Kittie & Abby were entered in a 3 day trial over the weekend. I decided to move Kittie to preferred, so she can keep doing agility since she loves to run so much, but not have to worry about the jumps. I moved Abby too, just to see if there's any difference between jumping her at 12" vs 8" since she's so close to the height cut off.
Kittie loves jumping 4", it still seems kind of silly to me, I mean there's virtually nothing to jump! It is pretty fun though, Kittie's running full out, in complete extension the whole time. She's been different to handle, so I feel like I'm learning through the process.
Abby left me pretty confused and upset this weekend. The first run, was as I expected it to be, clean and fairly fast. She was just a second slower than Kittie. Second run, she took a couple of tries to get the poles, by the 3rd run of the weekend (2nd day) she was pretty much falling apart. We're not sure if it's stress related, or some type of mild injury. It's just so confusing, almost her entire agility career, has been like this. She's either running amazingly well, or falling apart, there's no inbetween (in class and trials), so it's hard to know what to do. she's entered 2 days next weekend, and I'm not sure if she'll be running. I'll have the chiropractor look at her, otherwise I just don't know what to do.....
3 comments:
Only thing I can think of would be to video tape her. Then have a chiropractic vet that competes in agility take a look at the video. Compare a run where she is running well vs. where she is falling apart.
In obedience if a dog all of the sudden is not performing an exercise the way he use to, we get him checked out physically. But it makes it more of a challenge to figure out when her performance is back and forth.
Only thing I can think of would be to video tape her. Then have a chiropractic vet that competes in agility take a look at the video. Compare a run where she is running well vs. where she is falling apart.
In obedience if a dog all of the sudden is not performing an exercise the way he use to, we get him checked out physically. But it makes it more of a challenge to figure out when her performance is back and forth.
When Abby's good, she's amazing, but when she's bad...there wouldn't be much to tape, other than her running amuck.
I have noticed many of her standard runs start to fall apart after the table, she hates the table. 99% of the time she runs straight over it, I tend to just laugh it off, she gets back on stays nicely and we *try* to continue, there's always a disconnect after the table, if I just let her go (run around things etc) for a few obstacles, I usually can get her back and finish nicely, if I stop and call her to fix something, things spiral out of control.
There's just no clear signal with her. The reason I wonder if it could be a physical issue is: she has had some back problems this summer, things tend to get worse as the weekend goes on, she does better with less practice, it comes up from time to time both in class and trials.
Of course this could also be stress.
Kittie went through a period where she stressed at trials, but it was over and done with in no time and she never looked back. Abby's tough to figure out, if she wasn't so much fun, I'd just say "she's not meant to be an agility dog" but everyone who knows Abby agrees, she loves agility.
I probably have some video of both good and bad runs. I don't actually know a chiro vet, who also does agility. It's a good idea though.
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