Vegas Learns to Swim

I have always wanted Vegas to learn how to swim. Last summer we tried to swim in my dad's pool. I walked away with a big scratch and Vegas walked away dry. There aren't a lot of places nearby that offer access to the water without it being pretty rough. And even at that, the Willamette River is pretty gross. But push came to shove a couple weeks ago. The temperatures were near to or at a hundred and our house was nearly the same. We were miserable and I all of a sudden recalled river access that seemed ideal for trying to get out and swim. So off we went to Mary S Young Park in West Linn, about 30 minutes from home.

When we arrived and began walking toward the river, the first thing we noticed was how much cooler it was. The forest was keeping the heat blessedly at bay. Second, when we got down to the river, the forest was positioned just right to block the sun so the beach and river were shaded. Score!

Ducks....insisting on hanging out where dogs were swimming. Tasty for dinner, Mom?

High centered...!

Hold on, Mom! I can catch you.

Eeeek!!!!

So on the heels of my announcement two days ago, I entered Vegas in her next trials today. These will be her first trials since April and her injury. Eeeek! It's almost like entering in our very first trial all over again. I'm a little bit freaked out. Coming off an injury like this is such a big deal. I don't want to cause further damage even though I'm confident she's well - not that I'll lay off the conditioning and stretching we've been doing.

The trials are September 15-16 and 22-23. I can't wait but I'm still freaked out. That's six weeks away. I can't wait.

Dreams Do Come True

We're still alive!

Wow, another few weeks bites the dust. Amazing how that happens. Well, we're still here, still kicking - although barely this weekend with our temperatures spiking up to 100° for the first time in two years. Makes the big dog pretty miserable. But, we did get up early Sunday for a walk at an area park so that was nice. Just wanted to touch base quickly. Going to try hard to get back to regular posting. Things have just been too busy for words. I still owe a CPE National update and I have other news too.

Equipment

Training dogs involves a lot of hardware - tools, if you will. Last weekend we attended a heeling workshop put on at our obedience club. It was just four hours or so on Sunday afternoon but four hours was plenty when you had a working spot, it was hot, and you were getting your brain filled with new ideas and information.

One of the opening topics was equipment. I have a lot of dog equipment. If I made you a list it'd take me a really long post. For obedience work, I've alternated between flat collars and a skinny choke chain I call Vegas' necklace. Something mentioned though, when going over all the options and how they could be effective was the word respect. Respect. Huh.

The dog needs to respect the tool being used for it to be helpful. I realized my skinny necklace choke chain was really my nemesis with Vegas because I couldn't keep it in a place on her neck to be effective. It's too tiny and too slick, and when given slack slips to her lower neck instead up staying tight up behind her ears. A regular buckle collar in varying widths is nothing to her. She is going to forge when she wants to forge, lag when she wants to lag, and tugging on her with it is almost an act in futility.

Which pretty much leaves me with head collars, pinch collars, and another kind of chain, the kind that has a nylon piece running through it. Since I know with a Gentle Leader I'll get a dog that constantly tries to rub it off and is annoyed with me and yet still pulls, I figure that's not a good obedience/heeling tool for us. I have a pinch collar but it's got the giant prongs. I think if I were to use one I would need to get the size for a smaller dog with the flatter links and then add enough to make it size to her. It's not off my list of possibilities. I decided to purchase the Comfort Dog Chain and try it out.

In the store before purchasing, I did take the tag/hanger off, fit it on Vegas, and try walking around with it a bit. The nice thing is, to be effective a chain or pinch need to be in the correct location on the dog's neck. Because of the nylon inside, this situates itself better on her neck and stays. So from the short bit of testing there, I did get the results I wanted. She respected my requests for attention and correction for lagging, etc.

Of course this was a very short-term test as I wasn't going to do a whole lesson in the store. But I'm hopeful that with the right tool we can really start to progress in our heeling and add obedience to our list of fun things to do. She's certainly got a much better attitude about obedience than she did a few years ago. I'm so much more excited about it than it was and look forward to learning more. I'll share the highlights of the seminar in another post and what other take aways I got from it.

Little of This, Little of That

Had an interesting weekend...busy, tiring. Attended "When Pigs Fly" by Jane Killion seminar, 17+ hours of intense brain work over the weekend. Took Vegas today for my working spot. She's not sound yet. Kind of just want to cry. She can jump, she can run, she can handle contacts. Tunnels are a no go as is the chute. Need to better diagnose this so we can figure out how to fix it. We need to get back into competition this September. She showed me she's still got the desire - she had a BALL working again. But ouchie on the damned tunnels. :(

Bullet-Point Catch-Up

So much to catch-up on. In the interest of efficiency, I'm going to go with the bullet-point version.

• Our last AKC trial was the end of April. At that time we were left at 129 MACH points to go.  We weren't entered in another AKC trial until the first weekend in June.
• May - we did house work, yard work, had a stressful life (me), and injured ourselves (Vegas). 
• The last weekend in May Vegas started acting a little "off." She was moving a bit stiffly so I stretched her and did some massage and just monitored. It wasn't so bad that I freaked out but I noticed a difference in movement. Her attitude was still the same. 
• Friday night, June 1. We went to the Clackamas County Fairgrounds in Canby to set up our shade cover and drop off crates for the trial over the weekend. I was holding my breath but figured if she was there at the site and knew what was going on, she'd give me a sign. We set things up and on one trip back from the truck I left her in a stay and proceeded to our tent. I then called her to me. She started at a jog and soon was walking - NOT a good sign. If she wasn't running even back to me, which she always does enthusiastically, how could we run? I tried to get her to take the warm-up jump but she was just struggling. Basically she was bunny hopping in the rear - keeping her feet together, not extending. S**t! There was no way she could run over the weekend. I spent a good part of the evening bawling, freaking out, imagining the worst, being heartbroken, worrying, and conversing with my good friend, Rachel, about what could be wrong. I pretty much figured it was her back although I wasn't feeling any heat or getting a ton of pain response and I also questioned the iliopsoas such as my friend, Lindsay's Dane, Heffner, injured. Rachel took a video to show me how to check it and I attempted to recreate the testing protocol and sent her video back. Although she balked at my fussing, it didn't seem like that was the problem. Rachel called in some medications for me (muscle relaxer, NSAID, and pain reliever) and I went to the trial over the weekend for Leo and scratched Vegas. That was really hard. 
• We were entered in another AKC trial the following weekend at the Clark County Fairgrounds. After discussing it with Rachel and doing my fair best to be logical and look at the long term, I scratched V from that trial as well. Talk about sucky. The last month in the invitational qualifying period and two weekends gone bust. Plus a hurt dog and a lot of worry. Sadly she was making it fairly easy as she didn't seem to want to play like normal. That alone was hard to take. 
• Third weekend...CPE Nationals. Would she be ready? Could I get her healed? That was the goal since this was a big deal and our one and only opportunity to participate - especially since it was to be held a mere 45 minutes from home. 
• Fourth weekend - we were entered in this trial as well, booked in Albany, Oregon, at the Linn County Fairgrounds, but between money and her health, I had to scratch that entry, too. 

We did end up running at CPE Nationals. I'll share that in another post. Suffice it to say, injuries suck and no amount of hopeful comments and support from others helps. After all, 95% of those people run dogs with umpteen more years of companionship and competition left in their dogs. They don't really understand. They can't. So it's hard as I really have felt all alone as nobody seems to get it, quite frankly even those who run giants. I am hard core. This was our year, our last year to run hard, to run competitively, and then I didn't have a lot of goals left. I will not run a Dane into the ground no matter how much they love agility. I don't think it's the right thing to do. And my heart has been heavy worrying about healing Vegas, getting her back to her normal self, and enjoying the rest of the year in competition and, hopefully fulfilling the goals I have for us. Life has pretty much sucked on the dog front for the last two months.