Tuesday 28 April 2009

Visit to the osteopath....

OK, where do I start... Pie was on about 5 minutes a day lead walk, and on the lead when going in the garden to go to loo. Pie doesn't like doing anything less than 100 mph (apart from his weaves!!) so keeping him on lead is a bit of a pain. Anyway, Tasha had the osteo round her house last night to check over her 6 and said that I could pop in anytime after 6.30. So I kindly asked my brother to take me and he did. We got there for just before 7 and Hannah had a look over Pie. He was really good considering he's not too keen on strangers poking him, I don't think any of us would either, but I held his head just to be safe. After she had started checking him over he was nearly falling asleep, as his eyes kept rolling. Bless him! Hannah felt that his left tricep by his shoulder was tight, and also found the slight beginning of arthritis in one his back toes, but it was nothing to worry about. Hannah has advised me to cut down the metacam. She said it has done its job and it's not inflamed anymore. She agreed with me about it masking up and it making it worse. She believes that in order for the muscle to heal I should expect him to go lame again once his exercise (on lead) is back to normal. The scar tissue needs to heal (or something like that). So for the next 2 days his metacam is being halved and then for the net 2 days half again. And increased exercise as the muscle still needs to be stretched etc. Obviously this can't be certain without scans etc.... but i'm going to see how we go for the next week and then call Hannah again to get him checked. Depending on his progress he should be able to be back training in 6 weeks. It's not as bad as I thought, but also not nice to hear seeing as he is my only competing dog. I'm heading to Vyne next monday, mainly to watch champ, so we have something to aspire to when we are back competing. It's Helen and Mitch's first champ too so would like to see her in that. I'll keep you all posted, and thank you to those who have been really supportive and helpful.
L x

Saturday 25 April 2009

Update on Pie

Well my poorly puppy is still poorly :(

Took him to the vets Thursday morning. She warned me that shoulder injuries can take a long time to fix. She doesnt know what the exact problem is but shes hoping its not too bad as he isn't in too much pain. She proded, poked and moved his shoulder to the full range of movement and he only flinced once. She has put him on metacam which im not too happy about as because as soon as i up his exercise and take him off its more probable that the lameness will come back again and he could be doing his shoulder more damage! She has said for him to have 5 min lead walk a day... and increase by 2-4 minutes everyday. As soon as/if the lameness shows again I have to take him back for xrays, and if nothing shows then it might be tendon damage. Kate smith who is a chiro has kindly offered to have a look at him over the weekend. Her and Paul are competing at Newbury so i'm waiting for my brother to get back from Brighton later on today and for him to take me.

So all in all is just a waiting game really, but i don't think we will be doing much this season :(

Tuesday 21 April 2009

Wallingford

Well I was in a really good frame of mind for the show until Pie went lame on tuesday night!! Thankfully he was fune by thursday evening, so ran him at the weekend. We managed a 3rd in G6 Jumping on the Saturday, which I was veryyyy pleased with!! The timings were very close and it was one of those runs where everything just felt right, and I didn't mind where we finished. I forgot to video any runs over the weekend... oops.!! The G6 agility wasn't pleasant and I managed to get to a respectful number 11!! Where Pie decided the tunnel was better than to do a jump. Naughty boy! Sam and I managed to get through to round 3 in the knock out pairs with 2 bys!! and then by the time we actually ran against a pair... we both got E'd!! Not good.

Sunday didn't seem too good, Pie was naughty boy and pulled off a jump in agility, which meant I could train my contacts... and see saw!! So Lee won't be able to complain.

I forgot to enter wbsds this weekend, so have a weekend off which is good as Pie is lame again. He looks like a monster when he walks... his left shoulder really dips and he was sat next to me earlier and he went from sit to stand and I heard 2 large crunches! So i'm calling my vet tomorrow so i can go to osteo and im popping down to newbury over the weekend to see Kate Smith who has kindly agreed to have a look at him. I really hope it's nothing serious and just something which he needs a few weeks rest for. Our next show that i've booked is Vyne, but very much doubt we'll be doing that now :(

So positive thoughts for P please :)

Monday 13 April 2009

Easter Celebration

Well my alarm went off at 7, after having just 2 hours sleep!! And my first run didn't turn out to be until about 10.30!! So lots of waiting around, thankfully the weather wasn't too bad.

It was our first show at grade 6, and our first class was 5/6 agility. I thought the course suited well and really was going for a clear round, however, the freak dog ran past first jump. Huff. I think it was mine and his fault, but oh well, was an excuse to use it as a training round. He had a lovely dogwalk until he self-released... ahhh!! I didn't even notice as it was just before I said 'go', but looking back at video, it's very obvious that he went before I said. Ooops, so Lee told me off for that and for not holding my see-saw.

In the G6 jumping, there was about 4 places where you could do a cross behind.... but Lee managed to convince me that I only needed just the 1 at the end, and that worked really well, so thank you! Although before the cloth tunnel P did a little twizzle which I thought should of been faulted but the judge was rather kind and we managed a 12th.

I had been entered in the connection agility too, I didnt really have a choice as my entries got changed, and I had no idea what it was. I didn't even bother to walk it, as I was just going to watch a few go, and 'steal' their route! Leah did a good job in explaining it to me though :) I was the last dog to run, but Mum wanted to go, having been sat in car most of the day, so I tried to push in early but they would'nt let me so couldn't run it.

It was a good day though, and was great to finally meet Kai - Nat have faith in her you silly girl!! I'm at Wallingford this weekend, both days, and am really looking forward to it. So see you all there!

Oh and here is a video of our 5/6 agility run...

Saturday 4 April 2009

UKA Scrambles

I thought it was about time I had a blog, which I could update regularly!!

Seeing as I can't go to the 3rd day of this show tomorrow... thought i'd post 2 runs from today.

RC Senior Agility - NFC. I train most of my agility runs at UKA, and vary when I actually bring toy in or not. I decided to run his first contact (although it's still a slight pause) and then test the following 2. His see-saw was lovely and solid, so was very pleased. Still not happy with his up on aframe but oh well. I think he knew that if he came off I wouldn't of been a happy bunny!! Laughing I'm pleased with myself that I choose to train runs, because I truely believe it all pays off. It takes abit to pay £3.50 and run and just put a big fat NFC on, but I love it Smile

Pairs - I ran the agility side and Virginia and Rob ran the jumping. Again, i held his contacts. It was in the morning and the ground was still quite wet and slippery, and as I released him off his dogwalk, he skidded on his belly to the next jump. Oops! Luckily he was perfectly fine.

Senior Jumping - The course was ridiculous! The champ jumping after it was EASIER. He got a nice weave entry though Smile He ran past tunnel and had air head on, so I took him out.

Novice Steeplechase - We came 2nd in this, so now we just need 2(!!) points in order to move up to senior steeplechase Very Happy

Enjoy x