Back from the PT again and good news

Okay so this is an update to my earlier post. Miller and I headed back to KC for a post-national check up. I am happy to say that although he is very tight, we are making progress and looks like after 6 more weeks of rest, we should be cleared to compete again. I had originally set the January 1st USDAA show as our come back but have now moved that back to the January 23rdish AKC show in Lawrence. It is an AKC show so two runs a day which should be easier on him for sure. I am so pleased that we have a plan of attack and am looking forward to getting him back to 100%. In addition to our stretches and massages, we are adding a magnet therapy that is new. I have found that the easiest way to handle the magnet is to use an ace bandage, especially for the treatment on his back. I am really hoping he responds well to this therapy as it is so easy to administer and I don't have to find a PT locally to do ultrasound. We are going to do this for ten days so this is day one.

Some one asked me what my goals were for Miller and I had to really think. Well, he is 10 so I have to start being realistic. I would like to finish my P3 titles in USDAA but we only do a handful a year so that might be tough. For P3, I need three legs in standard and one leg in each of the games and I have one leg already in standard and in jumpers. I could just do a few shows with just jumpers and standard and then just do gamblers and snooker but it will be tough since we have so few shows to even go to. My other goal for him is to do better than we did last year at AKC nationals since we are qualified. I want to have more than two clean runs and five would be the icing on the cake. Not sure about qualifying for nationals in AKC at this point. I have heard that they are going to move it to FL in 2011 and that is too far for me to drive him. If it happens that he qualifies, I will be happy but I am not pushing for it this coming year. I would LOVE to qualify for nationals in USDAA again this coming year but again, it depends on where it will be. If it will be held in KY, I want to go for sure but if it is on the east coast, not going to go. I will just stay local and go to the local USDAA shows in Lawrence and Columbia unless Lori needs a traveling partner. Another MACH is not a goal as I don't like running for the Q so if it happens great, if not then no big deal. I am at this point not thinking about running him in preferred. The jumps are lowered but the a-frame and dog walk are not and I do think the climbing is harder on them than the jumping. I will cross that bridge when we get there but I don't think we are there yet. My biggest goal is to run him and have fun doing it and for him to have fun running and be pain free and make myself a better trainer and a better handler. If titles or MACHs happen along the way, then great. I am lowering my expectations for sure but we will have fun anyway.

Taking Miller back to the PT today

Miller and I are headed back to the PT today in KC and of course it is raining. I can't catch a break with weather and driving but at least it is rain and not snow or ice! Am anxious to hear where she thinks Miller is with his injury. Ran him in class the other night, just a couple of runs and he did awesome. I saw my old boy but I was afraid to run him anymore. I do think we are in the point of his career where I am going to have to tone back a little bit. Gone are the days of doing 6 runs a day in NADAC or USDAA. Sucks though because I really want to get his PD3 title in USDAA and since we only have 3 or 4 local trials a year, will have to be super consistent and pick and choose what classes I do at what trial instead of doing them all. Guess it will save me money for sure! I wish USDAA would hurry up and announce where they are going to have nationals. I will go if it is in KY but not PA. It is looking like I will not be doing the USDAA trial at the beginning of January as I cannot find a teammate. Oh well, more money saved I guess.

I am getting alot of emails about my running him and I do appreciate everyone's concern. However, every dog is different and every injury is different. Protocols are written in general and I am going to do what is best for Miller. I will rest him and then see where we are at. He isn't three legged lame and it isn't consistent so it makes me believe that it isn't as bad as some of the other dogs we have seen with this injury. I think this is an injury I will probably have to manage for the rest of his agility career. I could rest him for 6 months and then bring him back and he could re-injure it the first run back. I am weighing all my options here for sure. He is 10, we think, and he may not have a ton of career left so I really don't want to rest him forever and give up what little career he has left. Saying that, he may run for another 2 or 3 years just to spite me! I do not think moving him to preferred is a solution I am going to explore yet either. Having had a dog that had an ACL tear and repair and then rehab and back to showing, I can tell you that it wasn't the jumps that got her, it was the climbing. Miller just got done doing multiple runs at nationals and never knocked a bar and that was at 22 inches, 2 inches over his normal height. When the time is right and I feel like he is ready, we will move down to 16 inches or just retire. My last run at nationals proves to me that he isn't ready to stop. He ran like he had a fire under his ass! You would think after 3 days of multiple runs he wouldn't have any gas left in the tank and I think that was his best run!

Well, I will post later on what the PT has to say. I am making the Sunflower trial my come back trial and we will go from there. I don't see any thing wrong with making a goal and then changing it if I have to.

Post Nationals Questions

Okay so we have been back a couple of days and I am trying to decide what to do with Miller. He seems okay but if he is injured still and covering it up, I don't want to injure him further. I am going to miss the local USDAA show this weekend but can't miss too many since we only have a couple a year. There is one late december that I went to last year and loved so I really want to hit that one but only if he is ready. I have to decide if I am going to rest him and then slowly get him back in it or spend the money and get him back to the PT in KC. He is acting totally normal right now, jumping like normal and acting like normal but I am also not watching his every move and babying him. I think he likes that way better than me hovering over him constantly. I am going to start his PT over today as I have been lax in his stretching and massaging but I feel like he totally hated the stretching. He had some almost 100% runs and he was so happy running so hate to not run him if he wants to. I don't have an AKC show until January but would love to do USDAA in late december. I am going to make that my goal for sure and then see how things fall from there.

Once again tons of decisions! We probably won't have tons of classes since we are officially in winter now and we train outside. I don't do much outside training with him but do need to keep him in shape for sure.

Last blog about nationals

Okay so we are on the road and I thought I would go ahead and put my thoughts on paper so that I can upload them later to the blog. The drive is long and boring and mom is driving so I can type. Okay, overall thoughts about the trip first. Had a ton of fun. USDAA nationals really is the most fun nationals that I have been to. So much to do and see and buy for sure that you never get bored. Dock dog diving, flyball, disc dog, herding, and of course agility to keep you busy. Great times with your friends, multiple runs a day, and challenging courses make USDAA nationals so great. I love the international flare that we see on USDAA courses, with a mix of tight and trappy to wide open and running full out. I LOVE strategy games, especially when you have a teammate to help you plan and strategize. Even though our team didn’t finish in the top, we did end up in the top half of the teams and I think that is quite an accomplishment with miller being injured. I truly felt like the refusal we got in jumpers, in snooker, and in PGP semi finals were because of his injury. Miller does not refuse obstacles so he had to be hurting enough to not take some obstacle that I tell him to take. I am not so sure that him running past the weaves in the gamblers was also because of his injury. He had just done two a-frames, two teeters, and two tunnels plus multiple jumps and chute before he had to go weave and he could have been hurting.

Onto feelings which are many as usual. I am very glad we came, I think I would have regretted not going and I did have a ton of fun with my mom as we always do. I don’t see mom except for at national events now since we don’t go home for either thanksgiving or christmas so it makes national events so much more special. Some times I think my sadness at events ending isn’t really that the event itself has ended but yet that mom will be leaving for another so many months. At least for this, I get a week of her before she heads back to TN. You know last year, I had all of these mixed emotions about nationals including the fact that I felt like I needed a border collie if I was ever going to do anything at nationals. I am happy to report that I don’t feel that way anymore. I am disappointed that every dog in the finals is a border collie and that there were a lot more dogs in performance that were border collies this year. Makes getting into steeplechase finals very hard, even in performance but I no longer feel that need to have one. I saw hundreds this weekend and they just don’t do anything for me. I have my baby deuce and even if we have to do performance because he measures into the 26 inch height group, I don’t care. I don’t see the fun in knowing you have no chance in hell in making any of the finals because your class is dominated by border collies. It has to be about me and my personal goals. If I set certain goals for myself and I meet them, then that is good enough for me. I just don’t think I can have a border collie ever (yeah famous last words right?).

I am human so I am disappointed that we did not make finals again this year. I do feel like his refusal in semis was either because he was hurting and could not make that turn or he just didn’t know what the heck that tire was. Their tire jump is a huge almost car tire thing on a weird frame and I am not so sure he didn’t even know what the heck it was. I do think it is very weird that he ran to the outside of the tire for his refusal but what is done is done. I wish our team could have done better but again, I think the majority of his refusals were his injury. I do wish I had done better in snooker as that is my favorite game to play with him but for whatever reason, my brain blanked and we sucked it up and it is over with. I think Tammie and I are going to team at a couple of shows this year before nationals again next year so we can get more practice together. I think Buzz and Miller complement each other style wise and they make a great team.

I am very proud of our group for the few that did make it into the finals. This year was Patti and Bailey’s first year even being here and she and Cassie with Roxy made it into the finals for team which is awesome! We have a ton of very talented dogs here in the KS/MO/NE area and I think we represented well. Cassie even won steeplechase for P16 against some very tough competition! We should find out soon where they are going to hold next year’s nationals. If it is in KY, we are there and if it is in PA, we won’t be making the trek. I did feel like this could be miller’s last nationals but am feeling that maybe the big red boy isn’t done. He had some great runs despite his injury and I do feel like we can overcome this injury. I don’t think he is ready to be done and I am not ready to retire him. I just hope we can find enough USDAA shows to get qualified since we will be missing our local USDAA trial and possibly the December USDAA trial in St. Louis.

Okay getting off of here, getting ready for Meade KS and the most awesome onion rings you have ever put in your mouth!

Nationals Trip Day 7 and part of Day 8

Sorry, haven't been keeping up. We decided after my gamblers run on saturday to pack up the RV. We could either pack up it and turn it in on saturday or wait till monday. We did have one of our group in the finals on saturday night and possibly two teams in the finals on sunday but we have been to the finals before and so we had been there, done that. Miller's gamblers run was awesome! He did two a-frames and two teeters and two tunnels with a bunch of jumps in between. He did not get the gamble, which was jump weaves jump, but I didn't care. He ran like my old miller and I was so excited! We had to pack up all the stuff from the crating area and drag it back since we couldn't bring the car over to that area. Got everything drug back from the crating area and started the mad dash of cleaning and packing. Had to go get a cooler at Walmart so we could keep our food that we bought. Headed back to the RV place and got everything turned in, no problem.

We decided to go back a different way to see some different sights so headed back up to flagstaff and then onto I-40. We were so tired and hungry by the time we hit flagstaff that we decided to just stop and eat at the cracker barrel there and stay for the night. Got up to 25 degree weather which was not what we expected! I think mom and I had one sweatshirt and one jacket between us. Stopped at the meteor crater on our way. That was probably the best thing I have ever seen!!!! I could have stayed there forever and ever! I love meteors and anything to do with them. Tony and I go and watch meteor showers all the time and he actually asked me to marry him during the November meteor shower. We had heard that there was a bad wreck on I-40 and that the road was closed but we decided to head out anyway and try our luck. Well, they were wrong there was a wreck but the road was not closed. Made it all the way to Tucumcari with a few more stops on the way. Got some souveneirs for my girls at work and a shot glass for tony.

Heading out this morning and looking at snow in KS! Will blog later about how I felt about everything. Need to get in the shower and head out!

Nationals Trip Day 6

Alrighty! Well, morning started out very early. For some reaon I was up at 6 am this morning and wide awake at that. Deuce and Miller both slept with us last night and we all slept really good. Got up, walked the dogs and then fed them. I had three courses to walk today, team standard, speed jumping semi-finals, and peformance grand prix semi-finals. I found the results of the quarter finals online and out of 20 dogs that Q'd, Miller was 17th. Definatley alot slower than last year as he came in second place last year but still not bad for a dog with an injury. I was so excited because the semis were in the big ring this year and I had never run in the big ring before. Got my courses walked and got ready for my first run of the day which was team standard. Miller ran very well, almost back to his normal self, which suprised me for sure! He had great contacts and great weaves and I felt like I handled everything really well. I will be interested to see how he feel in the P22 standard standings. I know he wasn't his normal speed but he still ran faster than he had run all weekend.

Next run of the day was PGP semi finals. This year I felt like I was a ton more focused and more relaxed. The big ring has really huge clunky equipment including a teeter that is mammoth and a huge tire jump, bigger than any he has ever seen. I did felt like he ran a little slower than in standard but still was doing okay till about mid course. I felt myself getting ahead of him and I felt like I was having to cheerlead him on alot more than any of the other runs. The dog walk was near the end of the run and he practically walked down it and I knew something was not right. His bark had gotten a little bit higher but not as bad as in Lincoln. I did a front cross to bring him over the tire to me and he ran around the tire to the outside. I am not sure if he just couldn't jump it or didn't know what the heck it was. We have never seen a tire like that and I will try and take a picture of it so you can see how odd it looks. I decided to just finish out the course and run out so he didn't take a jump and we got an E but at that point it didn't matter. You have to run clean and he had the refusal so who cares. I decided that it wasn't worth it to run him in steeplechase semi finals if he was hurting so I scratched him so that maybe we could run tomorrow in team gamblers. Our team was sitting in 74th place but we both had clean and fast standard runs so maybe that will bring us up in the standings. Unfortunatley, I don't think any of our group made it to the finals tonight so we will probably not go and watch since we have no one to cheer on.

After we got done running, Mom and I took Miller back to the RV and massaged him and tried to stretch him. He wasn't very receptive to stretching so we decided to ice him down and let him rest. Grabbed Deuce and went back to the field to cheer the rest of the group on in their runs. Deuce got a new tug toy and got to play with another little red merle puppy. He also got to watch some dock dog diving and some flyball and disc dog. We let him play in the puddle again and I am going to try and get it on video as it is the funniest thing I have ever seen. He gets the butt scooting zoomies when he gets in water or weird surfaces so running him in agility is going to be an adventure. Bought some pictures that Tien Tran had taken of Miller that were really good and did some other shopping. I am such a whore to vendors at dogs shows!

Nationals Trip Day 5 Competition Part 2

Okay so now on to the competition part. We had jumpers first and as I had previously stated, it was a very fast, very straight forward course. I did run with and the funny part was as I released him, he stayed there! I had to convince him to come with me. He was a little bit slower than usual but barking his head off and very excited! I was having to cheerlead alot more than usual and his distance skills seemed to have vanished for some reason but i managed to run the course with him and go fairly fast. I did have one refusal on a 180 after the weaves but that is okay in team stuff. I went to do a front cross and thought I had sent him to the first jump of the 180 but he came with when I moved laterally away. Kept my head about me and just had him go again and finish the course. I was so pleased that he seemed okay and gave him lots of cookies for sure!

Our next run was Performance National Standard Quarter Finals. It was a very tricky course with a very tough opening line to the a-frame in my opinion. I did shape the line a bit and I do think his a-frame was a little slow but after that he seemed to be doing well and running well. We had to have a clean run to move on to the semi finals so I held his dog walk contact a little bit. I did have an o shit moment towards the middle of the course. We had a very tough line of about 4 jumps that either required two rears or a rear and a front or double fronts. I had planned on double fronts but got out of position for the second front and had to do an ugly rear. Thank goodness he saved my ass and kept the bars up. After that it was pretty straight forward and we got through it no problem. He was a tad bit slower than normal but I thought he ran faster than he did in jumpers and I did see flashes of my gold ole red dog!

Next was snooker, my favorite class! We had a good plan and I was going to stick to it no matter what. I did have some contingency plans just in case he knocked a bar because we were going to do quite a bit of turning and wrapping. He got the first snooker with a one and a five, no problem. I did a double front cross and caught another one and a five and did a nice blind after the tunnel part of five to pick him up and go over another one with another front cross to pull him around the 6 combo I didn't want to do. I had planned on going to the 7 and then heading for the closing but for some reason, my brain shut down and I headed back for the five again. I was still okay but was rattled that I was lost. I headed for the last one and then a 2 to start the closing and had to wrap back around to get the 2 again to start the closing but he ran past the number 2. There are no refusals in the closing so we got whistled off with no closing points:( I only got 21 total points but my teammate got tons more so we should be good to go.

Overall, I was very happy with today. Miller ran great, was happy and was almost his normal self. I am very optimistic about this weekend. You know what though, even if he doesn't run the rest of the weekend, I am very happy with today. I love my big red boy and he loves to do agility and I am very happy that he has had a great time running today. Am still waiting to find out if we got into the semis but if we don't, it doesn't matter. Okay, off to the shower house, I stink!!!!