Broken Bryn

Oof, what a year – a crazy, jam packed year with a lot less dog things than I would have liked. Well, dog things that have to do with MY dogs. And then to cap it off, right before my break starts, where I have all sorts of exciting dog things planned – Bryn comes up non-weight bearing in the rear. LE SIGH. Alas. I’m pretty zen about it though, we’ll fix it, one way or another, but there may not be much herding/agility/hiking in Bryn’s future for 2023. Sometimes life takes you in different directions.

So she was non-weight bearing for about three days, no change with rimadyl, no sign of pain or swelling or issues with range of motion. I changed to gabapentin and she showed improvement, and would go from three legged to putting it down off and on. She had improved by the time we saw Maddy, which was a little under 2 weeks from the initial injury. Still off, but not like she was. Maddy was unable to pinpoint anything exactly, couldn’t rule out a knee or illiospoas. She was going up to see Leslie Eide the following week though, and managed to squeeze Bryn up to see her as well. I also got an assisi loop from Maddy and started using that twice a day around left leg. She was definitely improved after that. Bryn went up to see Leslie with Maddy, we still didn’t find anything definitive. Still maybe a 10% chance it was a knee, but she showed the most discomfort in her lower spine, which made her suspicious of lubarsacral disease. So recommended x-rays, which was already on the list for 2023 anyway.

So where we are now is Bryn is DEFINITELY improved, we continue the assisi loop twice daily, she’s looking much stronger and more balanced and has been using the leg for at least a week (vigorously, in some cases!). While I know LS disease is a possibility, I’ll admit that I’m not going to get too worried until we get some evidence – and I’m happy to see Bryn is improving. Currently we have an appointment with the chiropractor next week, then an appointment with the rehab vet in Salem a few days after that, and then an appointment to get x-rays of almost EVERYTHING a couple days after that. I remain optimistic that she’ll be fine, so I’m going to go ahead and get her OFAs done as well – so we’ll get views of her hips, spine from two angles, elbows, shoulders and her knees. After all that, I feel like I should have an idea of what exactly the issue was and where we can go from there. I’m just happy she’s feeling better, and she’s bouncing off the walls inside and has had no backsliding in her improvement. Fingers crossed!

Bryn is all in Excellent agility! We had our last AKC trial of 2022, just one day, and she is definitely getting her swagger on in competition. Contacts were so much better – our work is paying off! Still not where they should be, but actually driving now. Weavepoles remain solid, including a rear cross, no issues. Her last Open standard run was actually really smooth … but she left the table early. Someone should really train her dogs on the table … though I’ll admit I just keep thinking it’s going to go away! Not yet though. She was excited and amped to go though, which is a good thing. And then her first Excellent jumpers Q too – with nothing weird! Once again, not as drivey as she is at home, but very connected, even with a serpentine and a tricky (for her) rear cross where she would traditionally run around the jump – hurrah! Super pleased with the little nugget, lots of great tugging in the waiting area – she bit my hand! And while we are going right to food at the end of the runs (good connection!), after the food I was able to get her back into play mode with the toy right in the waiting area without her looking conflicted. Baby girl is growing up – maybe she won’t be that hard after all. So much easier to run a smaller dog with AKC spacing, that’s for sure.

Asher also did some great stuff at the AKC trial too, nice contacts, nice weaves, kept his bars up except for the triple (I should practice that, maybe?). As he did knock a bar in standard I tried a blind cross off the teeter afterwards, and, predictably, he did not wait and released early – so need to work on that (and came off the table – a hint of what to train, perhaps?). Nice jumpers run in tight spacing (he actually seems to better with tight spacing, he can’t get up to speed so collects better!), but I handled the last jump wrong and he went offcourse – he did great though. He’s starting squeal barking more and more … which is not a great sign of keeping a clear head, that’s for sure. But, hey, he’s always a party and we had a great time.

Navarre got a double Q – finally! He should have been done with that damn MACH this year, but he got, what, 3 double Qs this year? To be fair, I didn’t trial that much, and mostly just one day trials here and there – but I did those 6 DAYS of trialing over two weeks where he got ONE double Q … I definitely remember that. I don’t like running agility just to be clean, it’s not fun! He was absolutely normal over the weekend, nothing weird at all, just a nice straightforward dog that is very easy to run these days … when he’s not doing weird things.

Hard to believe my big boy is coming up on 8 years old though! Claudia did another amazing portrait and cake for Navarre’s herding championship he got with Carol – that is just so incredibly sweet and thoughtful of her! Having someone else really celebrate an achievement makes it much more special – so thankful to Carol for running him and Claudia for the celebration. He’s a good boy, frustrating sometimes, SO opinionated, but I wouldn’t have him any other way. It’s too bad that there is not more herding to be had, him and Carol could go rock it.

Also had a UKI trial at my arena, this is actually the second one, but I didn’t get to do the first one as I was off herding. This was a two day trial, and pretty well attended – like a REAL trial! But still small enough that it moved quickly and felt really small and friendly – more like trials of the old days. Wow, courses that are actually FUN, so much space and flow and challenges that I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle them (mostly badly!). It’s been a LONG time since I have actually been interested in courses at a trial. I mostly used to get my tricky coursework from seminars – but with COVID and not having a dog for that level (Navarre is retired from backsides and things of that nature), I haven’t really worked on MY skills in quite some time. And I never get to actually get through courses with Asher, as something always blows up – and it was no different at the trial! Lots of nice things, always either I messed up or he did, but it was a lot of fun. Asher thought having a trial in his backyard was AMAZING, he couldn’t believe we just kept getting to go back out there! I had entered everything, but assumed I wouldn’t run it – but I really did enjoy the courses so we ran them ALL.

The courses were not super complex, but a lot of speed and I just kept NOT CALLING MY DOG. And Asher kept doing things like NOT driving ahead on a line of jumps, which was just bizarre. Boy was it fun when it actually came together though. I love working on things, and we have a lot to work on – and I’m actually inspired to do it, as I might have an actual reason to have skills! We shall see if we get more UKI in the area. If it does catch on I might go ahead and put on some trials myself in the future, but it’s a lot of work that I don’t have time for right now – so I’m thankful for all the hard work that other people are doing.

So homework for Asher is definitely training something other than AKC exits off dogwalks, I never have and it was clear that we haven’t! He does have a lovely trained stop that I never have put on the dogwalk that would actually be the best solution for when I can’t get there, but I’ll admit I am worried I’ll break his running dogwalk that he FINALLY is doing consistently. I guess we shall see. I need to actually put his international skills in sequence, I had no idea if he would be able to do things, because we just don’t practice it, especially with a lot of speed. Need to work leadouts, as he did the same running past jumps that he’s done in AKC, I really need a lead out. TWO ridiculous teeter flyoffs, which seems silly in his own arena.

We had NINE runs, and he had ONE bar. ONE BAR. Holy crap! ONE weave fault! Handling off the dogwalk didn’t go well, but his performance was good, as was the aframe. I ended up doing a quick run down of his faults on these very doable courses:

Teeter flyoff and I overhandled after the dogwalk, super wide from 14-15 even with a k-turn

I’m really very happy with him, it was a lot of good, some silly stuff, and me just not actually being prepared to handle proactively the WHOLE course – because we rarely ever get to run that much! I don’t know why he suddenly couldn’t drive ahead on the first day, but then his faults for the second day were him driving on because I didn’t say anything in time. I think we both had a great time and Asher was in HEAVEN. Having a trial in his backyard was magical for him. He got to hang out in the backyard waiting for his turn, and then he was SUPER HIGH running, and then outside to go play with his toy as much as he wanted. His little brain just about exploded from excitement. He is just so much fun, and I very much enjoy running him. We were definitely worse with standard courses … hmmmmm.

SUPER sad not to run Bryn, I think this would have been a wonderful transition step to help her with trial environments. I think she would have loved the courses and moving out. I don’t think we would have been very successful, for the normal reasons, but we were both bummed she couldn’t play. Someday, little girlie. Also, such a different crowd than I’m used to being around at trials, I really enjoyed getting to see the aggressive handling and dogs really moving out. It’s been a while …

Had a very interesting experiment with Navarre recently. He barks constantly when I’m working with the other dogs in herding. Which is not going to fly in the summer. I decided to try out a bark collar as I don’t want to have to leave him at home on the days I’m going to come practice. First I got a relatively cheap version, with the assumption I wasn’t going to have to use anything other than the beep and vibrate function. I tested it out in agility, where he also barks when it’s not his turn. Beeping and vibrating – zero response, he could care less. So I decided to try to the shock function, but it didn’t seem like it was doing anything, he had no response. But it was a pretty low quality collar, so I got a recommendation for a ‘real’ bark collar, from the hunting people with the bone headed labs. I hadn’t gotten the nerve to test it though, so we tried it the other day, with someone that was very familiar with fitting them and making sure they were working correctly. And … almost zero response on the highest level. He just doesn’t care, barked right through it. I knew that Navarre could be hard headed, but I was damned surprised that he was THAT hard headed. And thus ends my bark collar experiment for Navarre, unfortunately I’ll just have to leave him at home on the days I’m going to go work sheep. Dork.

As for sheep, with broken Bryn we hadn’t been doing much of anything, including sheep. I finally took Asher back and we had definitely regressed some both on his basic skills and standing up to sheep. Was being fast and obnoxious to start with, and not standing up to sheep at all. Just sorting the sheep took forever because they could tell he was being nervous and they were all standing up to him. Once he got into it a little more he gained some confidence and while he wasn’t taking charge, he also stopped doing as much moving away and stood his ground and moved sheep. Often not very fast, but he moved them. And then Carol had come out to give Navarre a Christmas present and he got to work the practice sheep for the first time – and ran one right into the fence. Sigh. Sheep was okay, but while those little buggers don’t move for Asher, they were FLYING for Navarre! It was clear he hadn’t been on sheep since back in the summer, but he did settle down eventually. It was a very good Christmas present. And Asher got to work with Carol too – he was so happy! Once again bummed to only be working Asher, I really miss Bryn and it was so much nicer to have two dogs to trade off with. Sniff.

Once of the things that really fell by the wayside the last few months is hiking with the dogs. It was SO NICE to go again, even if little Brynny couldn’t come. I was actually quite worried about Haku, as at 13.5 he is definitely struggling more. Can’t jump on the couch easily any more, got lost and wandered off the property the other day, doesn’t stick with me on our walks to even make sure he’s getting enough exercise – he’s usually off sniffing whatever. But apparently he’s been doing secret situps, as he was such a trooper and didn’t have any issues with the hike and bounced out of the car when we got home to run around – he was feeling GOOD. So he’s still got it and that makes me very happy. While we won’t be able to go every week next year, I still plan to make it a priority, the dogs were SO HAPPY (and so was I!).

I did go ahead and list Marvin to see if there was home that might be better for him. I apparently didn’t sell him well though, I got zero serious inquires. Some crazy people, which made me not want to ever rehome an animal though. I still feel like if it was just him and his person he would glom onto them and be their best buddy. But homes without other animals are hard to find, and I honestly don’t know if he really would be the sweet lapcat that someone in that situation would want. I love that little asshole, and I’m happy to have him here – I did want to see there was some magical home waiting for him though. Apparently not! He has actually been nicer since I listed him though, which makes me laugh. We have our own special relationship, and obviously he has Fizban, which is all he needs – at least for now. I wish someone would play with this kitten, but Marvin has been damn clear it’s not going to be him.

Haru is eight months old now! And, yes, definitely potato shaped. He remains an awesome addition and always up for an adventure. He’s getting a THICK (but beautiful!) coat, so I’m a bit worried about future grooming, but for now he remains easy maintenance. It IS cold, we had our artic vortex or whatever, which was pretty uneventful. It was cold in the low 20s with wicked windchills, we did get ice, but it was light and didn’t do any damage. So back to normal 40s and raining, which I think works just fine – and fingers crossed that’s what we get through January so I can relax and enjoy my classes and time with the dogs.

Anyway, counting down to Christmas and the end of the year, enjoying some down time and getting myself organized for 2023. We are a happy household around here, even with our tiny asshole Marvin and a broken Bryn.