And so I returned from the Nationals all excited and ready
to hit the agility ring with Veto. I had
about four weeks before his first trial so I set up a couple of novice jumping
sequences at home to work on and I was feeling that we were as prepared as we
could be for our first time in the ring.
It was really nice to feel excited about trialling rather than anxious as
I can feel with Cassie not knowing if she will run or not. It felt quite weird warming Ve up for his
turn. The Novice Jumping course was one
of the easiest I’ve seen and a nice way to get started. He ran pretty much as I thought he
would. Not overly fast but confident and
forward striding. He listened to me
beautifully, so much so that when I gave him a jump cue on a slight bend to a
jump he took me completely literally and drove forward and straight past the jump I wanted him to take! He also knocked the back of the spread when
he took off a little too early and didn’t quite have the height he needed to
clear it. Which was funny when for some
jumps he was jumping so high he could have made it over a 700mm height
jump. But all in all it was a great
start and I couldn’t wait for the following weekend when I had entered him in
Novice Agility and Jumping plus Novice Gamblers to give him some extra goes
on contacts in the ring.
 |
| Veto's first agility photo! |
But two days later those trialling plans came to a grinding
halt when Veto managed to do himself a whole lot of damage while free running
at home. I’m still not quite sure how he
managed it. We were taking them all for
a run around the property at home which we do every day. Veto and Fizz love to chase each other
through the bush and somehow Veto got a leg caught under a bush that had a small
stringy branch stuck under the shrub next to it. It looks like that has caused his whole body
to flip and he’s come crashing down on his side. I didn’t even realise what had happened until
I heard him yelping in pain. When I got
to him he was on his side with one leg still stuck under the branch and the other
front leg dangling in the air. I pretty
much saw the end of his agility career flash before my eyes because it really
looked like he had snapped his leg. Adrenaline
promptly kicked in and my practical, sensible in a crisis side managed to
calmly get him unstuck and carry my 20kg puppy back to the house which was
about 200 meters away. The poor boy was
in a lot of pain as was my back the next day.
 |
| What we are doing a lot of right now... |
By the time I got him to the vet he was weight baring which
was a good sign. The vet went over him
with a fine tooth comb and was happy that there wasn’t anything broken or
“snapped” just lots of very painful soft tissue damage. After a shot of morphine and an
anti-inflammatory injection we came home.
I was very lucky that Deb Nook our wonderful dog acupuncturist happened
to be in Perth and could fit him in on the Saturday to go over him and check
how much damage there actually was and exactly what we were dealing with. Her overall assessment was that both of his
shoulders were really bad along with muscle damage to his lower back and his
psoas on both sides not good. Could have
been much worse but a lot of work to do to fix him. Two weeks down the track and two visits to
Deb later with multiple daily leash walks and stretching exercises we are
seeing some nice improvement and his shoulder extension is back to about 50%. He is definitely feeling good and walking him
on leash is getting harder and harder because he just wants to run. My plan is to give him a minimum of 6 weeks
off equipment to make sure all the muscles have had time to heal
completely. At about the 8 week mark
Colin and I are off on an overseas holiday so it will probably end up being
more like 10 weeks. It will just depend
on how he’s going as to what I do with him, if anything before we go away. I’d like to think I can have him back for the
Royal but who knows. He’s recovery has
to be the priority.
Veto's first Novice Jumping run
So we are effectively all having an “agility holiday” spending
lots of time hanging out, relationship building and going for lots of
walks. He is taking it pretty well but
every now and again he needs five minutes of crazy time out the back to let off
some steam. He is hanging to play tug
but I just can’t let him right now which I feel very mean about but it’s all
for the greater good. I’m consoling
myself with that it could have been worse.
He’s young and healthy and should heal completely with time and
patience. However there is a corner of
my brain that can’t help but think it would be really, really nice at some
point in the not too distant future to be able to do agility like a normal
person. It feels like that has alluded me for quite some time...
 |
| Agility Queen |
No comments:
Post a Comment