Marching Orders - Week 4 (and other stuff too)

We have our fourth week marching orders. YAY!! Noodlehead's going to be thrilled. I know I am. By the way, that picture is of Nick working sheep at about 7 months old, taken by Julie Poudrier. We were working her unbroke Tunis ewes out in her back yard at the time. See? He's always had some long legs!

Starting today we're supposed to do two 20 minute sessions of trotting/loping daily for the next week. Still no playing with other dogs, and he (the doc) wants me to avoid sudden stops and starts, lying down and getting up, and all of that. If I can seperate the sessions by several hours (ie morning and evening) then we do 2 x 20. If timing is such that I have to do both sessions in the evening (ie 5pm and 9pm) then I'm to do 10 and 20.

He said I can do this at home in the back yard (yep, the Noodle likes to trot the perimeter of the *cough* yard, so we can do that) or out in a pasture with no stock. Consider yourselves warned, Julie and CR, as you'll probably be seeing a good bit of me over the next week or two. The doc said he'd like to see Nick back to regular work within the next 2-3 weeks.

Wanna know what this means? We're done with walks around the neighborhood for the most part. This also means I'll probably be spending some ga$ to get Nick places, but I'm really, truly OK with that. I'll do that just to avoid being drugthugafroguy, weirdguy and scarydog lunch.

Woot!!!

Speaking of drugthugafroguy and scarydog (the two are not related) Nick and I are doing OK. Thank you all for the wonderful support you've all given me. The comments have been awesome and supportive. I've not had time to respond to each and every one as I wish I could, but know that they were each read and appreciated. Nick has relaxed back to almost normal while walking, and though we're both very jumpy we're not looking over our shoulders as much.

I have to say in all honesty that yesterday was hard. The fear was ruling me, and I couldn't think of anything else really. I bailed on cooking CR dinner (sorry babe) and although I did get the house cleaned some I was basically worthless. I still haven't cried - and I'm not sure if that's just the way it is, or if I'm subconsciously bottling it up and storing it in order to unleash it at some inappropriate moment... complete with squeaky seal noises and snot running down my face. I'll probably call Julie if that happens as she seems to be the lucky recipient of those types of calls from me.

Today is better. Today I'm able to appreciate that everything DID in fact turn out good considering. I didn't even think about it until I was getting out of the shower this morning, and even then my thought was, "Holy Cow! I haven't even thought about "The Incident" this morning. Yay ME". Today I've thought about it much less. I won't walk him without a stock stick or ball bat ever again though - not in our existing neighborhood. I'd walk him carrying a golf club, but as CR pointed out my clubs are at his house. Oopsie! Nevermind the fact that I have horrid aim.

Nick has developed a new annoying quirk though... as soon as we walk out the front door he lets out a bark. From what I can gather it's his pre-emptive toughdog gotohellscarydogs bark. Just one bark. One loud bark in my ear, really, since the houses are situated in such a way that sound travels like being in an empty cavern. I figure in a few days it'll get old and he'll be unable to resist the siren song of the bush next to the stoop, and abandon his onebark serenade.

We're both SO ready to get back to business. Linc has some work lined up for the weekend, though, so that'll be fun. I'm going to make dinner for CR tonight, and do our therapy for the evening out there. Thank God.

Lastly I leave you with one completely unrelated thought. It wouldn't be one of my blogs without an unrelated thought somewhere, right? Anyway, I was watching our landscaper dudes a few minutes ago and came up with the PERFECT name for a landscaping company. If it were me I'd call it, "Two Fat Bald Guys and a Garden Hoe".

What??