Insert Swear Words Here

@!()$*)#*))!* @!)*U$)#*$)*!!)* 0808!)*$#)(*!))!)(q!)!)!!

That's how I feel right now. I'm so frustrated and upset and angry and sad. Mostly sad and while beating up on myself doesn't help anything, it's how I feel for now. But I'm doing something about it and I guess that's all I can do.

I mentioned in June a little bit about Vegas' back injury but due to time constraints lately, I never expanded upon it. Long story short, she came up lame in April. Best I could ever determine as I know she didn't do anything specific on any activity we were involved in, she tweaked her back while "zooming" in the house. For anyone who's witnesses/experienced/enjoyed a fit of Dane zoomies, well, you know it's likely and we should all stop them. But wow she has a blast when she does it and clearly needs to burn off steam. But I digress. So she zooms pretty regularly, probably a couple times a week. I remember her spinning out at one end of her inside-the-house track and her rear went one way and she clearly had told herself to go another. Nothing big and dramatic, but that sight played itself in my head once she came up lame. A tweak, like slipping off a stair and torquing your back.

So ever since then, she hasn't been able to run agility. That was April. We had May off due to no trials near us and were supposed to run in June three weekends. The first weekend, as I mentioned in that June post, I was uncertain if she'd be okay. I'd been resting her and massaging but she wasn't limping or off enough that I felt the need to seriously pursue medical attention. She couldn't run let alone jump so had to scratch her from that trial. My super awesome friend, Rachel, called in some prescriptions for us for anti-inflammatories, pain meds, and muscle relaxers and she was on strict rest orders. I wouldn't even let her come upstairs; oh the insult, she had to sleep downstairs.

Scratched her from the next trial and again from the one two weeks after that - she just couldn't do it. I'll come back to CPE Nationals sometime this week to explain what happened there.

So now, all this time having passed with July and August usually being off or very light months anyway, she was entered to run last weekend at a local NADAC trial for just a day to see how she was doing after rest and rehab, then the next two weekends in AKC. Since June and her rest and meds regimen, I've been working on maintaining her endurance and heart health (which has the dual benefit of preventing her from driving me crazy of inactivity) by biking, walking, hiking, and going to the beach, etc. Basically anything that wasn't jumping and agility active like. She's been fine, felt fine, jumps in and out of the back of my truck, on the bed, romps over trees in the woods on occasion. I've also taught her to swim albeit we didn't get to do that but twice as our weather was hot but not unbearable where the river would provide relief, and done ball/core strengthening work. I've also been stretching her and massaging, doing light body work, etc.

So NADAC....just two runs, Chances and Jumpers, to test the waters. I'll cover that in a bit more depth with another post, too, but suffice it to say: epic fail. Clearly her back is a lot more sore than I could have possibly guessed and the impact of contact obstacles and crouching for tunnels made her hurt badly. Enough to limp on a leg even. Hence my #()*Q)*)*!)#*$)(*!$!*)%)&!(*) feeling.

Tonight Rachel came over and gave her an acupuncture treatment and has offered to do so again in a couple of days. I also made an appointment to see Dr. Salewski at Hindsight Veterinary Care. He comes highly recommended by any who have seen him and I look forward to hearing what he has to say. Since making the appointment this morning I have also emailed him to ask if he feels my taking her to get x-rays at our regular vet between now and then would be effective/helpful in diagnosing her. I did, of course, already withdraw her from both of the AKC trials I had entered her in.

I'm heartbroken, sad, and feel that I failed her. This has gone on for five months. I thought I was doing the best I could at the time and didn't feel like whatever she'd done was so severe that with rest and my other attempts I couldn't help her restrengthen her back to overcome this. I was wrong and now I've wasted so much time. I know I can't do anything about that now but I will forever regret it. I just hope I haven't caused permanent damage and that she'll be able to make a comeback. As I told Rachel today, if I just got to see her run one more time and do so happily, with drive, like I am accustomed, I would be thrilled. To see how disinterested she was this weekend, due to pain, to see her not like the sport any longer because of that makes me so sad.