Funky

I just want my Brynny back! I’ll never take her ridiculous agility flanking for granted again. She’s been handling the lack of action pretty well though, I’ll have to say – she is one solid, easy little dog. There has been good news with Bryn, but we’re not out of the woods yet. The good news, rehab vet didn’t see anything that was scary on Bryn’s MANY (18!) x-rays (multiple views of her spine, knees, shoulders, elbows, hips). She didn’t see any indication of elbow dysplasia, lumbosacral disease or anything else. So that was a big relief, though we still are waiting from results from OFA (checking every day, I have no idea how long it takes). I find the vet’s confidence that it’s just muscular and she’s improving rapidly to be very comforting. Bryn and I have PLANS.

Bryn has taken the rehab stuff like the solid little dog she is, she’s not a huge fan of the underwater treadmill, but she just calmly took it all in stride. She was sore after the first shockwave treatment, but after the second I haven’t seen anything – she’s feeling GOOD – and it makes me so happy to see. I remain optimistic she’ll be back in action, at least in some capacity, by February.

I have definitely been in a bit of funk this year, which is not like me. In the grand scheme of things, my animals are doing well. There will always be ‘things’ that happen, and I don’t normally let them get me down. Maybe it’s the particularly nasty winter we’ve had, I’ve just been feeling negative about things when I’m normally a very optimistic and happy person. And ALL the things, not just animal related. The good news, I feel better than I was a couple weeks ago. I’m so glad I have my winter classes, because they’ve been a BLAST – baby dogs and specialty classes where people are really passionate about it is so much fun. I’ve really been enjoying have my dogs in classes as well.

Admittedly, it’s looking more and more like Asher is not going to be an ‘international’ agility dog, and I can’t say that doesn’t disappoint me a bit. It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten to really work on my skills, and I love going to seminars and things – but they are all international flavor, and I haven’t had an international dog since Bright died. Asher is pretty clearly saying he’s not comfortable with the backsides. We moved up to 16 inches this week and he just looked awful, and would refuse them as well. We have one more week where we’ll see if he looks any better, but I’m thinking he’s just not comfortable with those jumping efforts. He loves his agility, but he loves it straight on and with no collection, that’s for sure! And unlike Navarre who was just drifty, but a perfectly comfortable and talented jumper, Asher is honestly one of the most awkward looking dogs I’ve seen when it comes to backsides (and jumping in general!), and it’s not like we haven’t worked on it. I’m thinking physically he just isn’t built for it. Coming to a lot of hard realizations with my big red boy lately with agility, so maybe that’s part of my funk, which is letting go of those expectations and hopes.

So, yeah, if my Brynny DOES end up with a career ending issue, I’m kind of out luck in the agility dog department – and that has been a depressing thought. Though Navarre and Asher will still do straightforward AKC, and I think I’ll still try UKI as long as the backsides are very much ‘in flow’ and limited if they’re around here. But, yeah, not much to work on if we’re just doing AKC.

Have been continuing to work Bryn in the international skills class just on the flat and she’s doing GREAT – and loves it! Probably because it’s the only thing she gets to do these days 😉 I love what a problem solver she is. I don’t want to overdo it with her, so we just do the class and don’t practice, but she still picks things up so quickly. Now, we’re just doing small things with bars on the ground, so the flanking is limited. Assuming she gets to go back to jumping, will be interesting to see if the skills are still there. Still struggling with opposite motion, occasionally gets into not wanting to send to wraps, definitely struggles more when there is motion involved, but she’s trying really hard and she’s so much fun.

Asher also does the jumping skills class … which, omg, so bad. Did I mention coming to a lot of realizations? We’ll still work on it, but you’d never know we HAVE worked on it by what he does in class. And all the dogs that have never even seen the exercises look so much better than he does – ha! So happy, tries so hard, but, yeah, not one of nature’s jumpers. He gets better with exercises at the time, but I have yet to see it really reliably transfer to real life situations.

I know intellectually that jumping is very much determined by genetics. But the more I wait to work on jumping with my dogs, it seems the worse they are at it. With Bright I did a lot of very low jump stuff from an early age as she was Haku’s niece and with him being such a poor jumper I wanted to see what I could do. But, really, that particular cross seemed to produce naturally tight turning gifted jumpers, regardless – so it’s not like I can say that doing little jumping things when they’re younger makes better jumpers. But having now done both, as I don’t want to hurt my dogs by jumping them young, there might be a case to be made to introduce them early so they can start learning about how to gauge and use their bodies right from the start. I did a TON of body awareness with Asher in general, but it did not transfer at all to actual jumping, that’s for sure. If I had to do it over with, I would have done all the little exercises – but crazy COVID puppy, I thought it was better to let Asher grow up and settle down (ha!). He may have been the same either way, we’ll never know.

Still, we’re starting the next set of AKC agility league, the international version this time, but I think Ashley’s courses will be flowing for him. We shall see if we have actually made progress in that regard. No other trial plans at the moment, we’ll see when Bryn is ready to return what we want to do. He made my big ‘baby dog’ goal of getting into Masters in AKC, he should be ready to move on to more complex things now. Theoretically.

With the sick sheep and crappy winter weather we’ve had, it’s been discouraging to think about practicing any herding. Our practice sheep experiment ended up coming to an end, which I understand, especially with a sick sheep like that, it’s a lot of work. So the sheep are going to go live with Maddy and it’s back to being able to get out there to practice when I can. We got a lot of good practice in the meantime though, wish Bryn wouldn’t have gotten injured and wasted all this time we could have been working. Oh well. I could have been working Asher, but somehow it just seemed silly to go out there in that nasty weather just for Asher. I need to go put him in a trial again to remind myself on how much work we still need to do! And, of course, I just really want to work Bryn, as I felt she was really getting it there before the injury … we shall see what she looks like when she returns.

Cats are really doing well with their crate training and it’s so much easier to feed them now, even Dragon has decided that having his own dinner he doesn’t have to share is rather nice. Haru is PISSED, he was obviously used to be eating ALL THE FOODS and is now a ravenous scavenger. I just bought a new trashcan, as that’s not safe anymore. Sorry fuzzy kitten, the gravy train is over.

The weirdest thing is Marvin, I swear he KNEW I looked into rehoming him. Suddenly, he’s being so … nice. He only rarely jumps Dragon these days, he’s co-existing with Haru better, and he’s actually snuggling with me. In a really annoying way, of course. Now when I read he wants to do the lay right on my chest so I can’t see my book. And, of course, I let him. And he’s just being much less pissy and antisocial and I swear he’s trying to tell me that he really does like living with us. So he stays … not that I had any nibbles on him anyway. It made me feel so much better to have explored that option though, so now I’m not all speculative every time I hear him having a hissy fit about whatever. There is not some magical home out there waiting for him, and he’s doing okay here overall.

And, yes, Dragon is loving life these days, he adores Haru and seems so happy to have a ‘buddy’ just for him – they are adorable together. Haru also likes Fizban a lot (who doesn’t?), and is doing better at not poking Marvin as much and getting him all riled up. I love my kitties, even Marvin, they make my life better. When they haven’t spread trash around the ENTIRE house while the robovacuum was going …

Getting ready for new classes to start in February, my plan of teaching less is failing SPECTACULARLY. So many fun baby dogs need a class, and I LOVE baby dogs – I think I’m going to end up teaching MORE than I was last year … oh well. I may just have to take longer breaks between sessions! I do love my students and look forward to seeing what fun we can get up to this year. Still have a bit more vacation to go though, it wasn’t what I planned to do, but it was still very relaxing. I am still not caught up on the online content I’ve bought that I said I was going to actually watch this winter … a-hem. But I still have time!