Ending Our Hiatus

Well, hello there. Obviously I haven't been blogging much. Okay, okay, okay. Obviously, I haven't been blogging at all. We have been busy since I last blogged in March, but I just haven't sat down to the computer to say anything about it...until now. So, thus ends my blogging hiatus.

So, what's been up you ask? Here are a few highlights...

While we had a few warm days here and there...

...the snow refused to melt quickly and spring insisted on being late again this year.
Throughout the winter I spent a lot of time at our local shelter working with a special dog, Maverick.

Maverick was terrified and fear aggressive after being surrendered by his owner. I spent 4 months training him and worked hard to find him an appropriate home. A great family specifically looking for a Plott Hound adopted him in April...I hear he is doing awesome :)


Then I fostered this handsome pup...Patrick...

 I loved this little guy and very nearly added him to my family. He was everything that I would look for in my next dog. But timing was all wrong, so I reluctantly sent him off to a new family that loves him as much as I did.

In April spring finally decided it would sneek a peek at the world and melted much of our snow. The girls and I did a lot of hiking and having fun...

Then Holly went and injured herself, again. She spent 3 weeks solidly lame in her left front leg. I thought she re-tore her shoulder again, so off to the vet and the canine PT we went. Fortunately, her injury turned out to be some sort of muscle knot that refused to release. After PT, Chiropractic and Acupuncture work, she was sound again in just 5 days and has remained perfect ever since. I have no idea what she did or when she did it, but that's par for the course with Holly.

In May, Danee attended her second and third agility trials. NADAC added a Intro class to their lineup, which is basically a very easy pre-novice style class. The courses are very short easy sequences with no weave poles, so I entered Danee in several classes at each trial. My goals were for her to stay focused, to drive to each obstacle and to have fun with me. Success! Little Dog had a great time and she earned a few Intro Q's to boot :)

Photo by Joe Fisher

Holly got to play agility too and I was reminded of how much I miss doing agility with her. We had a great time at both trials and both girls earned many Q's and a few new titles. My job doesn't really allow me to do agility trials in the summer, so we won't hit our next agility trial until September or October this year. Hopefully by then I will have finished Danee's weave pole training.

Dog owners in my little town have only two options for getting help with training their dogs...take a short class on force based training with a local guy through the community college, or drive over 2 hours to another town for training that doesn't involve prong or shock collars. So I decided to offer some free help to those interested in learning how to be their dogs own trainer doing force-free training. The response was overwhelming! I am not a certified trainer, but I discovered that there were many people desperate for help in figuring out how to learn on their own...like I did.  So once a week folks come up to my house and they learn how I chose to teach my dogs all that they know, and they learn a little bit of pre-beginner agility on the side. We are having a lot of fun with it and I am amazed at the transformation in the minds of some of these dogs owners...one has gone from forcing his dog to stop wiggling in excitement by physically laying across her on the ground, to having taught a default sit and a go-to-mat settle!

June arrived, work was busy, and my sister visited with her two dogs to help me celebrate my birthday...the big 40.

My family bought me a Treat and Train (aka Manners Minder) and it's the most freaking awesomely fun toy ever! I'm having lots of fun using it to train Danees weave poles and to counter condition Holly to not freak out over the neighbors horses.

I find it mind boggling that July is almost over already. This month has been very hot and very busy at work. We've spent most of my free time walking and hiking in the shady woods and visiting creeks, alpine lakes and the river for hot sun swimming.

I promise to become a regular blogger again...because who know what fun adventures August will bring :)

Best Snow Day Ever!

Winter sure is sticking around...I'm knee deep in snow in the fenced yard and it's getting deeper as I type. While I was shoveling paths in the yard for Little Dog and digging out my car, Holly had the best morning ever with her best friend Ruby...

Wrestling the Abominable Snow Dog

Rawr!

Red dog photo bomb

Holly's Great Pyrenees impression

Doh!

Sucker punch

Her First Gotcha Day

Happy 1st Gotcha Day Danee!

She has come a long way in the last year. From a scared little thing, afraid that every new person she saw was going to make a grab for her...to Little Miss Bold, who's pretty sure she owns everything in sight and greets new people with confidence.

She's had a great first year...making friends, hiking, playing and learning.

She's also turned into quite the excellent office dog...keeping me and Holly company on quiet, winter office days.

And she's even learned a few tricks...I taught her to jump into my arms to help her with her dislike of being held. Now being up in my arms is both fun and rewarding...

 

It's been a fun year and I hope we have many, many more together.

 

Fashionista

Dogs with thin hair and no fat definitely need clothes in the winter. But I think if she could actually comprehend my color choices, she'd protest a lot more than she currently does. She's definitely not matchy-matchy.

And no matter how you try, neon orange definitely does not match with neon yellow. I can see her from a mile away though, which, while hiking, is the point.

She is cute...Little Dog has certainly wormed her way into my heart :)

One of these days I'll get around to filming all the new tricks she knows and share them. Since we aren't doing any agility training this winter (to flippin' icy), she's got some new tricks up her sleeve instead.

TTA Knee Surgery: 1 Year Later

Wow. Time really has gotten away from me. I can't believe I haven't posted at all in the last 2 months. Life has been good though...lots of hiking and lots of letting the dogs just run, run, run.

I've recently seen a bit of extra traffic on previous posts about Holly's knee surgery, so I thought I would give a quick update on the results.

It's been a full year since Holly underwent knee surgery last December and I am happy to report that her recovery has been 100% successful.

To recap, Holly had been having on again, off again issues with her back and groin on the right side pretty much all of 2012. The physical therapist warned me that reoccurring groin issues are often a sign of knee instability. So I had her knee thoroughly checked out but it didn't reveal anything concerning. However, Holly's PT was right, and around Halloween 2012, she totally tore her right knee.

I did a grotesque amount of research, asked a thousand and one questions, and got 3 different opinions before deciding upon having a TTA done. I was terrified about doing this 'cutting the bone' option, but all other methods I researched didn't have a good success rate for a dog of Holly's history, level of activity and with a propensity for trying to kill herself.

She had some minor problems with recovery. I discovered she could lick her incision while wearing BOTH a cone and a basket muzzle. So she wore her ice pack stocking for the whole of her 3 month recovery and that ended the licking.

She threw out her sacrum around week 8, which was really painful for her. We also discovered she has spondylosis in 3 places along her spine.

But around 4-5 months after surgery, she no longer seemed to need chiro or acupuncture. And aside from the issue with her sacrum, she was never lame throughout the entire healing process. So I finally gave up 'protecting' her and let her be a dog again.

Throughout the summer we walked, hiked, swam, played and didn't bother her with any real training. We had fun with backyard agility and treibball, and I created some new retrieve games that she loves. She has gained all her muscle back and has remained totally sound.

Knowing what I know now (you know, hind-sight and all that), I would still make the same choices for her again. The only thing I would change is to have done more hip and back x-rays pre-surgery...had I done so I would have found her spondylosis sooner.

As a side note, this summer I worked very hard on Holly's recall...it's something I've had trouble with in the past with her. But...I worked hard and it has been rock solid of late. As a result, she's has spent most of the last 7 months having fun off leash. The whistle you hear is what I use as their emergency recall (I just use my fingers to whistle)...

Fall Family Photos

Danee's First Agility Trial

In September, I took off for Utah to attend a work conference. It was a great time and it was wonderful to spend time with colleagues and friends that I only see every couple of years. I also got to stay with friends, and their awesome dogs, that I hadn't seen in awhile...it was a great week :)

After the conference I took vacation time. I had never been south of the Salt Lake City area and was itching to see places like Arches National Park. To make the vacation perfect, my best friend flew down from Alaska and met me in Salt Lake City. From there, we drove down and stayed a week in both Canyonlands and Arches National Parks. Honestly, it was like visiting Mars...I have never experienced a landscape so vastly different from anything I'd ever seen before.

We camped in some awesome spots...I mean, who doesn't want to camp with a view like this?

Arches National Park campground

We saw some famous petroglyphs, like Newspaper Rock...

Bear tracks!

And some along the Colorado River...

A cave bear

In all, it was a spectacular trip.

While I was gone, I hired (for the first and last time) a dog sitter. That was as close to a disaster as I care to come. The dog sitter had over-committed her time, and wasn't truthful about the amount of time she'd would actually spend with my dogs...and spending time with them was the whole reason I hired her. So for 2 weeks, the dogs got no exercise and practically no attention...the result was them doing things they had NEVER done before, like pull things out of the basement to chew on in the yard (Holly), and counter-surf (Danee). The dogs survived, but I was pissed. They should not have had to spend those 2 weeks bored out of their minds...keeping them entertained was the whole reason I hired a dog sitter, instead of sending them to a boarding kennel. Obviously I won't be hiring her ever again.

Coming home and giving them real exercise (both physically and mentally) was all that was needed to stop the horrible behaviors they learned while I was gone. It just goes to show that people that complain that their dogs constantly do bad things clearly aren't giving those dogs the physical or mental exercise they need. So the dogs spent the last 2 weeks catching up on all the exercise they didn't get while I was gone. Danee's metal state did regress some while I was gone...walking in circles when she's confused or stressed made a reappearance...but fortunately those are already starting to wane.

The last 2 weeks I've also been preparing Danee for her first agility trial. I say "prepare", but what I really mean is just working at reinforcing that playing agility is rewarding. She was at this trial location back in May so she was pretty chill at arriving, seeing all the dogs walking around inside and out, and crating in the x-pen with Holly for a few hours.

I only signed both dogs up for 3 runs on just one day. That way we could get there late, stay a few hours, then head home. This is my closest trial location, at only 2 hrs away, so driving there and back for the day was no big deal.

In all, the plan worked really well. Danee didn't get too tired to focus, nor did she have any stressed out moments. While she was mildly nervous of strangers that wanted to say hello to her, she took treats from everyone and was able to go into working mode comfortably amongst people and dogs she had never seen before.

Our first run was Novice Chances, which is a perfect course for a newbie dog. They are usually pretty short and easy runs...I just ignored the distance line. I wanted her ask her to focus long enough to take a few obstacles correctly, then get out of the ring before she noticed the judge, bar setters or other people in the ring with her. It went as planned, I asked for about 6 obstacles in sequence and she wagged her tail the whole time. Her second run was Touch and Go and I cut the course in 1/2, asking for only the second half that had mostly tunnels and the A-frame. But this time she noticed the people in the ring. She lost her focus enough to run around 2 of the tunnels, but she still stayed with me. She was able to stop, refocus and happily take the last remaining 4 obstacles in a row. A successful run in my book.

Her last run, Novice Jumpers, I have on video. This time I asked for the whole course from her. She was a little hesitant, especially after noticing people sit in the ring, but in all stayed happy and only missed one obstacle.

I'm pretty proud of Little Dog. She's come a long way since she arrived in March :)

Holly ran in 3 classes too...the same ones as Danee (Chances, TNG and Jumpers) but in Elite. She rocked it. Despite doing very little backyard agility in the last 6 months, neither of is were as rusty as I thought we would be. It felt so good to run with her again!

Holly also finally, finally, finally, finally, finally received her Novice Versatility Award and her Open Versatility Award. She earned them well over a year ago, but we just got them hand delivered to us yesterday. Yay!

Missing You

Hard to believe you've been gone a year. I miss you Pooka. Every day.

Happy Gotcha Day Holly!

It's hard to believe its been 4 years since Holly entered my life. I owe a tremendous thanks to her former family for allowing her to come home with me. She's such a happy and fun dog that I can't imagine my life without her.

Thanks for 4 years of fun girlie...I hope we have many, many more years of fun ahead of us.

Letting Go of Ego

With Holly recovering from knee surgery and adding a new dog to my home, agility hasn't been seriously on my agenda this year. Even so, I decided to once again join in the Dog Agility Bloggers Event and do a post on Aging in relation to agility.

Please read all the other great posts on this topic here (http://dogagilityblogevents.wordpress.com/aging/) to join in on the great discussion.

In my last post for this group, I talked about some of the ways that I'd like to see NADAC change. However, when it comes to keeping older dogs competing safely, I believe other agility organizations could follow NADAC's lead on a few things...primarily on jump heights.

Because I've only had one dog during my adult life go through the pains of being elderly (although, sadly, Holly is fast approaching this stage of her life), and because I haven't even hit 40-yrs old just yet (Ack!), I'm going to limit my discussion to just jump heights.

10-yr old Casey rocking 12" jumps

First and foremost, I think the 'battle' we wage on our dogs aging begins before they hit adulthood. Granted, some of us have adopted adult dogs (me included, twice over), so we didn't have control over this portion of our dogs lives. But, keeping our dogs joints healthy from the start can make a huge difference on whether many dogs will be able to continue to compete, or even just play the game at home, when they are older. I believe that not jumping dogs at full height, or for multiple repetitions, until their growth plates are closed can help prevent joint damage in many dogs. Keep in mind, that this damage might not be evident until the dog is much older.

Please note that I'm about to oversimplify things here...there are many combinations of things that you can sign yourself, or your dog, up for in NADAC that determine what height you'll jump and what group your dog will compete with/against. I don't personally think there is anything simple about NADAC rules, so I'm going to gloss over most of it and just touch on heart of things in relation to jump heights.

My first kudos to NADAC is that they do not allow dogs to compete before they are 18 months old...essentially ensuring that growth plates are closed before a dog begins to compete.

My second kudos to NADAC is that dogs do not jump higher than 20". Agility is about more than just jumping. And just because my 23.5" tall and lanky dog can physically jump 26", it does not mean that she should. She jumps 20" comfortably and beautifully. Anything higher than that and, in my mind, she looks awkward, with the jumping looking forced instead of relaxed and natural. I feel so very lucky that there is an organization that agrees with me on this and provides me a venue where I can compete with my freakishly tall dog, but not have to punish her body by repetitiously jumping 24"or 26" jumps.

NADAC also has a veterans group where dog's 7 yrs and older can take a 4" jump height reduction (and in some cases an 8" reduction). Having this choice for my dog is superbly and supremely awesome. Again, agility is about more than just jumping, so I believe that this choice of offering a lowered jump height can allow healthy dogs to continue to compete without punishing their 'getting older' joints.

9-yr old Casey having fun jumping 12"

A dogs jumping form will vary from height to height, but unless they are jumping so badly that they'll hurt themselves at a particular height, I seriously doubt any dog really cares at what height they jump. And, if given a choice, most dogs would likely choose a lower height over a higher one. Jumping your dog higher does not make you any better at agility than someone who's same-sized dog jumps 4", or even 8", lower than yours does.

I do wish that NADAC had a Double Digit Veterans group, where dogs can take an 8" height reduction when they reach 10 yrs old. Because dogs can't jump higher than 20" to begin with, a dog in the 20" group would then jump 12" as a double digit veteran. There is somewhat of a complicated version of this already, but it isn't for double-digit dogs...it's a mandatory drop for all dogs over 8-yrs old. Hopefully each of us knows our dog best and has their best interests in mind, instead of our own ego's. While I believe in lowering our dogs jump heights as they age, I still believe that we should be allowed to individually make the call when that should happen...not to systematically have all dogs drop a jump height just because they reach the age of 8-yrs old. Hopefully that call will be made by the handler before joint or jumping discomfort becomes evident. Because by the time your dog shows signs of aging in their joints, it's too late. The damage is there and now you are in catch-up mode. Instead, we should do all we can to maintain the healthy joints our dogs already have by using prevention.

Not too long ago NADAC eliminated the differences in championship titles between their 2 categories Proficient and Skilled. It used to be that a dog in Proficient received a NATCH and a dog in Skilled received a NATCH-S (or Medal for those from way back). Now, a NATCH is a NATCH is a NATCH. Heights and times are still different between the two categories, but the end title is now the same. There are many arguments on the pros and cons of this, but the main thing I see is that if you want your dog to earn a NATCH title (something that only the human side of the team cares about), you no longer have to jump your dog at a higher height, their whole career, to earn it.

In addition to allowing our dogs to jump lower heights, NADAC also offers four "games" classes...none of which have jumps in them. Courses that are comprised of nothing but tunnels, hoops or a combination thereof plus contacts and weave poles. The courses are a blast and super fun for dogs of all ages to play on.

Elderly Casey doing a "Tunnelers" course

No, I do not believe our dogs should live in bubbles...not that I didn't seriously consider it each and every time Holly hurt herself last year. But one thing we can do for them is to try and prevent unnecessary wear and tear in agility. My primary suggestion for how we can allow our dogs to continue to comfortably play this game into their double digit years is to continually lower their jump height as they age, instead of dropping their jumps heights by the time they are already old.

Holly doing her "Super-Dog!" impression over 16" jumps

Holly is almost 8 yrs old, a freakish 23.5" tall and has had multiple injuries over the last 3 years. Because I value her ability to still play this game (or any game at all) over the next few years, and remain healthy, I've decided that I will never again ask her to jump higher than 16". That is a choice that I make for her, not for me.

When it comes to our dogs...our beloved companions that are so willing to play this silly game with us...I believe that it's good to let go of your ego: Just because your dog can, does not mean that they should.

These are just some of my opinions...what about you? What are your feelings on your agility venue's jump heights? What are you concerned most about in relation to agility and your dog getting older?