Sunday, August 17, 2014

Ugh!!!

Im so mad at myself.  I took Miley out to the field last night to work.  I had been there earlier in the day. But after killing all the ants, moving the a-frame, dogwalk and teeter, then setting up the course I wanted to run, I was to hot.  So I went home and then drove back after 7pm, when the sun wasn't on the field.   Anyway, our club  has really old jumps at the field. I don't even know how old they are.  Probably from when agility first started.   Java had gotten hurt on one of these jumps in May. I thought maybe it was something I did, like a really late cue, and she got hurt. Which is what is still going on with her now. Hopefully we will get good news tomorrow on that.  Anyway, last night I ran Miley and she got hurt.  Her foot got stuck on the wingless jump stanchion feet.  I saw it happen. My husband felt like it was her trying to avoid the dropped bar. (I had forgotten to reset the bar).  Well, we were video taping and you can see her foot gets stuck. Ack!!



We stopped right then and there. I walked her around a little bit and no limping. I didn't let her do anything today. Hopefully she is ok.   I went back out to the field to bring the wagon and the a-frame mover back to the field. (the tires were flat, so I took them home to fix it).  I also took my 3 wingless jumps from home to the field. Im not using those stupid wooden  jumps ever again.  I took a picture of the bases of my wingless jump, and the clubs.  I was shocked to see the difference in the size of the base feet. I knew the clubs feet were bigger, I just didn't realize how much bigger. No  wonder my dogs are getting hurt.  Im going to have to talk to the club about getting new jumps.

Monday, August 11, 2014

Rain, Rain go away!

    Yup, its been raining a lot!!  For 3 days.  Im over it.  And today is my last day off. Tomorrow its back to work. Ugh!!  Would have been nice to have one last nice day. Oh well, what can you do.
Java is still on rest. Well , no running or jumping. She is allowed leash walks.  She goes back next Monday to get an ultrasound. Im really hoping she is healed.
     Ive been doing a couple of on line classes. One is with Denise Fenzi, "Sensational Stays".  I really want Java to stay at the startline and on the table and teeter.  I hope this helps. I already found a hole in my training with this program. Now Im trying to fix it.  The other class is a learn on your own, with Kathy Keats, "Perfect Timing". Which well all know I don't have. Im trying to fix this. I think my biggest problem is not being able to watch my dog while I run.  I cant catch the mistake happening before its to late. Then we go off course. 

This is Miley running a course on last Wednesday.



She looks ok.

Yesterday I drove up to a UKI trial that was 2 hours away. They had posted on FB that if it was raining, it would be moved down the street to under cover. The whole time Im driving, its raining. I keep praying they are going to move it. Everyone is different in what they think is acceptable surface to run on. I wont run my dogs in the rain. Dogs slip all the time. One slip, they pull a muscle or something happens, and your dog can be out for 6 months to a year. Its just not worth it to me. But Im not saying anything against anyone who wants to run their dog in the rain or on wet surfaces. You know you dog best.  I got up there around 7am and stopped at a McDonalds.  I checked FB, they hadn't posted anything.  Ugh, I was worried. It was just misty outside. I drove to the site. The field was full of water and they decided to move to trial site. Yay!! We had to load up  jumps, tunnels, sandbags, contact equipment and other things in the vans. Took it to the trial site and unloaded and set up. It went quickly. I think we had it set up by around 9am. 
It was a nice small trial.  I think under 20 people ran.  It was  nice. Set up a course, run. Set up the next course, run again.  It was nice practice , with lots of different courses.  I could have never set up that many courses in a day , by myself, to practice.   Miley did well. No broken start lines. Yay!! But no Q's either. But that's ok.   She had some nice runs with just little mistakes by me. Again, I don't see things going wrong until its to late. Well , except for the last run. I was able to save a few things there but she dropped the last bar.
The footing felt ok. It was some kind of dirt/ saw dust type surface. It was fluffy but easy to walk in.  It seemed the bars were dropping easily.  Miley dropped the last bar several times. Weird. She doesn't usually do that.  I think it was the surface. After watching the video, I think she just didn't get the lift she thought she was going to get. The last run, I knew she was going to drop the bar, because when she took off to jump, her back end didn't lift off the ground. It was weird.   Still , we had a good time. Everyone so friendly and nice. Everyone worked together to keep things going.



So you can see she is jumping a little different than how she did on Wednesday. It had to be the footing.  I wonder if its something your dog just has to get use to?