This and That

First, we are in the wrong dog sport. I watched "super retriever series"(hunting dog trials) on TV today, the purse was $50,000. Can you believe it. I couldn't.
Miley is very bored. Yesterday she ate the corner of a chair cushion. She has never chewed anything since she has lived here. She put a few teeth marks on the shutters but never ate anything. She keeps bringing me toys to throw and barking at me. Soon Miley, soon.
Mickey's front bottom tooth is very loose. I don't know when this happened. My daughter just noticed it today. It looks like it is going to fall out any second. I wonder if this happen when Guiness bit him a few weeks ago? I guess we will be going to the vet again on Monday.

What a difference a day makes!

Miley is feeling much better. She wants me to teach her how this new agility equipment works.

Miley's home.

Miley is home from being spayed and microchipped. When I got her home, I was petting her. I noticed she had a lot of dried blood on her shoulders. When I started looking at the the area to see what the problem was and make sure nothing was wrong. Guess what I found? The microchip sitting in the dried bloody fur. Ugh!! When I called I don't think they believed me. They probably thought, "crap, the lady who is obsessive about her dog and this has to happen". So I took her back and sure enough it was the microchip. They said they were sorry they didn't notice all the blood on her. They cleaned her up and then rechipped her. So much for being chipped while under anesthesia. But she seems ok and is now resting.

Chris Zink cont....

What is the best exercise for your dog. Off leash hiking. I try to hike with my dogs but not off leash. I know off leash is better because they use more and different muscles to run around and jump over things. But this park is the best I can do and it has to be on leash. At least there are lots of roots and up and down hills to help with muscle building and propre0ception.



Just a side note I read in my notes. One dog going through the weaves on the video was double footing through the poles but stayed on the left lead every time instead of switching leads. So what was wrong with the right leg?



Jumping: Dogs should extended their front legs and use their rear legs for thrust. As the dog jumps, first his head is up and his back end ( tail) is down. After he reaches the apex of the jump, his head is down and his tail is up. This information helps you by being able to use the "head up and tail down" to see if your dog took off to soon or too late. So if he hasn't gone over the bar but his tail is down, then you know he is probably going to knock the bar. Dogs that are over jumping the bar ( clearing the bar with lots of room under them) are taking off too soon. But there are a few dogs that just love to jump and jump way high. Your dog may have a physical problem if the are refusing the jumps, taking off too close or landing to hard on the front.

She teaches dogs to jump by putting about 20 bars on the ground at different withs to each other. Then she has them go down the middle of the bars. We did this at the seminar for dogs that didn't do agility so they didn't have jumping experience. Someone would hold the dog at the end. The owner would walk down the middle of the poles and turn around and call the dog to them. If the dog went around, the owner would start over and stop in the middle of the poles ( only go down to pole 10) and turn around an call the dog. As the dogs got more successful , the poles would be adjusted. By putting cans under one end of the poles, or both ends, or making the poles diagonal ( two poles touched ends on the side). It was interesting to see the dogs start to learn to adjust there strides as they went through the poles. She states this teaches them where their take off points are in relation to the poles. You are to keep this very fun and there are no corrections to be given to your dog if they go around the poles or make any mistakes. They are just thinking and just trying to figure things out. Give treats when they do it right.

Next we did lead legs. This group of dogs had experience jumping. The dogs did different things like going down three jumps, then 2 jumps and turn 180. This was all to see dogs change lead legs. I had a very hard time seeing dogs change there lead legs. Miley looked like she was using both front legs to land on, but Chris said it just looked that way because she was so little. But actually the one leg was coming down before the other. We had the dogs do a sequence where there was a pinwheel on each end and you were to front cross in between pinwheels to turn the dog. If a dog waits until the very last second to change lead, this could be a single that the dog has an injury. Miley did very well with all the jump sequences. Everyone was very impressed even Chris. She asked me if I was going for the World Team. I told her I'm just trying to get to my first trial. She also said she hoped she wasn't going to be competing against me at the trials. After the seminar a bunch of people came up to me and said what a great dog I had. One guy even said, " I wish I had your dog, she is great" So of course that made me feel great! Don't worry I'm well aware that I have a long way to got with training. All I have to do is go to some other peoples blogs and watch their dogs run. That keeps things in perspective. But it was still nice to hear.

3 most common injuries:



1. Medial shoulder instability. This happens more in dogs with straight shoulders.



2. Iliososoas (sp) strain . This is the most common agility injury



3. Jump down syndrome. You shouldn't let your dogs jump in and out of SUV's or vans. This injury can not be seen on any scans. You have to have arthroscope to see it. This injury tends to happen in dogs with short humerus. Its like having elbow dysplasia. It cant really be fixed to the point of your dog returning to competition.



Some of this info today I did from memory because I didn't have anything written down. It was hard to right and do and watch at the same time. Over all I learned alot and recommend her seminar. It was good to be able to asked questions. I really hope she will do a seminar on the stuff on agility obstacles and your dogs performance. The only thing was it was hard on Miley to be in the crate so much. Probably and older dog would do better. When we were going through structure and gaits, I wish I had brought Guiness. But there was another sheltie there that had been clipped. She shaved her under side but still had her top and chest coat. Well, Chris kinda gave her a hard time about cutting the dogs coat. She really feels the coat insulates the dog from the heat. So at that time, I was glad I didn't bring Guiness. He is shaved for the summer. She would have really given me a hard time. I think for some dogs that shaving there coat makes them deal much better with the heat here in South Carolina. Last night it was still 95 degrees at 7 pm. Plus the humidity is usually 95%. Sometimes it feels like you cant breath when you go outside.

Lastly, Miley is at the vet getting spayed. I'm nervous. Ive only had male dogs in the past and their procedure is pretty easy. Roxy was already spayed when I got her. So this will be my first experience with a female. Lets face it, the spay is harder than a neuter. They have to open the abdominal cavity and remove multiple organs. At least this vet gives pain medication to take home with your dog. Keep your fingers crossed.

Chris Zink seminar Day 2

Conditioning: Your conditioning program should have 4 parts.

skill training

strenght training

proproception training

Endurance training

Here are some indoor exercises you can do with your dog. Beg, wave, beg & wave, tug, spin roll over, catch , crawl and backup. Every dog should learn to sit-up (beg). Even corgi's. It is the best core muscle exercises you can do with your dog. She feels that if you teach your dog to beg-stand-beg. You can add 2 years on to your dogs life. The beg and stand should be held for 10 seconds each and the stand should have as little movement as possible. Also you should repeat the exercise three times. The indoor exercises can have variety added to them, like if your dog can roll over then have him do it on an incline. ( see how Miley holds her legs out in front in a beg, but Guiness doesn't. She said that Miley just doesn't understand the exercise well and when she does she will start pulling her legs in)

She doesn't like treadmills to exercise a dog. She feels that the dog will not extend their reach when walking on the treadmill. Also she feels that the dog uses different muscles when walking on a treadmill then on land. The dog is not reaching and pulling himself because its the band that is moving under him that is causing the movement. Does that make sense? I'm not sure I'm explaining it right. The only dogs that need a lot of endurance training are mushing dogs and herding dogs. Endurance training is at least 10 min. of continuous swimming or 20 min. of trotting.

Every dog should have a break from training. At least one month a year your dog should just be a dog. No training and only moderate exercise. That doesn't mean one month obedience training but not agility training. A month of no training at all.

Most harness are restrictive. She showed pictures of different harness she doesn't like. One was the "sensible harness". Of course that's the harness Miley had on. She feels it is the worst harness out there. It restricts the shoulders. No harness should touch or impede the shoulders. The front should go more around the neck and keep shoulders free.

Warm-up: All dogs should warm up because it improves performance and helps prevent injuries. First you should walk, trot and run you dog to warm them up. Then do stretching that mimics what will happen in the ring. She doesn't think you should pull on your dog to stretch them. Like when you see people extending their dogs legs out behind them. Because you wont know when its to far. Most likely your dog wont tell you. The only stretching she recommends is having your dog between your legs, have a treat in your hand and have them follow the treat. Move the treat along the side of their body starting at the shoulders then to the hip, keep it there 10 seconds then move it down to the rear toe and hold for 10 seconds. Make sure you do both sides. Next stretch, have the dog standing sideways in front of you. You kneel down. Holding your dogs butt, put a treat in front of his nose and bring it down to the ground and in toward him a little.He will be some what in a bow. This stretches the spine one way. Then start in the same position and this time hold the dog under his chest and bring the treat down and in. This will stretch the spine the other way. ( Hope that makes sense) Doing the figures 8's also over the practice jump is good stretching.

Dogs don't need electrolytes replaced at a trial like people do. Dogs don't sweat , so they don't loose electrolytes.

Next we watched videos of dogs doing agility. We watched dogs weaving that probably had an injury. Some times they double footed one side, but single stride the other. Some dogs stayed in the same lead all the way through the poles when they should be switching leads. I cant remember every thing we saw. But it was very interesting. She recommend you video tape you dog when they are healthy so you can see when things start to change. We watched dogs jump that had problems. She was just video taping dogs a trials and these people didn't know their dogs were having problems. One dog studderd stepped. But did the weaves well. She thought he might have a visual problem. One dog jumped very close the the jump and "slammed" his rear down. ( I couldn't see the slamming, I don't have a very good eye for these things). She said he was probably doing this because he was trying to get the weight off his front end. I cant remember what the other dog did. You definitely had to have an eye for some of there things. We watched dogs doing the A-frame. She feels the slats cause a lot of problems. She feels that dogs jump the yellow because they are trying to get off as soon as possible to avoid the slats. On her equipment at home she has no slats in the yellow zone. In the video the 2O/2O defiantly looked harder on your dog. The dogs shoulders slamming looked painful. She feels dogs should do a running contact on the a-frame. We also watched teeters and tires. Some of it looked so painful to the dog. Most dogs kept running. I told her she needed to do seminars just on agility obstacle performance. So that we could learn what to look for in our dogs performance that may clue us in that they are injured. She said she has thought about it. Its hard to get video of the dogs. Then if you have to tell someone there dogs looks injured they sometimes get offended. The video she showed us was just from random trials. We also watched dogs going up the dogwalk. It was very interesting to see that most of the dogs were having problems controlling their rear end. You probably wouldn't have noticed unless you saw it in slow motion. Only one dog went up the dogwalk straight. Many of the dogs back legs hit one side then the other and then straighten out. She recommends that you video tape your dogs back end going up the dogwalk to see what they are doing.

This is getting long so I will cont. it later.

Chris Zink seminar Day one

It was a very good seminar. I learned alot about body structure and gait. I will try to recap some of the information. Just rememeber that this is what I heard and sometimes we dont hear what someone says correctly.

She talked about spaying and neurtering dogs. She recommends that you dont fix your dog until they are 14 months old. Personally she doesnt think you should fix a male dog but her females she fixes at 14 months due to the risk of mammary cancer and pyometra. I , Diana, have been struggling with spaying Miley or not. Ive been worried that she needs these hormones to keep up muscle building and strenght. I do have an appt. for Miley to be spayed on Wednesday. The deciding factor was, what if Mickey and Guiness get in a fight when Miley goes into heat. I would never forgive myself. So I asked the question at the seminar about when women have hysterectomies or go thur menapause, that they loose muslce mass and bone density ect.. She said dogs are different than people because the secret some of their hormones from their adrenal glands. So they dont have problems like that. So now I feel better about having Miley spayed. She also talked about the delay in growth plates when you fix your dog by 6 months. She feels that if you fix your dog early that they shouldnt be jumping until they are 22 months because of the delay in growth plate closure. Wow!

Next she talked about the height to weight ratios of your dog and how they effect the wear and tear injuries of your dog. You take your dogs weight and divide it by there height. Ratios:



> 3.5 Danger zone

2.0 - 3.5 Be Careful

<2.0 easy street

If you keep your dog lean you lower their ratio. Dogs with low ratios have less injuries and rehab faster. If your dog is in the danger zone then you should only show on soft ground and no full height jump training.

Next we talked about structure. Rear angulation: She talked about measuring rear angulation. She put everyone in 2 groups and each group felt all the dogs and they voted on which dog had the most rear angulation. She told us how to see rear angulation. I cant really show it to you hear but you can see it in her book called, "The Agility Advantage" I wasnt good about being able to see and feel body structure. Dogs with more rear angulation have a longer stride but are less stable in the rear. You want to look for moderation in the rear. Most dogs in the breed ring have over angulated rears. We went through video of Westminster dog show and watched the dogs gait. Many of the dogs were crabbing, this is when there rear is to the side of the front. At a trot, the back over lap the front feet, this is also crabbing. So this is bad because each side of the body is working differently.

Front: Which breeds have the straightest shoulders? Shelties. Dogs with straight fronts hold their heads up. So many people breed for straight fronts because it keeps the head up in the ring. She showed us how to evaluate fronts (shoulders). Again we were broken in two groups. One shelite was in each group. ( most of the dogs there were Golden Retrievers). So we voted again. O'course the shelties both had the straightest fronts. Many times in obedience dogs get front left leg lameness because of putting their heads up and looking at their owner. By turning this way they are putting more weight on their left front leg. Its important to have a angulated front because the front take 65% of the dogs weight. So she says if you have to pick a dog its better to take the dog with a good front and not so good rear ( if you have to pick). Dogs with good shoulders have longevity and less injuries. Common injury with straight shoulders is Medial shoulder instability. Also you dog needs to be fit, have good muscles, to hold the angles in place.

Other things: Tails are good because the help counter balance. So if something happens, like falling off the dogwalk they maybe able to counter balance with the tail and stay on. Dew claws are important and should not be removed. Dogs without dew claws tend to get carpal tunnel arthritis. When cantering, ( the gait use in agility) dogs use their dew claws to turn which stabilises the leg.

Gaits: When a dog trots and you view them from the front or back their legs should make a "V".

So we watched all the dogs trot up and down and decided if they were in a "V". Also their front legs should extend out to there nose when they trot. Miley's front legs were in a "v" but she crossed them slightly. But Chirs felt this was because she was still young and just needed to mature and build her front chest muscle. In the rear Miley was slightly cow hocked. ( which she was at 8 weeks so I figured she would be) Cow hocks help a dog lie down and get up faster and also turn faster. So in the breed ring the boarder collie is allowed to be slightly cow hocked. But that dog may not win, so many times it is bread out of them.

Dogs that are out of balance with front and rear will pace. She did the corn starched test on one dog. On the black mat, she put corn starch on the front feet and had the dog trot straight down the mat. Then she measured the back of one foot to the back of the next foot. It should be about equal with each foot measurement. It can show you if the dog is favoring a side or if the foot print is to light then they aren't putting much pressure on that foot. There was a dog that paced and she showed us how she retrains a dog not to pace but trot. She states pacing can happen from making the dog transition to slowly between gaits. Retraining the gait is also in her book and its to long for me to go through. It will take about 2 months to retrain a gait. Just a note: dogs that haven't learned to change gaits easily, will be more likely to fall off the dog walk. They usually use 3 gaits to go over the dog walk. Cantor, trot then walk down.

More tomorrow.

Miley's new coat

Mileys coat made it here in time for the seminar. It is kinda stiff and I washed it several times. I'm sure it will get softer the longer you use it. We have been lucky with the weather for a couple of days. A cold front came through but all that means it that the humidity may go down. Well Wednesday and Thursday morning it was great. No humidity and in the mid 60's. I even had to put a sweat shirt on. So because it was so cool I decided to go to the practice field. Last week I had decide not to go anymore this summer because it was just to hot and humid. Miley could only run maybe twice and then looked wiped out. The practice field is 30 miles from my house. So it just didn't seem worth it. But yesterday we went and were at the field by 7:30am.( you still have to be out early because it still hit 94 degrees that day) She ran great. We did all the obstacle's and she had such speed and focus. I'm not saying things were perfect but they were pretty good.

That evening I took the dogs to the state park. We usually walk there several times a week. But yesterday we were able to go so much farther. The trail has a lot more grades the further to go into the park. The dogs were finally tired!!!

Running contacts

I know I said that I wasn't going to do running contacts and that I was changing to a 2O/2O. But Miley couldn't change. She learned the 2O/2O but as soon as I put speed on her she would blow the contact. I tried doing a running on the a-Frame with just the hoop but she still would miss the yellow. So I put the stride regulators back on. It looks pretty good. Its still not up to full height. The dogwalk just has the hoops at the bottom.

I bought a couple of things from Smartpak. One thing I bought was a brake-fast bowl. Guiness eats so fast that by the time I get the chihuahuas bowls down , Guiness is done and barking to get out of his crate. The brake-fast bowl really works. I now get all the bowls down and Guiness finished at the same time as the chihuahuas. Miley eats very slow , so all the dogs always beat her. I also bought a cool coat for Miley. I'm going to a Chris Zink seminar this weekend and some of the stuff is outside. I measured Miley before ordering but some how I didn't measure correctly. So I had to reorder another one. It should be here Thursday.

The Chirs Zink seminar will be on structure and how it relates to different dog sports. Lameness conditioning and jumps training. She will also cover agility training, heeling, retrieving ans scent discrimination. I hope it will be good. I'm very interested in the importance of structure to performance and locomotion.

Mickey's out from under the bed!!

I took Mickey to the vet today because I just felt like his left eye just didn't seem right. There wasn't anything I could put my finger on. Plus he was still spending a lot of time under the bed. So the vet checked him and stained his eye. No scratches on the eyeball. Lots of bruising on the eyeball and around the eye. They shaved his head where the small cut was above his left eye. You cant really see it in this picture. They left him on the medication I was giving him but change the pain medication. I was giving him torbutrol, but they said that only last about 1 hour. So they gave me meloxicam. About an hour after giving it Mickey came out from under the bed and stayed out.

Weaves and the Weekend

Here is where the weaves are now. I will probably be able to get them straight up in the next few weeks. I usually practice twice a day for short periods of time. But what I have noticed is that the evening practice usually is terrible. Last night she couldn't do the weaves at all. So Ive decided to only practice in the morning but for a longer periods of time. This morning she did great. I'm not saying there weren't mistakes, mostly mine by giving a late cue. But she has more drive and is more correct in the morning. Its probably the heat that takes it out of her. So that is the plan.
On Friday I went to Savannah with my kids to see my parents. We had a great time. We went to the Savannah Theater and saw a show called, "The Beat goes on". It was fantastic. They sang and danced to music of the 60's, 70's and 80's. Some of the songs you get to sing along with and sometimes they pull an audience member into the show. Its great fun and full of happiness. So if you ever go to Savannah, I recommend this theater. They do about 4-5 different shows every year. They are all musical and there is a small band on stage. The band is very talented and some of the members sing too. The guy playing the electric guitar did the "Footloose" them song and he must have very elastic tendons and ligaments in his legs to be able to move like that.
I came back home Saturday evening and the dogs, who stayed home with my husband, were beside themselves. The had so much pent up energy. And I was lazy and didn't feel like playing and walking them. (A combination for disaster). I went out in the yard and was moving the sprinkler around when my neighbors came home and were standing in their front yard. Their front yard connects to my back yard because my house sits forward. Well Guiness went crazy barking and spinning at the fence line and Micky got caught up in all this and that turned into a dog fight. This is all my fault. I should have been paying better attention. Usually I tell Micky "danger" so he know to get away. But it was to late. At least I had the hose in my hand. So Mickey got bit on the head. He had a small cut on top of his head and below his eye was slightly swollen. I washed him up, gave him some pain mediation and antibiotics. The next morning the swelling was gone but he wouldn't come out from under the bed. He spent most of the day under the bed unless I pulled him out. He is doing better today but he still is spending more time under the bed then usual.
So new plan. Ive been feeling sorry for Guiness because of his injury and not getting to play agility and all. He came from rescue with issues and doing a lot of exercising with him was very helpful with alot of these issues. But feeling sorry for anyone is not helpful at all. Ive been letting him get away with behavior that I normally would not tolerate. So I will now have to rein him in. He will have more structured time with me and I will up his walking time. I also had put a garden fence on that side of the yard because he would circle the trees and I felt like it was hurting his leg. He seem better lately so I took the fence down. What I realized yesterday was the it was protection for the chihuahuas. They could get inside the garden fence area but the shelties could not , plus it kept Guiness farther way from the regular fence line. I put the garden fence back up yesterday.
Poor Micky. Miley keeps trying to play with him because they are best buds. But Mickey wont play. Hopefully he will be back to himself soon and I didn't traumatize him for life. I feel so guilty!

Miley gets her CGC

Miley got her CGC . It was hot as heck, especially in the building. She had no problems with any of the exercises. Not even the neutral dog greeting. The neutral dog was a big collie, I guess she didn't want to greet him. Yea, Mi!!!!

Double box drill

Here are the double box drills that I got from my lesson this week. On the far corner is a jump pinwheel. In the near corner is a pinwheel using a tunnel. Maybe I can get out to the training field where there is more room and I can set it up with more spacing.

What is up with Guin's hair?

Guiness's chest hair is all chopped off. The only thing I can think of is Miley must be pulling on it when they are playing and running. But I'm not finding hair around the house or yard????

Boy is it hot

Here is Miley swimming calmly.
Here is Guiness's panic swimming.

Its been over 100 degrees for the last 3 days. We are hoping for a break soon.
On Saturday we got up at 5 am. Practiced agility at 6:30. Went out on the lake by 7:30am. We went to an island that has a small beach on it. Its nice because the water is all sandy and not the red clay we have here. The dogs had fun. Guiness doesn't like swimming but Miley did very well. She didn't seem to mind me putting her in the water and sometimes she even swam around. But she never went into the water herself. Guiness's favorite thing was digging in the sand. I tried to get a picture but none of them turned out right.

Later that day I drove to Charlotte for a private lesson and then took a class. I really like to take classes because then your dog has to work with other dogs around. And when you work alone at lot you worry how your dog will respond. She was fine. She was even able to work with a sheltie barking right at the start line of the exercise. It was the only shade that everyone could stand in so that's why he was at the start line. She did very well in the class. We had one problem with a "come to heel" out of a tunnel and over a jump. She needed to come to heel to make a tight turn and make the dog walk. We have practice "come to heel" but just not with enough speed so she really has to collect.Something to work on. I wet her down each time her turn was over and she seemed ok. I know she doesn't like it but I don't want her to have a heat stroke. Class was at 6pm but it was still in the high 90's. I took the private lesson at 4pm. It was really hot then. She did work but if you stopped to talk about a problem, she would run to the car and lay in the shade. ( you know its bad when Miley runs to the car, she hates the car) I learned alot and have some great exercises to work on. O course I'm late with my cues and my body isn't in the right spot and that's why she is going off course. I knew I was doing something wrong, but unless someone shows you where you body was or where you gave the verbal cue, its hard to know what is wrong. It was a long day. We got home at 10pm only to wake up at 5am to poor Roxy's problem. But she now seems fine.

Roxy feels sick

We woke up this morning at 5:15 and Roxy was in the bathroom having bloody diarrhea. I'm not sure what happened to cause her to have this problem. Luckily chihuahua poop is very little so its not as big a deal to clean it up. Most of it was on the throw rugs that I could put in the washer. She didn't seem sick except for the bloody diarrhea. She has been running around and wanted to eat. I gave her some canned food of the I/D formula. She hasn't had anymore diarrhea this morning so maybe she is better now. I hope so.

Last CGC class

Wednesday was our last CGC class before the test. Miley did very well. We went through every station of the test. The only problem was the neutral dog test. That's the one where you each have your dog at your side. Then you both walk toward each other and stop and shake hands. The dog is to stay at your side and not go over to the other dog. But that is what Miley did. Maybe because the other dog was a sheltie. So we practiced that a few more times with other dogs and she got better. I'm hoping I can find someone to practice with before the test next Wednesday. Miley did very well with the walking part. She heeled right at my side. Everyone said I should do rally with her. I told them it was just because its 98 degrees outside. It you made it 65 degrees it would be a different story. But I will take it anyway. All the dogs were very subdued. I'm sure it was the heat. I had sweat running down the inside of my hair. Yuk!! And its not like we were running agility.

Weaves

Here are Miley's weave poles. I think she is doing really well for only about 2 weeks of training. The first and last pole are slanted more than the rest of the poles. I had to put the poles more upright because she was bouncing them. So now she is getting her rhythm going. Once she gets more speed and angled entires I will make them the poles more straight up.

Sand Dollars

Here is some of my sand dollar collection. I found a few more of the smaller ones this weekend. I put the dime in there so you could see how small they are. I'm probably going to have to start looking for really large ones now.

Guiness's favorite thing

I love chasing birds.
Come on Miley.
tired.
o, the wind is blowing like crazy!
I love sand too!

The beach. We went to the beach this weekend. Guiness loves running up and down the beach chasing the birds. He also loves rolling in the sand. He hates water but not at the beach. Miley wouldn't get in the water. She just ran up and down the waters edge after Guiness. The chihuahuas just walk along with us.