Herd Dog AKA Fatty

I took our red heeler, Dulce, out to Paws 4 Ewe to be evaluated for herding ability and interest. I figured she was trying to herd the cats all the time, so maybe she could really learn how to herd, Babe style? It was AWESOME. The owner/trainer Michele McGuire has sheep, horses and goats and a ton of border collies all of which are smart as shit and beautiful. She doesn't usually work with heelers, it seems, but she was very sweet to Dulce. Here's Dulce at her foster house before we adopted her.


First off, she said Dulce was fat, real fat. Too fat. Funny cause the the vet just told us she's at the high end of normal, but I tend to agree with Michele, she's fat. I was the owner of the fat kid today, but I was so proud of her because she normally has some fear aggression around other dogs, and she was an angel the entire 3 hours we were there. Sniffed butts, sat in the water pools, and herded those sheep (kind of). Michele said that she would have liked to have seen more drive in Dulce, but she said it could have just been that she pooped out early because of the heat and being overweight. I'm going to take her back in a few weeks after she's lost some weight and we're going to work earlier in the morning to see if her drive is up. If not, then oh well. We'll do obedience training or maybe agility.

Today was the closest I've felt to being a proud parent. Okay, I WAS a proud parent of a smart, fat dog whom I almost gave away at one point. I'm so glad I didn't. Here's one of Lucky's beautiful photos of my fatty...