Zoey's continued progress.

I havent been able to do much agility lately. Lou’s been sick. The kind of sick that you never want to hear your doctor tell you that you have. Thats all I’m going to say on that for now. So while I’m sitting here with him having a treatment, I thought I would blog.
I took Zoey to one day of an agility trial that I could drive back and forth to, about 2 weeks ago. It didnt go well. She was over the top excited. Jumped al her contacts and couldnt weave. But we hadn’t practiced at all.  So this past weekend I entered an agility trial , just standard, T2B and jumpers.  I was suppose to be there just Saturday. But then it looked like I was going to be there for 8 hours between my jumpers run until my standard run. So I changed it up and did my standard run on Saturday late afternoon  and my jumpers run on Sunday morning.  I took the RV up and spent the night because I figured I wouldnt be using the RV much this fall/winter. And RVs start having problems when you dont use them.  Lou came with me, to get out of the house. So that was nice. To bad the weather was horrible. It just poured down rain all day.
 Saturday Zoey did her T2B run first.  It wasn’t great but not horrible. I didnt realize that she had dropped the last bar. So that was disappointing when my husband told me that. But oh well.


 Next we ran Novice standard.  She did awesome. The only thing was the missed down contact of the dog walk. So more work on that. I had switched her to running contacts because the 2o/2o was causing her so much stress in the ring and she was just doing crazy stuff on the contacts.
(Sorry I didnt edit the video in the begining but I was worried that it would get messed up. When I edited the jumpers video on my ipad, you tube uploads the part I deleted and nothing else. Which is weird since I deleted it. So I was scared to do it again)



The next morning she ran open jumpers.  She did pretty well. We have been struggling with getting the weaves on the first time but she did it. She got all the hard stuff and just went around 2 jumps. I was late with my front crosses. I need to do better.
(This video I cant post because I edited it and  youtube, like I said, seem to be able to find the part I deleted and uploads only that part. Very werid).

Java is doing ok with healing from her TPLO.  She still limps at the end of the day and she has lost a lot of muscle mass in her rear.  Its so sad.  She is allowed to walk 30 minutes a day. She get rechecked on Monday.

Walking Java

Java is suppose to be walking 2 to 4 times a day, for 10 to 15 minutes. Its hard to get that in and walk the other dogs too.  So I bought a stroller. It was off of Amazon. Its by PetGear called Excursion.  They have a bigger version, that I probably would have gotten if this had to be a more of a long term thing. But since she should be advancing her activity after a month, I decided to go with this one.  She can lie down comfortably. I took a picture but it didnt really turn out. Java is 18-19 pounds and is 15 1/2 at the top of her shoulders. ( in case you were wanting to buy want and needed to know the size) The back of the stroller opens, so she can walk in and out on her own.  The front also unclicks and folds up. She didnt have any trouble riding in it and got in and out without any problems. I had the top open so she could stick her head out but most of time she just lied down.  

Java, Post TPLO surgery.

Java had TPLO surgery two weeks ago today.  She is doing well.  We went to her post op appt this morning. She no longer has to wear a cone. She doesn’t need anymore pain medication. She can now start 2-4 10 to 15 minute leash walks a day, to strengthen her left leg. She is not allowed any running or jumping and has to remained confined to an x-pen or crate.  This is the video of her walking yesterday.  She will still hold her leg up but as long as you walk slow ,she will use her leg.

Zoey's Improvement.

I went to a trial in Sanford NC. I only took Zoey. Its a small one ring trial and the ring is the only thing in the building. No other dogs are allowed around the ring except the next dog running.  People can watch but no dogs. So it makes it nice for a dog who stresses up.   Its a long time between runs, hours, so I would take her to this very nice park and go hike between runs.

The first day she did ok but kept running around jumps. Which hasnt been our problem. But at least she came to me at the end of the runs, which was a huge problem the last time we came here. She wouldnt come to me and would keep running through the tunnels.  She also had no biting behavior, which is awesome.  So her first run when she ran around a lot of the jumps, in novice jumpers, I let it go. I dont think you should keep correcting dogs by making them go back and get jumps they missed. Its demotivating.  And will make them slow down.

CPA trail, December

We went to a trial in Raleigh NC.  It was raining again. Its been raining a lot this fall/winter.  I think every trial Ive been to but one, its rained. So I decided not to take the RV. I didnt want to drive in the rain or set up in the rain. plus deal with all the mud.
This trial was nice because it was one ring. So I figured it would be good for Zoey and all her stress.  She did pretty well.  She came to me at the end of every run except one. I always tell the person behind me not to come into the ring, until I have Zoey. Otherwise, she might want to go visit them. This person said they thought I had her, but I didnt.  But she wasnt as bad as she has been at some other trials. Still more work to be done on coming right to me at the end of a run.  She was also able to weave in jumpers. Thats a first.  And I actually put her in a standard run. I havent done but just a few standard runs, here and there. Because she stresses so high, she just jumps all the contacts and on and off the table , repeatedly. I dont want her practicing that bad behavior in the ring.  But she did really well.  For some reason, she hit the up side of the a-frame really hard. And then stopped on the way down. She jumped off the table, once but got right back on and stayed. And stopped on the other contacts.



Jumpers run.

Java and I struggled on Saturday. Jumping off the teeter. But she had a nice jumpers run and took 1st place. (Either  no border collies Qed or there werent any entered).




Sunday I only had Zoey in Jumpers in T2B. I was worried about to many standard runs.  Her jumpers run, she finally got her weaves but we didnt Q because she had an off course at the beginning.



T2B run.


 It probably would have helped if I hadnt been late with my cross coming out of the tunnel or after that other jump out of the tunnel. Both of those cause her not to know where to go.

Java Triple Qed on Sunday!!
 I think this is double Q #13 on our Quest for a MACH.   My goal is to get at least one double Q a weekend.  But at  the last trial I was at, we didnt get a double Q.

Concord Trail , November.

Zoey. I finally bought a picture of Zoey at a trail. Still not a great picture. They usually only take picture during Standard runs and we havent been doing many standard runs. This was taken during FAST.

Java

Java and I didnt do to tell at this trial.  I think we only had one jumpers Q. 

This wasnt a Q but a nice run except for the bar.

  Zoey did so much better than the last trial. ( The last trial was a total disaster. Chasing dogs, biting me, no focus at all)  I wasnt sure how things were going to go. I figured if  the first run was terrible, we wouldnt run anymore. But she did pretty well. No biting me. We did running starts.  She did ok in jumpers but still couldnt weave. We didnt do any standard runs. Im trying to take her more places to practice to she knows the same rules for agility apply everywhere.

CDTC trial

This picture isnt from the Charlotte trial but I just wanted to have a picture.  It is a recent picture of my dogs at the river here in Columbia.  And I just like it.

So I took the dogs to a trial up in Charlotte. Its the only trial close enough to drive back and forth to. The only down side is , its outside on grass. So if it rains or snows , you are out of luck. But its also cheap to enter.  I took Miley but she isnt entered.  She is having more vision problems and many times cant even get weave pole entries  at home.  Friday, I took Zoey, just to get her use to being there , but she wasnt entered on Friday.  We hadnt trialed in 2 months and Zoey was over the top excited. So we worked on calming behaviors outside the ring.

Java had 2 nice runs but no Qs. She missed the DW contact in standard and dropped one bar in JWW.  But she stayed at the startline. (Ive tried everything to make this vidoe's post clear. I have not idea why they are blurry. They arent blurry on my ipad. I uploaded them again, thinking that I forgot to change it to HD. But it didnt make a difference.  Maybe it just takes a while to process??)



JWW


Then Saturday Zoey was only entered in T2B.  She was very excited but I thought she might be ok.  You can see she wasnt.  She broke her startline, then jumped the A-frame contact and couldnt weave.  Then jumped off teeter. So the AKC has a new rule that if your dog jumps off the teeter half way up, or on the up contact of DW or A-frame, you can put them back on.  So, since she jumped off, I went to put her back on the teeter but the judge said I couldnt.  I went to go on but it was late and Zoey had already circled back around and then got on anyway.  So we were whistled off.




Java 's JWW run, she couldnt finish the weaves. I tried 3 times and she kept popping out.  The weaves where into the corner and there was a tunnel off to the left, that was next.  I guess she just wanted to go on.  Then in standard, she was having a very nice run, then missed the DW contact.  It was DW into a curved tunnel. Then they come out and have to turn about 45 degrees to the right.  She went right back up the dogwalk.

Sunday, Zoey seemed calmer to me so I thought maybe we would do better but we didnt.  Well, she did a little better. She stayed at the startline , enough for me to release her.  But she couldnt weave.

Jumpers.



I couldnt decided if I should run Zoey in standard or not. I dont want her just jumping off contacts.   In the end I  set her up at the startline, she broke. So I put her into the weaves (that wasnt the course) and she did them. We ran out and celebrated.

Java had a nice day. She Qed in Standard.


In JWW she dropped one bar. Ugh, so tough. We are trying to get a MACH and I feel like its never going to happen.  We have over 3000 points , you need 750. But we have only 11 double Qs.  In good news she holding her startlines now.



You can see it was much cooler but luckily the rain held off until after we ran.