Diagnosis

Yesterday we went up to see Margaret at the Canine Fitness and Rehab Center. Wicca did pretty good- she is not one of those touchy feely kind of dogs but with the promise of cookies she managed to stay put.

Margaret was overall impressed with her condition- good weight, lots of muscle, and a good pelvis, back and knees. Of course I knew where the trouble would be. When we got to her shoulders she has three main ouchie areas- her teres major- which is the muscle behind the leg that goes up across the shoulder blades and then down under the armpit- this is the muscle she said that was probably swollen right after the injury. Also her bicep on her right side was tender- which could be caused mostly by the strain on her teres major.

I asked what would have caused something like this, and what I can do in the future to prevent it- she is in agreement that her weave style, and contacts probably are what did it- but she said that ball chasing is the leading cause- when the dog stops and turns- often on the wrong lead it can cause issues similar to this. Interesting eh?

So in a few weeks she should be cleared for agility again. I am allowed to slowly start increasing her activity now but know agility yet. I have an appointment again in two weeks just to be sure everything is good to go.

Okay, so here are the issues in physio speak :o)

Right Front
teres major
supraspinatus
biceps
put these all together and you have
tendonopathies (tedonitis)

Left Front
teres major

Neck
C6 & C7 Bilateral

And this is what I have to do 2 times a day to make it better:

Rt & Lt- teres major
up to ear with a slight outturn on elbow 20-30 seconds

Rt Biceps
elbow straight, foot down toward knee

Neck Traction
3 sets of 10 reps.

Another Coulee Walk

Wendy posted pictures on her Blog of our dogwalk this weekend. The boys had lots of fun racing up and down the coulees, and swimming (err...barking on shore)

Wicca had to stay home much to her dismay- but on the plus side she didn't have to have a bath! The boys both had a bath- Vito had two actually- he was SOOOO dirty. And Boone was covered in Burrs....it was lots of fun.


Wicca's appointment at the Calgary Canine Fitness Center is today. Wish us Luck!

15 minutes

My yard is small, and kind of a weird shape with trees, and patio blocks in my way. But I still manage to have some "agility stuff" set up to train when I have the odd moment. Yesterday I played with the dogs for about 15 minutes after work, but before laundry, dishes, supper, and back to work for classes. Anyway,
I have stick in the ground weave poles- 8 up at the moment for Boone (or 3 for Vito) and two jumps made out of my spare weave poles.

Boone is doing 8 poles now at home- no weird fourth pole thing, and he is able to weave mostly independant now. He is starting to get a bit of a rhythm. We have been working mostly on the "off" side as that is his weaker side for sure.

Vito learned how to do a 180 and a 270 last night. When the fancy strikes him he is quite the agility dog ya know. :o) We are also working on weave poles. I am clicking his weaves- I don't have gates at home, and I figure I might as well experiment with my dogs a bit. Seems to be going pretty well- I think this way doesn't really teach them to find a rhythm at all- but we'll see.

Wicca is not playing, not wrestling, not running, and most definitely not playing agility in the backyard. You could imagine what she had to say about that :o)

Oh and for those who don't know the 2008 FCI Agility World Championships are being held right now in Finland. I am addicted to reading, and watching. The banned band blog updates regularily (listed as the last blog I read) their dog Stevie Ray is on the team, and there is also a YouTube page of all the Canadian Team Runs so far... Go Canada Go!
Also Fanny Gott is going to watch every day so she has posted as well. Enjoy!

Update

Wicca isn't limping anymore but I am still enforcing rest on her. She is pretty impatient about the whole process and is hating that I'm carrying her up and down the stairs. I have made an appointment in Calgary for her on Monday- they will have an idea of where exactly she's hurt herself and what I can do to prevent it in the future. I'll keep you all posted.

Lucky man Vito got to go to agility twice this week...Wicca is pretty ticked.

Pity and a little tongue..

(Couldn't think of anything better to call this post)

Kim snapped these photos on the weekend-

Wicca right after she came off the jumpers course- although she looks sad I think she was mostly annoyed that I picked her up and took her off. But she does look pretty pitiful I must admit.

And Boonie- we were warming up and he was pretty excited about the hotdogs I was dishing out!

The Good the Bad and the Great!

The Medicine Hat trial was lots of fun as usual- the weather was almost perfect, and the club did a great job of hosting the trial.


Wicca had a good start to her weekend- a Masters Standard Q- it was a great run and I was very proud of her. The other two standards had a bar or a missed weave entry. And then came jumpers where she was horrible- broke her start line and shot out before I could even stop her. Brat. We made it half way though and I stopped her, picked her up and carried her off. I haven't had to do that in a very, very long time. Brat. Outside the ring I put her down and discovered that she was limping. Front Right shoulder. In the jumpers round she had gotten hung up on a weave pole- for those that have seen her weave you know that can happen with her as she tries to push them out of her way- I think what happened is when she got stuck she tried to force her elbow around it- yeah. I gave her some metacam and let her rest. In the morning she seemed to be better- I wondered if it was just the skin that she had irritated- rubbing on the weave pole like that- and ran her in Gamblers first thing Sunday- she did great- got the mini gamble once- almost twice :o) and got the main gamble no problem. A Q for Miss Wicca. And then she was limping. So I pulled her from the rest of the trial- poor Wiccie. She was pretty miffed about the whole thing. It sucked to pull her from Team as I wanted to run with Gyp for her title- but what do you do.


Boone had a GREAT weekend and I am very proud of him. He didn't leave the ring- although he did try once but I called him back. He did an a-frame contact by himself!!!!! I was so excited. He also weaved twice- 6 poles. I am thrilled with him. He had a great standard run- and was by far the best he'd ever been. He also had a really good snooker run too- but I got stuck behind a jump and he took the wrong tunnel entrance. He and Cheetah- another Pyr Shep- ran as team partners and Q'd!!!! Can you believe it! Cheetah is a free spirit kind of a guy, and sometimes does his own thing- all weekend he had been pretty goofy but he pulled it together for team. Pyr Shep Power! :o) So of course we had to do the cheesy team picture-it's not every day that the two wierdo pyr sheps Q ya know....
and the outtake.... :o) and finally, the great news of the weekend is that Gyp got her ATCH!!!! As predicted she had a great weekend and had no problems getting those two last Q's needed. Gyppie is a great dog- one that always tries her hardest to do what's right- she is an honest dog with a lot of heart. Sarah has done a great job with her. I am sure Sarah will be posting later today about her weekend- you can check it out on her blog...Good Job Girls!!!

Who thinks of these things???!!

Clean Run has come out with yet another a-m-a-z-i-n-g training tool.

Check it out here

Simple- but amazing. Why didn't I think of that?

I will be ordering two...(the second one is for when they eat the first one)

More training

Last night I went to the field early and worked a little with Wicca. She such a good girl these days. Listening, paying attention and most importantly trying to keep bars up. :o)

She had some nice weaves- like smokin' fast with good entries- which was nice.

We worked on some discrimination- it's all about timing ya know- and we all know that my timing isn't what it should be sometimes....but discrimination is one of those things that Wicca is very good at. Last night was no exception.

oh- and we did two fun jump exercises from Kim Collins outreach and Wicca did them both- with no bars...uh huh. No bars. See what I mean about being a good girl.

We are off this weekend to Medicine Hat- well Redcliff actually- it is always a nice trial- those Medicine Hat ladies are always friendly and cheerful- which can be a hard thing to be when you are running a trial- but you can always count on them to have a smile on their face.

Also I'll get to see little Dixie- who was adopted through my rescue- she was thrown out of a car window- while it was moving...when she was just a wee little pup. She is a Sheltie/Border Collie cross and is super sassy, and cute.

I have Boone entered in five things- standards, team and snooker...he has been doing well but still is not weaving properly. He did nine poles in my yard yesterday- but that is in my yard- with no traffic noises....

Wicca is entered in everything- masters everything except Jumpers...maybe we could get a jumpers Q this weekend and move on up.

Sarah's dog Gyp only needs 2 Q's for her ATCH...can you freakin' believe it...A team, and a gamble I think?...Sarah tells me it is actually a team and a snooker....Go! Gyppie Go!

Dog Attack

I went to the store this morning to buy an iced tea and ended up buying a newpaper- which I almost never do. I bought it when I spotted this on the front cover...

Walk to work becomes horror movie
A dog attack in Coaldale had all the makings of a Stephen King thriller.A quiet town, an unsuspecting woman, a vicious dog, bloody and torn flesh.
Read full article here

Okay- so this really boils my blood. For a number of reasons.

First I totally 100% blame the dogs owner.
Why would you tie your dog up outside a store- especially on a flexi....stupid.
And I am assuming that this dog has issues- no normal dog is going to jump and bite someone on the face....so what would possess the stupid owner to leave her dog unattended.
If you are going to own a pitbull be responsible! Socialise and Train your dog!!!!
So now it is likely that this dog will be euthanised- which is fine- I understand why. The person who owned to dog obviously hasn't got a clue- those are the types of people who should be banned from owning pets- regardless of breed.

The worst part of this is what the media does. Whoever wrote this article is a complete ass. "the makings of a Stephen King thriller" really??? I especially love this part "a vicious dog, bloody and torn flesh." What a crock of shit. This type of thing makes this much worse than they are- Don't get me wrong; I do feel badly for the woman who was bit- I couldn't imagine how she must feel- but I am not sure it needs to be blown up in the media. This quote from her is just fabulous "“It would have killed someone who was a little smaller,” Nicolson said" Yeah. Right. Because your 20 stitches would have killed someone a foot shorter- or a child. Geesh.

The other bad part of this is that this is likely to add fuel to those who want to ban "dangerous dogs" and the others who want to impose a mandatory spay/neuter in our town- which is ridiculous.

Anyway, enough venting. I just needed to get it all out. Stupid People.

Training News

Sunday we went out and trained a bit in the morning- before it got too hot. (I am amazed at the weather lately...)
We did some jump exercises- Wicca has been pretty decent about bars lately- Wendy snapped this picture of her- she really is a horrible jumper...


Since Nationals Wicca has been pushy- with her contacts, and her start line. This weekend is going to be a rude awakening for her as we will be leaving if she breaks either position. Little Idiot. :o) She did well at training though- and only briefly changed positions once on a start line, and slid off an a-frame. Her weaves though have been great- she is only missing maybe one out of five entries- which is awesome as that was such a huge issue before- three poles people! that's how you fix that ....



We worked on threadles- because I suck. Sarah gave me all the Nat's videos last week and I watched them all- no matter how painful they were. I posted the good ones....but I am not sure if I'll ever post the jumpers rounds. Really, what was I thinking? Probably that I knew I didn't have a hope in hell. You see- for a threadle you have to be ahead of your dog- this I know. There was no hope of that for me the way the course was set. My friend Linda handled it on the other side- kind of like a serpentine with a rear cross. I should have done that. Anyway- so I worked on threadles- and I am happy to report we did it- a few times. I am still no confident that I could do it on course- but I am going to make a point of practicing the stupid thing every day.



I also reviewed serpentines- which we are generally pretty good at- and push thru's which when not combined with a threadle I can do just fine. Imagine that!



Boone was a little weirded out for some reason so I did small bits with him- we worked on discrimination (contact/tunnel) and he did decent. He really loves tunnels and he isn't responsive to my body sometimes so we had to work through that.



I also did some front and rear crosses with him. I was really pleased with him last weekend at Kimberley that he picked up a few rear crosses as those are weak for him.



We worked on improving our teeter- he can be a little nervous sometimes- so we have been playing teeter games and it has really helped. He likes the surfing- a lot. Now I just have to make sure he doesn't fly off!



Vito got to come out and play. We did a few front and rear crosses- and a dogwalk. I know- boring. Vito was excited though- and I think slowly he is getting more amped about agility...slowly...but surely.

Popson Park

Wendy and I took our dogs down to Popson this afternoon for a nice run, and of course the dogs spent most of the time swimming. Wendy got a lot of great pictures...

They all had LOTS of fun!

PEN Number

So Boone needs a PEN (Performan Event Number) to perform in any CKC events...he is AKC Registered but his sire was never CKC Registered or Listed so that means that Boone isn't eligible for an "official" CKC #. Which is fine- a PEN will allow him to play rally, obedience, herding, and agility with the CKC which is what I want.

The hard part is getting approved. You have to fill out the paperwork, send in photos, your money of course :o), a vet certificate saying the dog is altered, and that the dog is indeed the breed you say. You also have to have a reason why your dog isn't eligible for a regular CKC registration- and it has to be a good one. A friend wrote on hers that the parents weren't registered and she got this long, drawn out letter back from the saying essentially that the PEN program is not meant to encourage irresponsible breeding and she was denied a number. Anyway- so I have to think up a few clever things. I don't think they'd like to hear that he is isn't registered because the paperwork was never filed. I intent to write that he was a rescue. Which is true...

The other thing I have to think about it s fun name...I could just write Boone. But I thought it would be fun to have something clever....any suggestions?

and Friday Steeplechase

Wicca's Clean Run

Here is the long over due video of Wicca's clean standard run from Nationals

Utter Cuteness

I don't know how one can be so cute....

and still so bad :o)

he was fence running at daycare and this was the grin he gave me when I told him off for it...

For A Dollar!!!

I am cheap. Okay, maybe thrifty is a better word. I am always on the lookout for deals, and sales. I am also always on the lookout for collars- imagine my surprise when I found this.

At the Dollar Store. Uh Huh. For a Dollar. ;o)

Kimberly Weekend

Boone had a blast and was a happy, happy dog all weekend. I am very proud of him! He was all smiles and tail wagging- and didn't once try to leave the ring. He even managed to weave- mostly- in one standard. I had trouble with his a-frame contact all weekend though- but he did manage to get a couple great "touches" on the dogwalk. Overall I am pretty impressed with him! The breakdown:
Standard 1- 2nd Place. (10.00 faults) for weave pole NC
Standard 2- 3rd Place (5 faults)
Jumpers- 2nd Place-
St.Snooker- 1st place. Back Jumped :o)
Adv.Gamble- 2nd Place

Wicca had a phenomenal weekend- no sign of a limp at all. She was a little wild in the morning and blew our gamble (and it was so doable....) but that's okay. She made up for it later in the day! She came home with four Q's which is above average for her! We had a great time- she was listening, had great weaves- she only missed her entry once all weekend, and only had three bars! Two on one course, and the other in Gamblers. I have a very good dog.
The Breakdown:
Adv.Standard 1- 5 faults- a bar, caused by me- dropping my arm and not supporting her on a jump. 43 seconds/ SCT 74. Fastest Time overall.
Adv. Standard 2- Q! 43.68 Fastest Time overall. This is the last Q needed for our Advanced Title. Finally!
Adv.Jumpers 10 faults- 2 bars. Nice run, shame about the bars! 26 seconds! Smokin' Fast.
Mas Gamblers. 42 Points. I cannot believe she didn't get the gamble....
Mas Team- paired with Gyppie. The tri-colored beeotches do it again. 1 of 2 teams to qualify. It was not a very nice course! Q!
Mas. Snooker Q!!!! Can you believe it!!! Thanks to Sarah's planning Wicca and I pulled it off!
Steeplechase- Q! 39 SECONDS. We had the third fastest time behind Skye and Rondi- 2 Border Collies. Go Wiccie Go!
Mas. Standard- she did great! Our first time in Masters Standard- she blew the weave entry- but otherwise it was clean and fast!

The weekend itself was good- lots of visiting with friends, Brenda was as funny as always, maybe even funnier after my comment on Friday... :o)
It was nice to have a weekend away and I really enjoyed myself. I only had one "moment" but it didn't last long. The trial was run great- and as always the site was beautiful. I camped and it was not bad at all. The dogs and I were nice and cozy in our tent all weekend- even when it rained Saturday night. It was definitely a good choice to go.

Oh, and Sarah,

Congrats on Gyppie's MAD !!!

Nicest Friends Ever...

I have the nicest friends ever....

Thank you so much. I will cherish it forever.

Overwhelmed

Yesterday I was completely overwhelmed and had a major meltdown when I got home. I missed Sam so much. It has been harder than I thought it would be. For those who know me, know me- know that I am not really an emotional person- in fact I can count on one hand the people who have seen me cry. But man do I miss that dog. My heart still hurts- it is just that bad. I got his ashes back yesterday, and combined with Wicca's mysterious limp, I was pretty much a mess when I got home from work. I felt much better after my breakdown though- sometimes a girls just gotta cry I think. (in the privacy of her own home of course...)

Wicca's limp is gone today but I think I am still going to pull her from most of the events on the weekend. I don't want to aggravate anything...But I am still going to go- Boone will have fun, and Wicca will be mad as hell if she doesn't get to play but tough luck for her. I will have fun too. I plan to drink with my friend Brenda who is a hoot to begin with but is funnier than you can imagine if she's had a little to drink.

to cheer me up here are two very funny photos from the lethbridge trial this summer...

wicca sliding down the a-frame...guess that's why they made the slats smaller....must hurt to get chest burn...

Where's Wicca???

Mystery...

Last night I took Boone and Wicca out to train and we ran a course. Wicca did good- two knocked bars, and a little pushy on contacts...but no off courses, and good weaves. Boone had fun- he was a little stressed by the weave poles- he's not ready to do them in big sequencing yet that's for sure. His contacts were good and his discrimination was pretty good too!

This morning Wicca woke up limping, and Boone has burrs all in his feet. Oh, and Vito smells like chocolate....How does that happen??

Boone the student...

So last night only one dog showed up for the "slacker class" so lucky dog Boone got to be a student! I haven't done any classes with any of my dogs in a really long time. (we train all the time, but generally I am teaching the classes...) It was fun to be a student!

We did some fun acceleration/decceleration jump sequences. Boone likes to run straight so this was a perfect exercise for him

We did some teeter games, and worked on turning out of a tunnel up the frame- this was something that was even on my list to practice with him...it was almost like Sarah read my mind :o)

And then we did some contact work on the dogwalk- his contacts are really coming along and he is getting quite consistent about them. I am quite happy with where he is at right now.

We ended on the weaves and he did great- he is getting his entrances but is popping at pole #4...any guesses as to why that is happening? Yup. I train with four poles at home.....Smart thinkin'.....

Regardless I was really impressed that he held it together for a full hour class last night. Usually I work him maybe three or four times a training session and that's that. I am pretty thrilled with this dog!

10 years old...

Kate is 10 years old today! Wow. How time flies. I remember when she was just a tiny little thing...

she grew up to be quite a little princess...

she did obedience, because I asked her...

we played agility, because I asked her...

and now...she is the princess of the couch, enjoying her well earned retirement!

Yesterday I went out and bought her a new bed, and some new toys to wreck! It will be a good day for Princess Kate :o)

Happy Birthday Kate!

Two Days

It has been two days and I am doing okay. It has not been an easy two days but here I am. I think that each day will get better and better. Right now I am dealing with lots of memories, and the change at home. It is very, very different at home. The energy in the house is even different. Sam was the loudest dog- I don't think I have heard one bark at home. Sam was the dog who always wanted to do stuff (fetch, tug)- the dogs have been content to play with each other.

There have been moments where I just expect him to be there- at my feet- and I have to try hard not to break down. Yesterday I went and bought the dogs each a new toy. I bought an extra one. Things like that can make tears appear like magic.

I would say that the nights are the worst- you see all my dogs sleep on my bed. Sam was the snuggliest. I have been making Wicca- she hates it and has started to sleep on the floor on the dogbed :o) Vito is liking the new change and is happy to snuggle. Boone is not interested in that nonsense! But we are adjusting and doing okay.

I still miss him a lot and assume I will for quite a while. But I am okay with my decision and know in my heart that I did the best I could for him. He is not in pain- he doesn't hurt, and he can do what he wants. Everyday will get better and better- I plan on staying busy, and taking each day as it comes. I am sure I will have my moments but for the most part I think I have cried enough for a while!