A possible end to a very short-lived career

Yoshi's trialing career might be over before it ever began. The injury he received is a trauma-induced luxating patella. Waiting is the name of the game for now to see what happens and if surgery is needed... but it does not look too good as of now.

We will wait 8 weeks before a reevaluation. Until then, I may contact some orthopedic specialists and talk over the phone, or in person about my possibilities. I will find one I feel comfortable working with and get a second opinion.

I dont know what I am going to do with the dog.. meaning how to keep him quiet to get him to heal, and what I might have to do if he might not get to do agility again. This dog cant stand slow work. He has two speeds: fast and faster. If worse comes to worse and he cant run agility I have NO clue of what would be an alternative. He wont like the drilling of Obedience or Rally, he really didnt like Freestyle, Flyball too much strain, Disc dog...WAY too much strain, theres not much else besides herding and I dont know of any close by places that are much good. I am hoping and praying he can make a full recovery..if not we are so screwed. I wanted two dogs that I could enjoy equally and it looks like Yoshi is now going to be left out of having fun and I absolutely hate it!

I am not interested in running Preferred or any of those types of classes for a variety of reasons, so I would prefer not to have it suggested to me. Its a personal preference of mine, but to be honest one of the many reasons is...my dog runs hard no matter what..hes going to put so much strain on his body even if i put him in Preferred at 12"..he is such a die hard sort of dog with so much drive that is not "light on his feet." Hes going to do the same as he would in 16" class, hes going to put as much strain on his body as he can to go as fast as he can. There would be not much of a difference in running the full height of 16" just from knowing how my dog is. Again this is my decision and I am 100% firm in staying with my choice of not running preferred.

He will be put on a joint supplement, I will learn massage and stretching and such. I just guess we will have to wait and see if he can make a full recovery to his 16" class one day.

Either way...I have terrible luck! 4 days before our first AKC..... give me a break!! =(

I probably wont be posting much on this blog in the next few months. I will give updates from vets and such, but nothing else.

Pictures To Choose From

Here are the pics.. for some reason I cant get the picture button to work so I just had to post these pics up...click on them and you can see the full pic!

Well... Possible Good News..and Help Me Decide On Pics

He's starting to get a lot better!! I think that he might be okay to run this weekend if I give him a few more days. I am going to take him to Rachel's later on on Thursday or Friday and run him on the equipment to make sure he is 100% better and can run on equipment. I figured the extra couple days of crate rest will really help him as well. I am not letting him do much as of now, but he did sit up on his hind legs and he can run now. Hes starting to get his energy back too...so I am thinking that he will be ready to go either this weekend or next weekend at the latest as long as it wasnt something really bad. I am going to keep my fingers crossed that when I put him on the equipment that he is fine, and we can start our AKCs this weekend!!!!

I am having problems deciding which pictures to get from the CPE trial....

Ok I cant get the links to show up..I will post the pics in a bit after work and class....

Looks Like....

The show is going to be a no go for me and Yoshi... hes a tiny bit better but no way I am going to let him run. I guess I am out $80 in entry fees... *sigh* Now I just am going to keep my fingers crossed that he might get better in time for next weekend...


This is so discouraging....... =(

No progress

Well hes still limping. If hes not better by the weekend, I might be taking him either to my vet or a vet who might be more specialized in injuries and such. I might have to pull him out of all competition for the spring.

We will wait and see what he does in the next couple of days........ I havent seen any improvement yet though.

hmmmmm...

We had class last night and Yoshi did pretty good (he had problems with 12 weave poles as he has done nothing but 6 in the past month, but I am in no way worried about that) and he knocked one bar, but that was all knocked bars. However, he did jump to early and crash into the tire. He got out of it fine and I got him to do it again and then he did fine on the next exercise. However, after I got home and I fed him and when I let him out he was limping a lot. I felt all over him and he never whined or cried out, but this morning he is still limping. I let him sleep upstairs so he could move around and not be stiff in the crate, but he is still limping quite a bit. I am not sure if we are going to be running this weekend if it doesnt stop bugging him, not sure if it will phase out and hes just a bit sore and cautious on that leg or if hes going to be lame for a week or two from it. I guess we will have to wait and see over the next couple days what it does. He gets up and stuff on his own so I am guessing its not hurting that bad. I am just going to have to keep him kind of quiet I guess, and try to walk him to not let him get stiff too much. I dont know what else to really do....

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

Well this weekend did not go as hoped for. It was a bit of a disaster to be honest. Totally not like what our classes are or anything.

Saturday:

Raining off an on through the whole day..what a bad day to have a first trial!!!

Fullhouse- 1st and Q- Not a bad first run. We had one small miscommunication, but we got a lot of points and in great time. I was feeling pretty good about the weekend after this run.

Standard- 1st and NQ- Not too great with two knocked bars which caused a NQ. Almost had a fly off on the teeter which shocked me.. he usually is steady as possible on that obstacle... starting to see the "Maniac Mode" coming on to Yoshi.

Jumpers- 1st and Q- One knocked bar.. after that, a pretty decent run actually. I was not too happy about the bar as I could see his jumping slip further and further. We communicated a lot better this go round at least.

Colors- 1st and NQ- Another dropped bar which caused an NQ..starting to see a pattern here??? Maniac Mode in full fledge by this time. Hes not responding well to my rear crosses. Dont know if the rain and the slick ground is tripping him up.

Snooker- 1st and NQ- knocked bar ruined us here...

By the end of the day I was so frustrated I wanted to just cry..it felt like nothing really went right.. I dont even know how to describe what I felt. I almost did not want to come back the next day.

Sunday:

Better weather, though some rain earlier that morning which made everything slick at first.

I was going to do a totally different thing with him. NO rear crosses hardly at all.. almost entirely fronts to see if bars stay up. I might not be that great at front crosses for his speed.. so I might have caused some of these huge mistakes. However, the Maniac Mode coming out REALLY ruined him.

Wildcard- 1st and Q- A pretty great run...fast too.. he did run past the a-frame which has never happened before, but I saw way more than a couple of dogs do that..and wondered if they all did not want to go due to the slick ground in that area.

Standard- 1st and Q- A CLEAN standard run..YAY... I was so worried about keeping bars up that I did not do too great on me and his groundwork and I let him come in way too wide for the weaves which caused him to botch them.

Colors- 2nd and NQ- A knocked bar...Maniac Mode starts up again........UGH

Jackpot- 2nd and NQ- This run about made me cry... he was in total chaotic state of mind and pretty much stood there barking at me the WHOLE time... we botched our opening, we botched the gamble HORRIBLY. It was an easy gamble that he could have done any other day but he just totally refused to listen at all... I ended up having to pick him up and put him in his crate. I was close to tears on this run.

Jumpers- 2nd and Q- I did a front cross that he didnt like and I tried to slow myself down which made the mouth start again and caused an off course..but the bars stayed up... At least he wasnt as chaotic as the run before.

The knocked bars were AWFUL this weekend.. I tried so many different things and I could not get anything to really work. He acted like he has never acted before and it has totally discouraged me. Me and him barely did any right this weekend

The good: We Q'ed out of Level 2 Jumpers. We had a couple of good, fast runs.

The bad: The knocked bars were too often of an occassion for my liking. Me and him were not working together very well at all. My massive migraine was not helping me any so I probably was not the world's greatest handler. The mouth started up at the barking at me, which gets both of us in trouble. I dont mind if hes barking while running, but not barking AT me.

The ugly: Maniac Mode in full force, we had a couple of really terrible runs that made me wonder if I am stupid for even trying this out.

I dont know about these AKCs coming up.. I think its a disaster waiting to happen... Though dont listen to me right now.. I'm just discouraged at a not so great First Trial...........

*sigh* I know we all have bad days (animals included) I just wish the first trial would have been a bit more encouraging.. That was the whole reason to do a CPE. AKC is going to eat us alive if he and I do the same performances again.

Time to be on a positive note- We are going to do much better next time =)

Our Fullhouse run


Our Jumpers run..yes its raining


Our Wildcard run (see the crazy decision to not go on the a-frame? I really think he didnt like the slick...silly dog!)


The Standard run with botched weaves (bars stayed up though! YAY)


Pictures to come sometime soon hopefully.......

Makes Me Want To Scream!!!

Yoshi has got his bout of diarrhea again....UGH just what we need right when the trial is in a day. He has been off his food a lot lately and so I am sure he's just being him...a picky eater with a sensitive stomach. I hope he's over it by tomorrow so it won't be a mess at the trial.......*crosses fingers*

Looks like baths all around tomorrow for the two dogs.... I was just going to bathe Foxy..but Yoshi is going to need a bath now too.