lie down on Joe or not.  He seems to want to stop in a stand and I might play around with that to see where it goes.  I believe I can work him outside the fenced-in area now without him making a mess of things.  He has a good feel for stock and doesn’t seem to be inclined to bust up stock.  I don’t know if I’ll have time to work him tonight or not.  I have to set my ElectroNet.  The bummer is, when I set my ElectroNet, I loose what little bit of real estate I have available to work on.  G-r-r-r-r-r-r-r wish they’d mow!

So, the plan is to get home, let Gel out first and move the sheep and goats into the back field (so they are out of Joe’s sight), then let Joe and Fern out while I set the fence.  Setting the fence should go easily because there won’t be much mowing involved.  Then I’ll bring the sheep and goats back up and put them and Kitty and Rose up in the ElectroNet.  Then I’ll take the dogs for a run.  By then, we’ll probably be out of light.  It’s nice to have it cooler, but now that it’s cool, we’ve lost light.

Neither Gel nor for the most part, Fern will go for stock without my asking them too.  Joe is another story and remember, he’s hard to call off stock.  So, when he decides on his own to round up stock, I get irritated which is absolutely counter-productive.  I need to make sure that I plan accordingly and have Joe out of the way or tied when I’m moving stock, unless I want him involved in the mix.  I could use him to bring the sheep and goats up from the back pasture, if it was mowed!  I hope they start haying soon, but in looking at the forecast, they may not because now there’s rain forecast for several days this week.  When I first checked the forecast this morning, it was sunny and 70’s all week which would have been perfect for haying.

All in all though, I’m very pleased with how Joe is doing.  When I left them this morning, all three Border Collies had fresh bones in their runs.  Joe was happily crunching away.  Fern went into her new run, which she wasn’t happy about.  She acted as if I was putting her in a torture chamber.  She was ignoring her food and Ted the cat was sticking his paw through the chain link and stealing it.  Her new run is slightly smaller with wire over the top of it.  During the month she is in season, we’ll put goat panels (heavy wire with 2″ square holes) under the run so there will be no digging in or out.  It will be “Fern Knox.”  I’m not risking her getting bred by Gel or anyone else.

I’m starting to get scared about running in the trial on Saturday.  There are a lot of dogs entered.  Forty in Open, 15 in Open/Ranch, 20 for Pro-Novice, and 13 for Novice.  I keep thinking I shouldn’t have put Gel in Open/Ranch, but I’ll have the same issues with him in Pro-Novice as I will in Open/Ranch and it will be easier to fix them on the bigger field.  The issues are going to be his driving.  I think his reluctance to pull off a fetch line have been resolved.  The draws in the field that they will be running Open/Ranch and Open in are rough.  I will be sure to watch some of the Open runs to see how they handle the draws.  I know we’ll bomb out, but it is the only way I’ll know where my holes are so I can fix them.  I’m glad Wally is going with me.  He’ll be good moral support.

Went out to mow paths for the ElectroNet and realized the grass was just too darned tall to try to go through it with a push lawn mower, that it was wet made it even worst.  So, I took down the fence, stacked it up in one place and took the dogs for a run.  Visited with Red for a few minutes, then came back to the house.

Puttered a bit in the house, then called to see if my venison scraps were ready.  They were so I headed out to pick them up.  Visited for a while: I like these people, they are down-to-earth, hard working individuals.  They are what they appear to be, no candy-coating or false pretenses.  These are the kind of people I get along best with.

Headed back home and unpacked the venison.  All of the dogs will have a big supply of bones to chew on today.  Kitty and Rose got an entire rib cage.  I fed some of the venison to the Border Collies and cats and packed the rest of it into my freezer.  I got probably 30 pounds, if not more, of good meat plus lots of meaty bones for the price of a case of beer.  A pretty good deal if I do say so myself.

Last night I heard a dog’s alarm bark.  It sounded like it came from near the pond, but given how sound carries, it was hard to tell.  I don’t think it was a coyote, but who knows.  You should have heard the ruckus between the neighbor’s dogs and Kitty and Rose!  I don’t think much of anything is going to be coming around here with this canine alarm system in place.

I was down on Kitty and Rose this weekend.  Khaki Campbell ducks are hard to come by.  I know they didn’t kill it for the sake of killing: they played with it to death.  I’ll just have to make sure that the ducks do not have the opportunity to go into the fenced-in area while the dogs are in there.  That is easy to do.  I’ll set my ElectroNet on my property tonight.  The grass is not very tall, but there is enough for them to graze on for a week or two until I can move them again.  Hopefully they’ll cut the fields around me soon.

Gas is still a problem in the south.  The more and more I hear about the state of the economy, bail-outs, the gas crisis, negative politician ads and so on, the more I wish I could move up on top of a mountain and get away from it all.  We live in a very scary place.

I just came into my office to check e-mail.  The day hasn’t been going all so well.  Kitty and Rose seem determined to maul ducks.  I can keep them separated for the most part, but if the ducks get out, which I’d rather they didn’t, they sometimes go into the fenced-in area where their are fair game.

I got the bright idea of putting the puppies in the duck pen and supervise their interactions.  As I got them in there, I heard goats calling to each other.  I looked up to see two goats running up over the hill towards Red’s house.  Shoot!  Got Gel and sent him up for them.

Went back to the duck pasture and found Kitty and Rose mauling a duck.  Corrected them for that, then took them out of the duck pasture, fired up the ATV and headed up to Red’s to retrieve the goats and sheep.

When we got back, I dumped out the duck swimming pool, refilled it, cleaned out and refilled the water container in the fenced-in area and came back into the house.  I caught Rose, no easy feat, and took the dead duck off her neck.  While it may be a tried and true method to deter poultry killing, if one of my neighbors saw it, I’d probably have animal control called on me.

I am supposed to go over to Wally’s for a barbecue this afternoon, but I doubt I’ll make it.  I have too darned much to do.  In a few minutes, I’m heading out to mow paths to re-set my fence.  I’m dreading doing this because I keep getting rashes from being out in the tall grass

The sharing: as I write this, all three Border Collies are lying at my feet.  The differences between last week’s Joe and what he is today are nothing short of extraordinary.  He’s a calm relaxed, happy dog.  I’m glad I was able to offer him that.  He deserves it.

Off to mow.  Agh.

I got a nice hoop shelter made out of cattle panels for the goats and dogs.  It was actually easier than I thought it would be.  I was worried about the goats climbing on it, but guess who think it is a great jungle gym: the puppies!  I’ll have to put an end to those shenanigans because I don’t want to have to continue to replace the tarp.  It will be an easy fix.

In the early afternoon, I went over to Wally’s to work sheep.  I worked my three dogs until Wally returned with his family.  His daughter and her husband are visiting from Ohio.  When he let his dogs out to go to the bathroom, I elected to put Joe up in a crate so he wouldn’t be a part of that frenzy.  Then I worked Kessie.  She worked okay, but was extremely zippy.  She’s lost some of her natural outrun from running fly ball.  Initially, she had a hard time getting the sheep out of the woods and I had to go and help her.  She’ll be able to run Novice/Novice okay on Saturday.  I can’t see my being able to get her much further than that given that she lives away from me and has little discipline in her everyday life.  I believe that a Border Collie can engage in some other activities and still be a decent stock dog, but I don’t think fly ball is one of them.

Kessie got winded after only about ten minutes of work so I stopped and got Joe out for his second training session.  He worked wonderfully, better than Kessie actually.  Wally could see a huge difference in his manner; Laura (Wally’s wife) said he seemed very serious about his work.  I agree, he’s much more thoughtful about his work than he was last week.  He still isn’t stopping all that well, nor is he calling off stock easily, but that will come in time.  When I was through working him, I used him to take the sheep back to their pasture.  I could see Wally was worried about my doing that, but I felt Joe could manage and sure enough, he did a fine job of it.

While working Kessie, I noticed her teeth looked very brown.  Kessie and Joe turned two in September, her teeth look like that of a much older dog.  I hope that Laura takes my suggestion that they start to get some recreational bones into her diet.  Joe’s teeth already look almost as good as Gel and Fern’s.  He’s eating his raw food with enthusiasm and doesn’t seem to have had any stomach upset from the transition.

Off to take the dogs for a run, finish grinding rabbits and then head to Statesville to get another 60 pounds of rabbit.  Later on today I’ll drive to the venison processor for scraps.  I have a lot on the agenda today.  So what else is new?

Working from home is not all it’s cut out to be.  It was nice to not have to deal with traffic in the rain, but given that it did rain all day long and was chilly, all of the cats were pretty much in the house and some squabbles broke out.  Several of the cats ended up in time-outs.  Those that did not go into time-out spent their time alternating between monopolizing my lap (making working hard) or trying to chase the cursor on the computer screen.  My cats usually don’t get into knock down, drag out fights, but they make a lot of noise during their confrontations.

All three dogs were in the house as well.  I did keep Joe crated a good part of the day because he doesn’t yet know the rules of the house.  I took breaks throughout the day to take them for quick runs before coming back to work.

This weekend’s priority is to make adequate shelter for Kitty and Rose and the goats.  Even if you give shelter for sheep, in general, they will not go in.  When it was raining heavily, I put the goats up in one of the dog runs with some hay.  They didn’t seem happy with that arrangement and eventually I just let them out.  I’ve gone back and forth as to what I want to make and I think I might try another hoop house made out of cattle panels.  I’m hoping I can place it in between the fence and the two big pine trees which is where I’ve got the tarp strung up now.  The tarp was completely useless given rain could come in from the sides and front.  Luckily, even though it was raining, it wasn’t terribly cold, but the cold is coming.

Rose killed a duck yesterday.  I gave her hell for it and as instructed, made it into a “necklace.”  Tying a dead animal to a dog seems cruel, but it is a tried and true method to make the point clear: you do not kill poultry.  Their breeder told me to do this should it happen.  Rose is not happy wearing a dead duck, but she needs to learn to think twice prior to killing one.  They had plenty of food to eat that morning so I know she did not kill it due to hunger.  I was told by another LGD breeder that at around six months old they tend to “get into” poultry in a manner that they hadn’t when they were younger.

I got the best call in the world this morning: deer scraps are ready to be picked up.  Yea!  Doing the happy dance!

Joe is settling down more and more.  When he first came to me, his tail was curled up over his back like a Chow’s tail.  For a Border Collie, that is not a good thing.  A lot of the old timers judge a dog’s worthiness based on his tail carriage.  A Border Collie’s tail should be, for the most part, down and relaxed.  Sure, Gel and Fern’s tails will occasionally come up or if they are running and turning, it will fly around like a rudder, but rarely are their tails up over their backs.  The first time I put the goats in the dog kennel, I didn’t shut the door thinking they’d stay in there where it was dry.  The did not and when I came out again, I had Fern, Joe and Gel with me.  I went over to the door to the kennel and gave Gel a flank command to push them back in.  Joe came in to help and he did a pretty good job of helping to get the goats back in the kennel.  He seemed to understand what needed to be done and didn’t make a mess of it.  If he had flank commands on him, I probably could have used him to put the goats up.  When we came back from one ATV ride, the sheep were out in the lower part of my property.  Joe started out after them, but I was able to call them off.

I think that dogs end up in your life for a particular reason.  It is up to me, or anyone else, to be patient and open enough to see why that particular dog is in your life.  Gel was sent to me to teach me about Border Collies, stock work and to learn to be patient with a dog in order for his talents to be allowed to bloom.  Remember, Gel was sold to me as a herding reject.  Fern was sent to me for several reasons: one, she’s extremely talented and it’s way cool to have such a talented dog of your breeding and two, she’s very, very sensitive to my moods.  If Fern is acting weird, it’s because my moods are out of whack.  I think Joe was sent to me so that I could have another chance at his lineage and to make me realize that yelling and throwing temper tantrums around animals is not a good thing.  Last night when I was yelling at Rose for killing the duck, Joe was still outside.  I had just put Gel and Fern in the mud room when I realized what Rose was chewing on.  After I got through with my completely unnecessary tirade, I realize Joe had taken off!  I called and called and he didn’t come back.  I got Gel and Fern out, started the ATV and went down back to look for him.  Gel found him and we went back to the house.

Yesterday, I found out the circumstances surrounding Joe’s purchase by Wally’s wife was not what I was originally told.  Apparently his availability made it to a local fly ball list.  Wally said he’d love to have that dog (this was back when Kessie was doing well in fly ball) and his wife contacted Joe’s breeder and made the arrangements.  I am now wondering whether he was made available as a sports dog was because his breeder decided he wasn’t going to cut it as a stock dog or if she was simply over-dogged.  I’m hoping the reason was the latter.  Only time well tell whether he’s going to cut it as a stock dog or not.

I entered Kessie in Novice/Novice at the upcoming Red Creek trial.  Fern could easily do Novice/Novice, but I’ve decided to hold her off for Pro-Novice.  Wally is gong with me on Saturday and he’ll enjoy watching her compete.  I’m waiting for the weather to clear off a bit then will head over to Wally’s to work all four dogs on the large flock.

Last night my plans were to work Gel and Fern on sheep on my property and put the goats up in the fenced-in area and work Joe on them.  When I got home, Joe was pretty ramped up so I decided to take them all for a run on the ATV in an attempt to take the edge off him, then bring up the stock.  We got back to where the goats and sheep were in the ElectroNet and I grabbed hold of Joe’s long line and sent Gel in to pull out the sheep and goats.  As they came out, Joe pulled out of my grasp and went around the sheep and goats.  They all bolted back to the house.  Joe stopped them and I quickly caught him.  I used Gel to separate the goats from the sheep and put the goats in the fenced-in area and brought Joe in.  He kind of went around them, but I couldn’t get him to cast out from me.  He acted as if I was putting pressure on him and he looked extremely uncomfortable.  I decided to put the experiment to rest then and there and not push him any further.  I let him get a drink of water, then put him on a chain.

While I was working him, I should have put Gel and Fern on lines as they were working the sheep outside the fence and that may have been what was confusing (upsetting) Joe.  There is so much thought and preparation that needs to be put into a training session if you have more than one dog to work.  I need to get better at it.

I put Fern on a line and worked Gel a bit.  He’s starting to drive quite well, but as I expected, there are too many draws and obstacles on my property to properly work stock.  While Gel was driving, the sheep would try to escape in all different directions (as a group, all different directions, no matter what direction they were being pointed in) and as soon as I flanked Gel around to stop them, which he did every time, we’d run out of landscape.  It was very ineffective training.  I put Gel on a line and took Fern out.  Since she’s only doing outruns and fetches, I was able to get a better session in on her, but it was getting dark.

Once everyone was put up and fed, I thought about training and realized that since I have temporarily lost the open fields to work in and was quickly loosing time to train in the light, that I should let up on training during the week.  I might see if I can adjust my work schedule a bit so that I could come home earlier a couple of times a week to try to get some training in.  Of course, I can get good training time in on the weekends.  I decided that I’m going to let up on trying to work Joe for a while.  I’m going to give him some time to settle down and learn to trust me.  He’s still giving me trouble with recalls.  I know he hasn’t been abused, but he sure acts like it.  Kessie did the same thing.  They seem to be pretty pressure sensitive dogs.  I need to build his confidence up.

I wrote Joe’s breeder yesterday letting her know that I had Joe and how he was doing and threw some of my thoughts out.  I honestly didn’t expect to hear back from her and I was right.  That’s okay though, I can figure this out.  I am going to give Joe all the opportunity in the world to come around in hopes that he’ll start to work well for me.  Hopefully by the time I go back out for another lesson I’ll have a reliable stop on Joe and will be able to work him there.  That will mean having to book longer than an hour long lesson, but that will be okay.

I wrote my instructor to see if she thought I should run Gel in Pro-Novice (P/N)  or Open Ranch (O/R).  I wanted to run him in O/R, but I thought she’d tell me that I should stick to P/N for now.  She wrote back and said to run in O/R!  Yea!  She said, “O/R is basically Open without the shed, and if your goal is Open then that is what Gel needs to run. PLUS, he is ready to run O/R. He can handle that course with no problems.”  The vote of confidence means a lot to me.  Of course, we will probably crash and burn, but that’s okay.  Lots of handlers and dogs crash and burn. 

There was a lot of news on this morning about gas stations being out of gas and long lines and fights at stations that had gas.  Lovely.  Don’t you just love humankind sometimes?  Wally called and I mentioned the gas situation and he said he had driven through Lincolnton last night and said there was only one gas station that had gas and there were long lines there.  I knew I had enough gas to get me to work and back today, but that was it.  I was able to get gas in Gastonia on my way to work, but I had to wait in a line to get it.  I only got $30 worth.  I got permission to work from home tomorrow which will be nice.  I can save on gas and not have to go out in the rain that is forecast for tomorrow.  There is a low pressure system off the coast of North Carolina which is heading north.  We should start to get rain later this afternoon or evening.  The winds are pretty high too.  At least it’s cooled off.

I realized last night that I’m going to have to start to do some serious leg work to find affordable meat if I’m going to be feeding five dogs and twelve cats a raw meat diet.  I round a bit of Kitty and Rose’s meals off with some vegetables, which helps.  I know once they reach adulthood their appetites will slack off a bit.  I can buy beef heart and kidney for less than $1.00/pound which is reasonable.  I can get whole Springer Mountain chickens (not organic, but they are not fed any growth hormones, antibiotics and are raised in a more humane environment) for $1.39/pound.  Most beef is out of the question, it’s too expensive.  I can usually get pork pretty reasonable, but my dogs don’t care much for pork.  Soon it will be turkey season and I usually feed a lot of turkey during late fall, early winter.  Now if I can only get that guy to get me a deer (or two or three or four)!  I have two young wethers (last year’s lambs) I could butcher, but I’m not inclined to do that now that I’m working three dogs.  I need all the decent working sheep that I can keep.  The seven that I got from the man in Myrtle Beach were a godsend.  Of course there is always rabbit which I get for $1.00/pound live weight.  It isn’t cheap or easy feeding this many animals, but I refuse to feed kibble.  I considered feeding kibble to Kitty and Rose, but I’m not going there.  If I’m creative, I can find meat to feed them.

I really wanted to train my dogs last night.  I brought up some of my panels that were in the back pasture and was going to work with Gel on his driving, knowing if I worked him on my property that there would be some deadly draws that I would have to work around.  This is something I’ve been avoiding doing because I think I hate loosing my sheep more than the dogs do; it’s a general feeling of being out of control and I hate it.  I wanted to work with Fern on mini-outruns and flanks.  I wanted to separate the goats from the sheep, but the goats in the fenced-in area and work Joe on them, just to see how he’d handle them.  Chances are, he may not work them.  I tried to get him to go around ducks last night, but he wasn’t interested.  We had a bit of a melt down after we got back from our ATV run: he went into the fenced-in area and didn’t want to come to me.  I had taken his long line off while I was running them on the ATV because I ran over it a few times while we were out there and I didn’t want to risk injuring him.  We worked through it and I was able to get him to come to me.  All in all, he’s doing well.  This  is his father, Whiterose Kep.  Joe looks very, very much like his Dad.  I talked to Wally last night and he said his pack dynamics have changed since Joe left.  They do not seem to be quite so ramped up as they were when Joe was there.  I can see how this would be.  The energy that is surging through Joe is quite intense and if the other dogs are allowed to feed off that, it could become pretty rowdy over there.  Mine know that sort of thing is not allowed.  Either you settle down in the house or you go into a crate.  I hope I can learn to harness Joe’s energy. 

I wish I hadn’t upset his breeder when I had Kessie as I’d love to be able to ask her advice.  Oh, well, I’ll figure it out.  I guess that’s what makes you a dog trainer, figuring out different dogs and learning to work with them.  Up until now, I didn’t have the patience to work with a difficult dog.  I do not sense as much rabies vaccinosis in Joe as I did in Kessie.  That may come out more the longer I am around him, but so far, I don’t see much.

Anyway, what I did instead of working dogs was process rabbits.  Fun, huh?  I process at least 40 pounds of rabbit every two weeks, lately it’s been more like 60 pounds.  I got a text message from the man who is hunting deer for me saying he was going out that afternoon, but no deer delivered.  Bummer, I could use the meat.  Now that I have Kitty and Rose, I am throwing away very little of the rabbit as they think rabbit guts are pretty tasty.  You should see them go for them!  Nasty!  Lots of good vitamins there though and if they’ll eat it, great.  Tonight everyone will get beef heart and kidney.

Speaking of vitamins, I took some salmon oil capsules this morning in an attempt to alleviate my itchy skin symptoms.  The omega fatty acids in salmon oil are anti-inflammatory.  Maybe it will help.  I’m taking mega-doses of vitamin B complex in an attempt to make myself less attractive to bugs.  I told Wally last night that next year I’m going to start wearing a body condom when I go out to keep the bugs from biting me and to keep myself from coming in contact with poison oak or ivy.  I have a spot of poison oak on my belly.  How in the world did I get poison oak on my belly???

Last night, I got an e-mail from the man I sold Midge (Fern’s mother) to.  He wrote to say that he’s very much enjoying her and that he’s never worked with a nicer dog.  I was incredibly thrilled to get that e-mail.

Regarding rocket science.  Yesterday, I posted on the Border Collie Boards a response to this  post.  My research on Cydectin indicated that it should not be used in pregnant animals.  Apparently it is safe, but I still worry about going against the label on the wormer which clearly states it hasn’t been tested on pregnant animals.  Anyway, the discussion went on about worming, etc.  What irritated me was the last paragraph of this  post, namely the:  “If you don’t understand the theory behind FAMACHA, you can cause a great deal of needless suffering and death.”  FAMACHA is a system that farmers can use to decide if an animal is carrying a dangerous load of Barber Pole Worms.  You use a chart  to decide what score the animal is.  If it is a one or two, you don’t worm; three is questionable; if it is four or five, you worm.  The theory doesn’t seem so difficult to me.  You cannot get a FAMACHA chart unless you attend a workshop.  I’d like to attend a workshop, but looking at the schedule here, it doesn’t seem like there are any coming up in the future, either that or whomever is maintaining this web site isn’t doing a good job of it.  I’ve tried to contact the North Carolina Agricultural Extension Service, but to date, haven’t been able to get anyone to return my calls or e-mails.  So, until then, I’m going to continue using my base understanding of using FAMACHA, inspect my animals and if I feel they need to be wormed, I will worm them.  It seems to me that consistently worming my entire flock is going to cause more “needless suffering and death” (because ultimately worms are going to become resistant to all chemical wormers) than doing what I’m doing now will.  In addition, even though I’ve had a few instances of bottle jaw in my sheep, I have yet to loose a lamb.  The goat I lost recently was the first goat I lost and given the condition those goats were in when I got them, it’s no surprise to me that I lost one. 

I am still going to explore use of alternative wormers such as garlic, copper wire particles, etc. in an effort to get away from chemical wormers altogether.

On my drive into work today, I realized just how good I have been feeling lately.  My skin is all but driving me mad, but other than that, I feel really, really good.  I have been incredibly patient with the dogs, which is a good thing!  I think six months ago, Kitty and Rose would have been irritating to me, but now, they are just silly, dopey puppies who just so happen to be doing a really good job for me.  Six months ago, I wouldn’t have even considered bringing Joe home; I didn’t like him in fact, but he’s kind of growing on me now.  He wants to be a good dog, the wants to work, that’s all I ask of any dog.  Fern went through some sort of hormonal weird thing a month or so ago, and she did irritate me, but I worked through it and now she’s fine and our relationship is intact.

Homeopathy is an incredible healing modality.  To think that one dose of little tiny pellets which contain only the energy of the original substance can make someone feel so darned good.  As I said, the skin condition is driving me batty, but that my skin is so bad is an indication that I am getting better.  Ha!  In writing this I just realized that I haven’t woke up at 3:00 AM having allergy attacks in a while.

What I am really enjoying is the incredible sense of well-being. 

I think Joe might think he died and went to heaven.  When I got home, I took Gel out to get the sheep and goats and put them up in the fenced-in area.  I fed Kitty and Rose and gave the sheep and goats a loaf of wheat bread that I bought for them on the way home.

Then I fired up the ATV and took all three dogs for a long, long run in the back fields.  Joe ran and ran and ran and ran.  When we got back, he was shaking from the exertion, but was still running.  Darned, I thought to myself, this dog needs to learn if he stays with me, he’s going to get plenty of exercise and work.  I brought him into the fenced-in area and let him go around sheep for a while.  He’s fast, too fast really, he needs to slow down and think about his work more.  It’s as if he’s trying to get all he can get out of a session for fear of not getting more.  He recalled better than he did on Sunday.  As soon as I get a reliable stop on him, he’s going to start to get miles of work, which is what he needs.

I got a call on my way home from work from a friend of mine who is an avid hunter.  He said he’d likely bring me a deer that night, but it wouldn’t be until 8 or 8:30.  I was very excited about that, but wasn’t looking forward to butchering a deer that late in the evening knowing it would keep me up late, but I’m not going to say no to almost free meat.  I need to invest in good tools so that I can do this butchering as easily as possible.  Unfortunately, his hunt was not successful.  He’ll be going out again on Thursday.  Hopefully he’ll get one then.  My arrangement with this man is that I pay him $30 for every deer which he’ll deliver to me intact (I’ll do all the butchering).  He loves to hunt and the money will pay for his gas.  If he comes and hunts on the property I live on, the deer is free.  He can only hunt on my property on Saturday when I’m home.

Wally sent me home with kibble for Joe, but I’ve been feeding him meat which he’s very happy with.  So far, he’s tolerated it well: no diarrhea.  Both Wally and Laura are pleased that Joe is doing so well.  I think they were feeling a bit guilty having him and not giving him anything to do.