The END of a LONG WEEK and dogs

Everybody at school was tired this week. It was our first week back after spring break. The kids were tired, the teachers were tired, the office staff was tired...It was a LONG week, believe me! Then, Friday afternoon, we had a lockdown, not a drill! Fortunately, I was already in my room with several of my students. The rest, who were out at recess, were running around like chickens with their heads cut off! And, apparently some out on the playground, didn't even know what was going on! But, I saw our janitor run around the corner with a walkie-talkie, so I knew it was for real! We all hunkered down and waited it out. Turns out, a robbery suspect cut across the school property with the police after him! ACK! Not a good way to end the week. But, nobody was hurt and the kids were released just in time to go home. Phew~We'll be testing again next week, so it will be "high stress"...I'll need some horse time, for sure! Oh, and Pearl, the black and white collie (ranch dog) from my previous post, somehow got out of the ranch (it's completely fenced) and Cathy, the owner, looked for her and couldn't find her! She posted flyers and a neighbor found Pearl on a mound of dirt, looking disoriented. She even wandered out into the street! YIKES! Cathy got her back to the ranch. We had two collies when our children were toddlers and they learned to walk by holding onto collie hair and toddling next to them! They were wonderful dogs~ a brother and sister, "BJ" and "Heather". I paid $250 for the two of them out of a large litter. BJ was a traditional "Lassie" type collie, but Heather looked part German Shepherd. When my grandparents could no longer live alone safely, we gave Heather to them as a guard dog and BOY, did she do her job! She lived out the remainder of her years with them. We had BJ until he had a stroke one afternoon and I was home alone. My neighbor helped me carry him into my pickup and I drove him out to the emergency animal hospital where they put him to sleep. They told me he'd had a stroke. I really miss those two dogs, but I don't miss all of BJ's HAIR all over the house! I notice that our son's dog, the Weimeraner, doesn't shed at all and Ripley doesn't either! But, our German shepherd does ("German Shedder"), although, with his skin condition, he's lost a LOT of his hair permanently. Here are a few photos of Ripley, Rommel (our German Shepherd) and I even got one with the Weimeraner! It's HARD to get photos of them because they are always so active! I had just bought the doggie toys at Costco. I gave one to each dog, but, as you can see, Ripley rounded ALL of them up and was guarding them from the other two dogs! She's funny! You can see the hair loss on our shepherd. We've taken him to 3 different vets now. It seems he has an auto-immune disease and while we can give him shampoos and antibiotics, NOTHING seems to repair the damage done. He is still comfortable and plays with the other two dogs, but I'm noticing now, that as summer approaches, the flies land on him and chew his skin, so we basically keep him inside all day and night. He doesn't seem to be in any pain and, like I said, he still plays with the other dogs, but I fear that soon we will have to deal with this, especially with a long, hot summer coming.