class

So I finally made it to a class. I think its been about 2 months since I last was there. Class was suppose to be Thursday night. Its pretty far away but now about 45 min. closer since she opened a second class at a closer location. I was stuck in traffic for about 20 min. and only moved about 1 mile. I'm sitting there thinking I'm going to be late. Traffic finally clears and I come over the hill and what do I see? Black skys with lighting bolts. Great, no class. So I turned around. Two hours in the car for nothing. But the instructor decided to give privates and semi-privates on Saturday. So I signed up. It was a very good lesson. I need to keep a small notebook in my pocket so I can write things down. I tried to write everything down when I got to the car, but I'm sure there are things I forgot.

Things noted by the instructor I need to work on or fix:

Start line stays. When I set Miley up at the start line she is scooting backwards just a little. "M" ( the instructor) feels this could be a problem because at many trials the first jump is close to the fencing. She may scoot back into the fence and then develop other issues. Also it may change her line. I think its because I set her up at the start and just tell her to "wait" . She can choose to lie down or sit. I notice that when she lies down , is when she scoots backwards. "M" thinks I should line her up between my legs. I may do this , I'm not sure. Only because Miley likes her space and this may not go over well with her. I may need to have more specific criteria at the start instead of just wait. I will work on both and see which goes better.

Pinwheels: I'm crossing to late which is causing Miley to go wide. I'm watching her to see if she is going to do her job and then the info she needs to keep going is not there. She needs the cue before she takes the jump and even when she lands on the jump before. I really need to work on this. I think that is why she drops so many bars. I'm giving her late infor and she is trying to do what I want. Like turning while going over the jump. (This is not stuff I recognized myself, "M" told me) I need to learn to watch her feet and where she is landing.

We also worked on serpentines. Again, I was late giving her the information she needs. But I think I have a better understanding so now I can work on it. All in all it was a great lesson. I learned a lot. "M" said Miley was looking really good and much improved from the last time she saw us. So that makes me happy.

Miley now is in 6 straight up weave poles. The mistake I made with Guiness was not teaching entries at the same time as teaching the poles. I hope Ive done a better job with Miley.

We are still working on the a-frame. We are up to two jumps and then jump in the box. (Rachel Sanders method). As soon as I put to much movement when going to the box, she jumps over it. So we are working on that. I will try to post video of it and maybe someone can give me some suggestions.

Guiness is cone free!!! What a happy dog. Miley is happy too because now Guiness is playing with her. When he was wearing the cone, he wouldn't play. Miley resorted to chewing on the end of the plastic cone to try to entice him. But it didnt work. He is done with the antibiotics too. Now the hair just needs to grow back. Below is a picture of Guiness back. Do you see the light strip of hair across his shoulder blades? Ive shaved him 3 years in a row and have never seen this before. Do you think its just because he is getting older? He is 4 years old. Hummmmm, its defiantly weird.

Legs, and more legs

So here are Guiness's legs now. They look so much better. The wet to dry dressing changes I did a couple of days ago really helped. There is one more place on the back of the right leg that still needs to heal but otherwise they look good. His front legs have hundreds of tiny scabs coming off of them. Im hoping by this weekend he can go without the plastic cone on his head.

Miley's leg has not had any problems. I'm not sure what happened Saturday but I havent seen any limping since then. Ive watched her like a hawk and she is using it fully. Thank god.

Today I took her out to the practice field to work. She really hasn't done any agility in almost a month except for that run thru a couple of weeks ago. I'm posting some video of our practice today. You can see we have work to do. She has decided to fly off the teeter, even the one at home. So that is on the practice list. The time she jumped off while running up the teeter,I think I pushed her off by trying to do a front cross but she jumped off before I did it.

Problems, problems, problems

Lets see, where do I begin. First , when I was at my parents house, my husband called and said the bed broke. I asked if Mickey was under the bed? He didn't know. My son went and looked. Mickey was under the bed. Lucky he was under the bottom end and not the top. The top was what fell, so he was ok. But the bed is still broken and now lying on the ground. So I either have to fix it or buy a new one. Beds cost to much money, so I will be fixing it. Next, Guiness will not leave his legs alone. He will probably be wearing that cone for at least the rest of the week. I did have to do some wet to dry dressing changes on his legs and theylook much better. I will be very happy to leave the cone behind. As I'm sure he will be too. But is is driving me crazy trying to keep him from his legs.
Third:Last night I went to a dinner for the agility committee members. You could bring your dogs if you wanted but I decided to leave mine at home. I put the dogs in their cages before I left because no one was at home. My son called me at 6pm and said he was now home. Did I want him to let the dogs out of their cages. I said he could. I got home at 7:30. The first thing on my mind was giving Mickey his seizure medication. I usually give all the dog peanut butter afterwards. When it was Mileys turn, she usually sits up and then stands on her back legs. She couldn't sit up. It was very weird. Then when she walked away , I saw that she was lame on her right back leg. She wouldn't put any weight on it at all. Needless to say I was very upset. Why did I let my son let the dogs out of their cages? I checked the bottom of her paw repeatedly, but there was nothing there. I checked her leg again and again and I couldn't find anything. When I fed them dinner, I gave Miley one of her Rimadyls she had left over from her spay. I crated her last night and today I haven't seen one sign of lameness. We didn't do our walks or any agility. I'm praying its ok. I probably will have a break down if she is lame like Guiness.
Last: I haven't been able to sleep since this past Tuesday. Every single night I cant sleep unless I take at least 2 benadryls or sonta. Sometimes I have trouble sleeping but usually if I take 1/2 a benadrly or 1/2 a sonta , I fall right asleep. And I usually don't have trouble every single night. Its usually only once in a while. Its driving me crazy because I feel so tired but I cant sleep. If it doesn't get better soon, I'm going to the doctor.

More Guiness

I had to go back down to Georgia to see my dad. I took Guiness with me so he could get some one on one time. My dad is doing better and is now at home. Guiness is doing better too. He can now walk up the steps without any problems. His legs are getting better. When I took him to the vet, they thought it just needed more time on the antibiotics. They said if the pus thing came up again they would go in and look at it. But its been fine. The hardest thing is keeping him from licking his legs. Even with the cone on he can still get to his legs. They were looking pretty good until I went in the back yard yesterday. When I came back in the house he had gotten the cone off and his back leg was raw again. Ugh!! This picture was before he got the cone off his head.

update on Guiness

I took Guiness to the vet on Saturday. His legs had blister/burn type sores on them. They cleaned them up and gave him antibiotics. While I was waiting at the vet, I received a call that my dad was in the hospital with a blood clot in his lung. We went back to the beach that night. Guiness had a very hard time getting up after a period of lying down. His back legs would just give out. We had to carry him up and down the stairs. Sunday morning he had a new place on the top of his left foot that looked like a bloody bus bubble. Hair had been twisted around tight in the location. I was able to cut it all off hoping that would fix the problem. My husband took the dogs and the kids home to Columbia and I drove to Georgia to the hospital to see my dad. On the way home , my husband said the foot place opened up and drained. I was hoping that it would get better with washing and antibiotics. But when I came home last night it looked bad again, and when I washed it , it opened up and bloody pus came out. I'm not sure if something is in it, or if he is on the wrong antibitics to cover what is growing. I have an appt. this afternoon at the vet again to get it looked at. My dad is doing better. They used the drug TPA to dissolve the clot. He went from 8-9 liters of forced air oxygen with an oxygen saturation of 90%, to 3 liters of oxygen with at saturation of 94%. So that is great. He will probably get to go home in in a few days.He is a picture of one of Guiness's back legs.

He is a picture of the beach that guiness left looking over the marsh. The house that found Guiness is off in the distance on the right of the picture. This is a picture of the marsh that Guiness was found in. In the bottom of the picture is that boat that took us across the river to the marsh. Guiness was back in the marsh about 30 yards. Thank god that alligators didn't eat him. Also , Ive never been so happy for cloudy, rainy days at the beach.