Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Tues. Nite Classes

Katrin set up a jumpers course for last night’s class. Small dogs, or rather short dogs, ran last. I gave Bug a Traumeel before leaving the house. I stretched and massaged Bug the entire time prior to his run.

I ran Bug and he was a totally different dog. He was happy, engaged, and was jumping REALLY well. I was shocked, albeit pleasantly.

One run and I stretched, massaged, took him for a brief, brisk walk, and then stretched and massaged a bit more before putting him up. I think this will most likely become part of our permanent routine, which is not a bad thing.

During Carmie’s class Katrin noticed I wasn’t consistent about when I was telling her to jump. The funny thing is I noticed this over the weekend. I noticed it mostly because she was moving slower due to the heat and it became apparent to me that sometimes she was almost on top of a jump when I said “jump” and sometimes she was strides before a jump when I cued her.

I am trying hard to be much more EFFECTIVE in my verbal cues with Carmie to help prolong her playing time and give her more info as her sight diminishes. Katrin suggested I aim to cue “jump” a stride and a half before she jumped. We tried this and Carmie was much more confident! I did tell her “Go” in a straight away sequence and she clicked both bars. She didn’t knock them but she clicked them and that is unusual. Afterward I gave up the “Go” and cued “Jump, jump” – no clicking. Not sure if it was just bad luck or if it had something to do with the lack of cuing.

I need to firm up Carmie’s “out” command and practice more lateral distance with her. Now that the backyard is drying up I should be able to set up some short sequences.

I am debating purchasing some snow fencing and closing off a portion of the yard when I work. This would be so that eventually Bug (when he is healed completely) could also work in the backyard. Currently he is so sharp-eyed and visually stimulated I do not feel it is safe for him to be loose in the backyard – it is too close to a major street and Bug is too fast.

This morning before work I massaged and stretched Bug to see how he was and whether he should see Cheryl tonight. His iliopsoas muscles were still tight (there was no uncontrollable spasm-ing, just tightening) and his sit was a bit sloppy. I spoke to Cheryl and she thinks the sloppy sit could be because he is a little sore from yesterday or it could be habit. I decided I will have her look at him tonight. If she does not need to do an actual adjustment she will do trigger point therapy in the muscle. At this point I would very much prefer to err on the side of caution.

Thursday night I am picking up the materials to make a rocker board - cheaper than PT (although believe me I will do PT if necessary!).

5 comments:

Nancy said...

Glad to hear Bug is feeling better and had a good class!

Jules said...

Thanks, Nancy. I am so relieved he appears to be healing.

Cat, Tessie, & Strata said...

The snow fencing would be a good idea, I think. In addition to being a physical barrier it would be visual as well, and as an added benefit, it's used at many agility trials so it would seem "familiar".

I'd put some in "my" yard if I could, but technically "my" yard is about 80% my neighbor's, and they probably would not appreciate a big orange fence in their yard. :P

I'd *love* to hear what you're going to be doing with the rocker board as "DIY PT", because I'm still looking for ideas for Strata. He's getting more exercise now, but still no jumps/weaves.

Jules said...

Cat, I will absolutely share. Cheryl is very keen on the rocker board for PT. For a dog recovering from an injury - much more so than the physio ball. As a chiropractor she has some reservation about the physioball as she feels it can do damage if the dog isn't in alignment.

Blue said...

Bug looked really good in class. :)

For the yard, you could get green garden fencing (looks a lot like snow fencing, sometimes it's called plastic fencing), so the yard still looks nice. I was thinking about doing that for Iris because she definitely needs a fence if we're anywhere near a road.