Sometimes you just wake up and think “what a great morning it is!” There is no reason. It just is. And maybe for that it’s an even better morning, I don’t know. The dogs play at my feet, I laugh and settle into reading a book—my mind is cheerful and light like the Kelpies that bounce around and tussle beside me.

My thoughts are simple and profound they hold only special meaning for me and no other.

Things are looking up, they always do. Good things are always happening to me. With that thought I reflect on a few.

I celebrate as Shorty and Junior do, in another fine morning.

If you prick me, do I not bleed?

I had a choice. Get intravenous injections or learn to give myself shots. I was in the doctor’s office and he had walked me through why I needed intramuscular injections of magnesium. All I think I really heard was the sooner you start doing this the more quickly you’ll begin to feel better.

I have a tendency to lock on to the statements that matter most to me. “You’ll begin to feel better”, he said. Yes, oh yes, I want that! Moments later I found myself stating there would be no problem, that I would give myself injections.

As I waited for the nurse to come teach me how to do just that, I thought, am I crazy, what am I thinking? My brain was whirling a thousand thoughts a minute…finally I told myself don’t think about it, just do it. Really I was so worried I thought I might even break down and cry.

The nurse came in and I put on my cheerful happy face. She gave her demonstration and I was a studious observer. Now it was my turn as I filled up the syringe and tapped the air bubbles out. First the magnesium then just a tiny bit of lidocaine to help dull the pain.

I was told straight out, this will hurt. I’m glad that the nurse told me exactly what to expect. No surprises here. I was well informed and well prepared. “Now that the syringe is filled you need to inject yourself”, she said. Oh God, my head screamed, “Don’t think, don’t think, just do it”! But I had to think now didn’t I? First off I had to concentrate on remembering what to do after I STABBED myself with this huge needle.

Oh yeah, I’m looking at this needle and it was so long I thought I might hit bone with that thing. It was a 2” needle. I look at it now and it doesn’t seem big at all. I’ve seen larger animal needles when vaccinating sheep. But that first time, that first time was frightening.

The nurse had shown me, you smooth out some of your thigh area off to the side and the needle goes all the way in perpendicular, straight down into the muscle. Okay, this looked plausible when she showed me the area to inject on her leg but looking down at my own really skinny leg, where was all that room? My own thigh was so little and as I tried to smooth out an area it seemed ludicrous that this was going to work out. So I looked up at the nurse and said, “Um, my thigh is pretty small, don’t you think?” “ I’ll hit bone” We both inspected my leg. She considered my observation valid and suggested I grab some of the muscle and slide it over to the side, holding it over in place.

Now I was ready. My hand holding the syringe posed just above my skin. The nurse had told me, “It’s like darts.” “Have you ever played darts?” Yes I had once. This was not like playing darts. This was not like practicing on an orange as I’d seen on TV shows. This was real life and I couldn’t will my hand to move. The seconds dragged on.

Move hand, move! Still we both sat there in silence, the nurse and I. She urged me on, “Just look away and do it”. I did and plunged it in. Wow, I did it! Cool! I was so pleased I let go of the syringe and exclaimed to the nurse, “I did it”. The needle was just sticking out of my leg all by itself. Guess she was in shock when she saw this and said, “don’t let go!” “quick pull back on the plunger, check for blood, then push it in as fast as you can and pull the needle out”.

Ow, OW! I forced the 2mls into my leg. That hurt! It hurt so bad I got an adrenaline rush. I was going to have a crash and burn and soon. That adrenaline surge was gonna cost me. Damn, I was going to bottom out. I shook like a leaf and my ears were ringing. My thigh was screaming at me. The nurse was ushering me out of the room. Giving me the last bit of information. “You must walk around on it to work out the muscle, and the pain will leave more quickly,” the nurse left me in reception. Mission accomplished.

I was in a daze.

But I’d did it.

I drove home in a fog but so proud of my accomplishment. I was going to tell everyone I knew about the incredible thing I’d just done. Then it hit me. I had to do this again in three more days. Oh, no. Now I really felt like crying. Do this again! And not just one more time -- for 3 months, every three days. I was going to be a pincushion by the time this was all said and done!

The first thing I did when I got home was start researching the most pain-free method to give a shot. I chided myself. What a baby I was, children have to have insulin shots every day and I’m wigged about having to do this twice a week.

Later I discovered insulin needles are much smaller then intramuscular needles and that insulin is put into the fat layer under the skin (subcutaneous injection), not deep into a muscle. Okay, so there was a bit of a difference.

Bigger needles, deeper down, more pain. I felt more vindicated just knowing that. My mission was now apparent I had to talk to others with experience giving or getting shots.

My friend Marie has administered plenty of shots as an assistant in a doctor’s office. Her advice was slowly push the plunger in as I was giving the injection. Then apply heat and massage the area. I did this. Mostly it did help lessen the pain I was feeling. When that much fluid is being forced into a dense area like muscle there is no room for it. In using the lidocaine, if I paused and let that take affect then proceeded to slowly push the rest in it was much better.

I was still from time to time getting muscle spasms during or after injecting in an area. Oddly enough the massaging made it worse not better. My leg would just knot up. I don’t know why. Soon I learned to sit and relax after the injection for 10 to 20 minutes and not do any massage. It seems my body was too over whelmed and the applied pressure of massaging my leg just put me over the edge.

Since my body suffers from adrenaline exhaustion, causing myself this pain from injection, was producing an adrenaline rush and a crash right after. As my body became stronger from the magnesium, the shots became easier to handle and I didn’t go into adrenal exhaustion, bottoming out.

Some things were figured out as I went along. Like if you half-heartedly stab yourself, you can’t just push the needle deeper down into the muscle. It won’t go, plus it hurts like hell. Or if you don’t have enough momentum to drive the needle all the way in, and plunge the fluid anyway, it will sting like crazy because it’s going into the fatty layer not the muscle. Magnesium stings under the skin.

Also if you gently prick your skin in spots you can find where you are less sensitive or have no nerve feeling and that is the best spot to inject. Sometimes I would get lucky and not feel anything and not be sore afterwards.

Once I was having a very weak day and I didn’t get but half the needle in so I pulled it out and tried again but my hand was shaking and one quarter of the needle went in that time. Man was that pathetic! So with all my resolve I tried a third time, driving the needle home, the whole time vowing never to go through that again. Three jabs -- your out! I never couldn’t drive a needle home after that, let me tell ya.

Then there’s the “never let go of the thigh muscle your holding over to the side when the syringe is in your leg” rule. That should have been a “no brainer” but I did that once too.

It also took me a while to realize that it might be a good thing to pull the needle out more slowly. Lidocaine should never be able to hit the blood stream but somehow I believed I might have nicked a blood vessel as the needle was going into my thigh and because I drew the needle out so quickly I’m thinking a minuscule bit of fluid hit my blood stream. That was freaky weird. I was a gusher there for a minute, that in itself was unusual for me. I knew something wasn’t quite right when I became immediately woozy almost passing out. I could barely keep my eyes open and crawled on the floor to my roommate’s room so she could make sure I didn’t fall asleep or get the shakes. Another 10 minutes passed and I began to feel better and came awake again.

I'm proud of myself that I have learned sucessfully to give myself shots. I have a positive attitude about it now with all I've learned so far.

For great information on giving shots go to http://www.bddiabetes.com/us/demos/injecting.asp.

This is what we’ve been busy all summer working on...

Some of you might remember me telling you how I started double teaming my dogs. I discovered this was a good way to bring up the desire in my Shorty dog. At first Shorty was telling Junior not to work and Junior would not get up from a down or would leave an area entirely. Yeah, Shorty wouldn’t work the sheep and be lieing there not letting Junior work. I felt like banging my head against a wall!

I would have to catch Shorty’s eye and tell him to knock it off and then boom, up Junior would pop, and automatically start working.

Sometimes, while I had Shorty on a down not working, Shorty would tell Junior he couldn’t cross his space with the sheep. I was purposely having Junior drive the sheep in front of Shorty and he just had to watch. Well Shorty again would some how tell Junior not to work in front of Shorty and Junior would quit, again I had to tell Shorty to knock it off and then Junior could drive them where ever. Shorty wanted Junior not to have the sheep but wouldn’t work them either. I think anyone else would have said this is crazy and stopped trying to work the dogs together.

But you know, it started paying off in mid summer. Shorty’s attitude started to change and he was becoming a more reliable worker and the two dogs began working in unision. I would use one to drive and the other to control the heads and sides. Once they got the picture it was so smooth. I would switch out the dogs positions. Sometimes Junior drove and sometimes Shorty did.

As natural workers Shorty tends to have wide flanks and tends the sides and heads naturally with little to no directions from me. Junior excells at driving, keeping the flow fluid and moving at the sheeps pace. This is the best thing I could have done with these dogs. To see Shorty working again makes me so happy! It was hard at first for them — handling the sheep, keeping me in the picture, and working in co-operation with each other.

Now those of you with a lot of sheep and serious work will not think anything of this. Here dog hobbists just never work a brace. There aren’t a lot of sheep and it is harder controling one dog let alone two. Now because of this experience if I had more dogs they’d all be out there with me. Whether watching on a down or in charge of keeping sheep from entering a certain area while the others worked.

As things became easier working both dogs, there were times that one dog would try to take all the work away from the other one. At first I thought that Junior didn’t know his flanks. I put him on ducks and sat down in a chair so I was less tempted to have body movements that would cue the dog. Then gave him a flank. The little devil got it right each time so...

Out on the sheep anytime the dogs didn’t take the right flank from me, that one or both would be sent all the way around in that tlanck forced to let go of the sheep and just keep circling around. Basically I was letting them know if you don’t take my flank we don’t go anywhere and you don’t get the sheep.

Some days I’d be making the dogs flank opossite each other in these big circles, around and around. The best part was they got it and when we went back to work, wow, what a difference. I should say that I would never would have figured out to do this without my mentors help. I am no genius dog trainer. But with my mentors insights progress has been fanamanal this year. I was curious to see if my dogs would be able to work on their own after working together thru this summer. Each drove a very nice trial course for me. I got a bit prideful because there were several folks watching.

Most folks doing herding where I live do it to trial. Some assume because I don’t trial with my dogs it is because the dogs can’t do the course. I still have folks come up to me and tell me I should be trialing. They must think I’m crazy because they don’t look like they understand when I tell them I just want to learn how to herd with my dogs. Maybe later sometime, but right now I’m too busy doing what I’m doing.

When I was out at places this summer, when asked to do some real work with my dogs, I could have cried. That is the greatest compliament that they could use my help. You see I think I want to do the work as much as my dogs! That’s what I really want I guess. I know there are some that think if you aren’t winning trials your training idea’s aren’t valid so many encourage me to be out there to prove myself to help market my book. Really what is there to prove, I just want to live my life. I know they are well intentioned and I love them for it but I am so furfilled doing what I’m doing. That’s what’s important to me.

I’m trying so hard to get healthy and sound because I love physical work. When I am sweaty and dusty and have finished a job with my dogs I am in heaven.



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I was just thinking how I must be a different person now then 10 years ago, because my dogs back then at anytime I would be angry and use the F word would run and hide from me. Now when I get mad my dogs will cower but slink by me as it to placate me.

Traveling out to the Thorps is always an exciting trip for me. Just the anticipation of seeing so many of my friends at these clinics can keep me up all night many days before hand. One of the most amazing things I got to do out at Windrush farms was to meet John Gedye from Australia.

A quiet, friendly man, this John Gedye. Good natured and extremely generous in kind words about all of our dogs. On our first day he spoke about how he’d had a dog that wasn’t particularly the best herding dog in the world but how he loved that dog. How it didn’t matter what that dog did, he’d worked with that dog anyway. This immediately endeared me to him on the spot.

And this set a tone for the rest of the clinic. It was a clear message that he would be straight forward with what we had in our dogs but also respect the fact that they are much loved by us and that he would respect us no matter what talented or non-talented dog we brought with us into the field.

More then anything, John made sure each and everyone of us was met and talked to. He mingled and made a point to have a conversation with each and every one there. I was so thrilled that such a man would actually seek me out for a little chat. How I wished I was a better conversationalist! We didn’t talk about much. I’m not a big chatter but he made such an effort to take time to know a little about me before moving on around the room.

I’ve been to tons of seminars and clinics and the clinician’s never actually walked up to me for a conversation or to ask me about my dogs. (That is of course does not include Mr. Bob, my dear friend and mentor)