The dogs and I are home alone today, enjoying a very quiet Christmas. Jim is with his family in Seattle and for a variety of reasons I decided to stay home. Our house sitter Joan was busy at her other job, and deep down I know I also wanted to stay away from my regular pilgrimage to Washington state and my family. With my Mother gone now, I was just not up to visiting siblings and driving right past our family home where strangers now reside.

Scoop and Ace and I are going out to train in the agility yard that is mine all mine today:) no guests, no classes, no students to share our space with today. Then I will take all 6 dogs on a long walk around our little 15 acre haven and enjoy the beautiful winter day.

Marcy took some goofy Christmas photos of us this week, and I learned a bit more about creating cards in photoshop while putting together our annual card. It was fun and I made quite a few versions as E-cards and a totally different one to print. Yeah, VERY late to put cards in the mail but I will get away with calling them New Years Cards! Even 15 year old Wicked obliged to hold still wearing a Santa hat long enough for her cute photo. She is almost totally deaf and blind and there is no way to tell her to stay, but she was so cute acting her usual silly self. Here are a couple photos that should have made the card.

I am looking forward to my husband Jim coming home so I can open up the Christmas presents hidden in his office. I *almost* wanted to open the edges of the wrapping paper and peek inside like I did as a kid, but I am resisting like the adult I am supposed to be! I hope that you are having a wonderful holiday with your family and your pups this year. Enjoy every moment, and never forget how short a time we have on this planet and with our precious friends and loved ones.

Happy Holiday and Best Wishes for a fabulous 2012!

Seven of them walked past my office window this morning so I snuck out quietly and stood behind the redwood tree to snap a few photos. They blend into the surroundings so well, they are perfectly camouflaged. The dogs fuss at them from behind the fence sometimes but they don’t seem to care. Occasionally when the dogs are all put up for a meal or hanging in the house, the turkeys fly into the dog yard to investigate the dogs’ refuge. Our local wildlife are very used to the dogs and cats being safely tucked behind the fences and they meander within a few feet of the dogs totally confident that the wire will keep them separated. We don’t see the turkeys everyday, and it is such a coincidence that they came for a visit today as last night I watched a great Nature show on TV called My Life as a Turkey. If you see it on the tube,
don’t miss this really interesting program about imprinting and living with a flock of wild turkeys.

I got home last night from the 3 day AKC Show at Rancho Murietta.  Ace and I had a good time hanging with friends and running in the trial. Ace got three doubles and a triple, AKC lingo for qualifying in agility, jumping and FAST all on the same day. Our only error all weekend was not qualifying in one of the FAST classes offered. I put too much power and speed on the send and overshot a tunnel. Totally fine, I really only do FAST classes to get on the contacts if they have them as I show so seldom I like to take advantage of the opportunity to train them in a ring setting. “The dark arts”  as I call the skill required to be competitive in gamblers and FAST classes is not really my forte, that is my husbands specialty! Jim and I like to joke that he teaches them to send, then I teach them all to get reeled back in.

Hmmm… that sounds like job security!

I found a cute pic of Scoop from exactly one year ago, happily holding of one his favorite toys.

Scoop stayed home with Jim, I didn’t want to be tempted to take him for a hike or get him revved up watching agility and not be able to do anything with that pent up energy. We are headed back to the neurologist and orthopedist offices this week on the continuing search for a specific diagnosis for his discomfort. In the meantime he is just hanging out in the house bored unless we play calm clicker training games.

I was helping a friend this week to clicker train a retrieve on her sheltie. Have I mentioned that I think all dogs should have a manufactured retrieve? There are some skills that are so important to making agility training easier, and a good retrieve is one of them. If you can train a dog, you can train a retrieve, I see absolutely no reason for anyone to have the excuse that their dog won’t play with toys so they obviously can’t retrieve. And I would ask, what does toy play or tugging have to do with the perfect retrieve of any item you designate?

Well???

I hope you have as great retrieve on your youngster as I do on mine, and if you don’t, well get on it!

Nancy

The past couple weeks have been all about searching. I have been prowling the internet searching for a design for a new website that will integrate this blog and do lots of other stuff my site can’t do right now. Hopefully this is the last post I will write on this WP format, and that seamlessly these posts will show up on my website.

I have been searching for the answer to Scoop’s continued discomfort in his rear, especially in his left hip area. More x-rays and even an MRI only told us that he really DOES have great hips, and his pelvis isn’t malformed or some such thing. So back to the nebulous soft tissue treatments. For now he does not even get to go for runs in the field, he is on leash walking which is driving him nuts and he is telling me vocally daily that he wants to DO something. I could be playing lots of little tricks and games, but sort of find a lack of inspiration other than keeping his brain engaged a bit. We are just treading water for now.

The search also continues to find the right level of anti-seizure medication for Panic. He was 11 two days ago, happy birthday P. He is also “Silvertips’ High Anxiety”. wonder what in the world I was thinking with those names?? The boy has naughty spots galore and I think I have a grey hair for each one of them.

I am off to teach a seminar here at the house today. LONG commute to work, hmmm, about a hundred feet I think:)

I hope you also have wonderful plans for your weekend which include playing with your agility dogs!

Nancy

I have been home from the Agility World Championships just over a week but it feels like a month. The schedule went something like this… unpack bags, write CR article all one day, more desk work, herding lessons, more herding, more playing with my friend from North Carolina Maureen Robinson, many hours of desk & email catch-up, jumping workshop, pack the RV, drive 4 hours to Yosemite, hike and play 2.5 days then drive 4 hours home, unpack, dog massages, obsess on getting ready for power paws camp, many hours of teaching, camp work, teach, camp work , teach, swim & walk dogs & repeat as necessary! Whew.

Looking at the schedule it reads like a lot of play time, wonder why I am dead tired and feel like I have been working too many hours:)

The Agility World Championships were incredible. Being with Ashley and Luka every step of the way to their Gold Medal was amazing, no less though than the wonderful celebrations we had afterwards. Check out the video of Ashley’s Gold Medal run and trip to the podium as well as Tori’s jumpers run which immediatley preceeds it on this video.

I am very proud of our team and all they accomplished. Tori, the totally hip and poised 19 year old from Florida with her perfect little border collie Rev won the Team Jumping class and were just a dropped bar away from an individual gold medal! Barb Davis had a phenomenal 2^nd place finish in jumping and JD and Tantrum took a 4^th in team jumping. There was lots’ more good stuff, check it all out!

http://www.akc.org/events/agility/world/2011/placements.cfm

Today I was entered in a trial and thought better of attending….too much paperwork and fighting off my annual cold. I am going out to pack the car though and get ready to go to one of our only local agility trials for the next couple days. Unfortunately without Scoop entered in a single class. I wish I thought he was on the mend, but after another vet examination, I am left with still more questions about why he still has some discomfort in his rear assembly. I have 2 orthopedist appointments coming up, surely one won’t be able to convince me what is really going on, and since I am planning on wanting a second opinion, it is already scheduled. Did I mention that I am completely obsessed with getting to the bottom of what might be ailing this dog or any other I have ever owned? I hate not knowing if they are in any kind of discomfort. The latest theory is that even though Scoop’s hips looked good in radiographs, there might still be a problem. Sigh. Before I left for Europe 3 weeks ago I decided to lay Scoop off from all field running and of course agility. He swam and hung out in the yard, but no other exercise. The first jumping in three weeks didn’t go very well, even after the break, and we are on hiatus until I have answer. I am slightly regretting the  herding lessons I took with my friend Maureen Robinson last week, now that I think he is still broken, but on the flat he is sound as a dollar and raring to go and we had soooo much fun.

I will put up some great Yosemite and World Championships photos as soon as I get my hands on them.

I hope you are headed for a fun weekend of agility or hiking or adventuring with your dogs, I know I am looking forward to this weekend with mine!

Nancy

We have been in a training doldrum, his physical health still a big question mark. A month ago I wrote that I thought we were ready to really start working hard, but the last few weeks have left me with even less confidence on his health. I haven’t felt that he was sound enough to really work. But today I am happy to write about Scoop.

For the first time in well over 6 months I had a great jump training session with Scoop last night. We were just fooling around on a small setup I used for a workshop yesterday. I heard a tick or two of bars but for the most part Scoop looked great jumping. He could collect, he did his serps just like he used to do, and he could threadle without crashing into the wings of the jumps. He drove down the closing  lines with no added steps and flew over the last jump in each sequence. We had so much fun and his jump style looked soft and round and not at all uncomfortable. I didn’t want to stop we were having so much fun. I was almost afraid to go to the field today, worried he wouldn’t be the same. But tonight I went out for a short jumping and aframe session  and he was great on all of it. Yeah for us.

Weeks before Scoop’s fungus was diagnosed back in May, he was starting to have all sorts of jumping and contact issues. I knew it wasn’t just behavior, it was physical. Why would a dog who was seeming to progress at a steady pace in his training suddenly totally backslide.  In the middle of trying to find the solution from vets, and therapists, up popped the fungus which I then hoped was the real issue since we were stuck with it and that was a REAL diagnosis. Scoop has been recovering from the fungus just fine, but the physical issues and his jump style were totally changed. I felt like he was broken but no one found anything drastically wrong with him.

The past week, which was no different from many, he was seen by two of my vets, two times each. He had needles twice, once with electricity applied, he got adjusted and poked and prodded and worked on in the lower back and pelvic area. He seemed tight and maybe a bit off in his pelvic region, but not enough to account for his continued crappy jumping. In desperation I contacted my human massage therapist that has never worked on dogs before. He agreed to see him and we had two sessions this week and another one is scheduled for a couple days from now. He found all sorts of pain in his upper thighs, old scar tissue in the muscle and lots of muscle adhesions which need to get worked out. Do I have a new dog? I guess only time will tell. I do think I have more of a real diagnosis and hopefully also a way to reach the heart of the problem. The massage therapy along with acupuncture and adjustments I hope will put us on the right track this time.

I love my dog. He seems to love me and love training. He has the best feet, a handsome head, and a silly streak a mile long. He is a talker and a cuddler. He has some of the nicest qualities of any dog I have had and so far he loves all people and all dogs! After training he will send to the dog bathtub and totally immerse himself and stay there calmly cooling off, but he is not obsessed with the water like many dogs I have owned. He loves to swim and will stay in the pool exercising, carrying his toy, but he does not bite the water or intake gallons, a big no no if you want to exercise your dog in a pool daily. He seems toy crazed, but is totally controllable around toys. He carries a toy in his mouth on every walk, and never interferes with the other dogs. He is quick twitch when it comes to behaviors. He takes positions fast, and he is not stalky. His stays seem to be great (now:)) He is in many ways a trained agility dog. We should be in the ring competing with all his siblings!

Will we back there soon? Time will tell.

I hope you and your young dog are well on the road to success and earning lots of ribbons in the agility ring and I equally hope that I am just a step behind you.

NJG

A note about my massage therapist. This is the same therapist that totally cured my plantar fasciitis some months ago. I had two intensive massages of my feet to knock down all the tightness and muscle adhesions. Those first sessions lasted two hours each but at the end I was pain-free and remain so. He is a miracle worker and I will never again believe that plantar fasciitis isn’t totally curable with therapy instead of the incorrect stretching I was doing along with trying all sort of gimmicks and orthotics which created even more pain. He is in San Jose and if you want his contact info, for yourself or your dog, write me directly at powerpaws@aol.com.