One post a year..

Ive failed as a blogger! I'm trying to get back into it though!

In the past year Sidney has been training very hard to get ready to show in Utility...In the meantime she got her Rally Novice Title and has 2 Rally Advanced Legs. I think she looks at us like "why are we going so slow" in Rally, but I really wanted to keep her in the ring and busy while we perfected the "go out" and those pesky scent articles.

We had decided to work extra hard and enter her in the June Canby show and we're really excited she finally "had" her directed jumping pretty consistently and we were practicing extra days each week to put it all together. Around 10 days ago we noticed she was favoring a back leg while heeling--slightly toe touching and holding the leg back farther than normal. I decided to rest her for a few days and then this week we went to her vet...

Our vet examined her and believes she has a tear in her knee, he advised we not let her do any jumping since she already has signs of scar tissue and arthritis in one knee. We're very very sad to have to retire her from obedience when she's SO close to entering utility and lives for her training, but we don't want her in pain.

 

So, we're off to see an orthopedic specialist on Saturday and see what needs to be done long term: in the mean time we're on day 3 of no training and attempting to keep her "quiet". Sidney is not a slow moving dog--eveything she does includes some sort of hop, jump, bounce or run..We're practicing slooow walks and hope we can manage her injury and not have to subject her to a really painful, expensive surgery.

My super-smart, awesome competition dog will no longer get to do what she loves every week, but I hope we can heal her and still do some showing in Rally and maybe some nosework-anything to keep her mind busy. I do think she might love her water therapy a little too much, so we will see how that goes...